La question de la clôture narrative dans “The Oval portrait″ d’Edgar Allan Poe
In his "Philosophy of Composition″, Poe reflects at length on the issue of the denouement. He views it as the last touch brought to a carefully elaborated textual construct, in which every detail is meant to illustrate the author’s pre-established design and purported “effect. ″Poe’s view of th...
Salvato in:
| Pubblicato in: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/jsse, |
|---|---|
| Autore principale: | |
| Natura: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Lingua: | Français |
| Pubblicazione: |
Journal of the Short Story in English
2008
|
| Accesso online: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Riassunto: | In his "Philosophy of Composition″, Poe reflects at length on the issue of the denouement. He views it as the last touch brought to a carefully elaborated textual construct, in which every detail is meant to illustrate the author’s pre-established design and purported “effect. ″Poe’s view of the text as a perfectly coherent and self-sufficient system, conceived by an artist in full control of himself and of his material, is, however, undercut by the ambiguity inherent to the gothic, a genre which keeps the reader suspended between various interpretations. These tensions are particularly striking in “The Oval Portrait″, a tale where the fantastic mode aims mostly at illustrating an ambivalent reflection on the function and role of the artist, on the status and finality of his work. At first sight the story celebrates the artist’s infinite power, his capacity to transcend the limits of his mortal condition and reach into the superior spheres of the spirit. Yet, of the beauty he yearns for, the artist proposes but a pale imitation ; he destroys his model through his very act of transcription. Poe’s elaborate narrative strategies, as well as his insistence on “effect″, aim at obliterating, at least for the time of a reading, the terrifying gap that keeps opening between life and art, between world and words, between the finite and the infinite. This gap is at the very source of the creative impulse. |
|---|