Poe’s Terror Analytics

The Oxford Handbook of Edgar Allan Poe ◽

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190641870.013.46 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 808-828

Author(s):

J. Gerald Kennedy

Keyword(s):

Symbolic Logic ◽

Mob Violence ◽

Slave Rebellion ◽

The Creation ◽

Dramatic Action ◽

Antebellum Culture

Poe’s production of magazine tales led to an intellectual preoccupation with terror—its origins, meanings, and effects. Read as analytical investigations into the causes of dread, many of Poe’s narratives offer striking insights into contemporary terrorism. Reexamining the events of 9/11 with Poe’s theory of the prose tale in mind, we understand better why symbolically unified events, orchestrated into dramatic action unfolding in ninety minutes, created sensational, overwhelming effects. Jean Baudrillard’s deconstruction of uncanny doubling in the 9/11 spectacle conversely explains the terrifying symbolic logic of “The Fall of the House of Usher.” Poe claimed that terror arises from the soul, but threats from antebellum culture impelled his fiction: consumption, pestilence, premature burial, slave rebellion, and mob violence. Three tales—“The Man of the Crowd,” “The Pit and the Pendulum,” and “Hop-Frog”—employ different strategies to analyze the creation and weaponizing of terror as well as how it may be demystified and managed.

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Method of visualization (perception) in the plays of Alexander Stroganov

Sibirskiy filologicheskiy zhurnal ◽

10.17223/18137083/76/9 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 113-124

Author(s):

Nataliya P. Malyutina ◽

Keyword(s):

Action Plans ◽

Optical Illusions ◽

World Vision ◽

The World ◽

Inner World ◽

The Creation ◽

Dramatic Action ◽

Dramatic Technique ◽

The Way

The purpose of the paper is to analyze how the thematization of the perception of the world is implemented in the plays by A. Stroganov: ‘Halo,’ ‘Halo and the Night,’ ‘The Greatness of the Swing,’ ‘Black, White, Accents of the Red, Orange. Control Prints in two acts.’ The analysis of poetics proves that the visualization of metaphors creates the effect of optical illusions, resulting in the action acquiring a symbolic-magical character. The metatheatrical way of multiplying action plans (conditional-substantial and projective-illusory) allows presenting the technique of switching one’s attention to the imaginary elements. Visual projections of parareal events objectify the ability of the characters (and consequently readers/viewers) to see and perceive their inner world. A conclusion is made that in the plays under study, the integrity of the dramatic action is lost, whereas voices, gestures, images-paths, and photographs are constantly pulsating in the poetics of the text, with their ability to visualize the world vision image embodying the performative potential of action. The way to complete the integrity is the reader / viewer’s preexisting representations and interactive participation in the creation of textual projections of image-metaphors. Such absolutization of a single dramatic technique leads to a multidimensional artistic reading of A. Stroganov’s plays in the context of his theory of pararealism.

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The role of affect in feelings of obligation

Behavioral and Brain Sciences ◽

10.1017/s0140525x19002449 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 43 ◽

Author(s):

Stefen Beeler-Duden ◽

Meltem Yucel ◽

Amrisha Vaish

Keyword(s):

Positive Emotions ◽

The Creation ◽

Sense Of Obligation

Abstract Tomasello offers a compelling account of the emergence of humans’ sense of obligation. We suggest that more needs to be said about the role of affect in the creation of obligations. We also argue that positive emotions such as gratitude evolved to encourage individuals to fulfill cooperative obligations without the negative quality that Tomasello proposes is inherent in obligations.

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