黃毓秀臺灣大學：外國語文學研究所陳玉雲Chen, Yu-YunYu-YunChen2007-11-262018-05-292007-11-262018-05-292006http://ntur.lib.ntu.edu.tw//handle/246246/52686By means of a Lacanian reading, this thesis aims to illustrate that Poe’s horror tales parallel his theory of beauty. Most of his horror tales are characterized by a lack of the external world, violations of the law, and/or a doubling relationship with others. In psychoanalytic terms, the external world, the law, and the others play a crucial role for a child to be a desiring subject, and they are subsumed by Lacan in his notion of the Symbolic. The Symbolic is constituted by the Name-of-the-Father/nom du père, that is, the incest taboo in Freudian terms. That is to say, Poe’s tales present a world where the Symbolic is either absent or falling. Under such a condition, the characters, thrust by the death drive, head for destruction of others and/or self-destruction. On the other hand, in his theory of beauty, Poe proposes the existence of an immortal human instinct for beauty. This instinct, implied in the texts, is one which desires for self-torture. Meanwhile, through a close reading of Poe’s theory and works and a comparison between Poesque beauty with traditional ones, mainly Burke’s and Kant’s, we find that Poesque beauty, defined as an effect, is the perceptual or sensational effect. While an artist pursues Poesque beauty, he or she is looking for the sensational effect produced by self-torturing; he or she is heading for his or her self-destruction. Thus, Poe’s horror tales and his theory of beauty echo each other, and both embody the death drive. While Lacan suggests in his Seminar VII that the death drive may initiate the subject into “creation ex nihilo” or the Symbolic into its reform as shown by Antigone’s case, the death drive manifested in Poe’s tales and theory leads one no more than self-destruction.Table of Contents Introduction 1 Chapter One The Constitution of the Symbolic and Its Failure 8 I. The Installment of the Paternal Function Symbiosis and Alienation The Mother’s Desire and the Paternal Function Desire in Language II. Malfunctioning of the Paternal Metaphor Foreclosure of the Paternal Metaphor Disavowal of a Lack in the Other III. A Fourth Structure IV. Conclusion Chapter Two Fall of the Symbolic 34 Foreclosure of the Paternal Function and Symbiosis: “Morella” and “Ligeia” Imaginary Doubling in “William Wilson” The Delusional Metaphor in “Berenice” and “The Tell-Tale Heart” Perverse Murder in “The Imp of the Perverse” and “The Cask of Amontillado” Two Cases of Actualpathology: “The Black Cat” and “The Fall of the House of Usher” Chapter Three The Aesthetics of Horror and Destruction 73 I. The Essence of Beauty II. Locke’s Effect on Poe III. An Effect in Theory and in Practice IV. Sublimity: Burke, Kant, and Poe Epilogue 110 Works Citied 114450793 bytesapplication/pdfen-US愛倫坡的恐怖小說愛倫坡的美學拉岡派精神分析死亡驅力Poe/s horror talesthe death drive[SDGs]SDG16thesishttp://ntur.lib.ntu.edu.tw/bitstream/246246/52686/1/ntu-95-R91122006-1.pdf