The Detailed Analysis of 'the Black Cat' by Edgar Allan Poe in Stylistic Perspective

Year 2022, Volume: 39 Issue: 1, 99 - 112, 30.06.2022

Deniz Civelek

https://doi.org/10.32600/huefd.698487

Abstract

As a discipline embracing both language and literature works, stylistics has been a great focus to many researches for many years. Dating back to rhetoric, stylistics paves the way for having different views in analyzing literary works. In its broadest sense, stylistics could be defined as a scientific branch to analyze the style of a literary figure within a linguistic framework. Situated within this field, the present paper sets out to investigate the style of Edgar Allan Poe as reflected in his short story “The Black Cat”. The method followed in the study is Leech and Short (1981) method that focuses on lexical, grammatical, figurative, contextual and cohesive aspects in the literary works. Findings obtained through the careful analysis of the texts have potential to contribute to the understanding of Poe’s style as a literary figure. Accordingly, his deliberate choices in punctuations, his lexical choices mostly reflecting his gift in writing, his repetitive use of words arousing fear and dread in the reader, and his skillful use of figures of speech could be considered as among the distinctive aspects of Poe’s style.

Keywords

Stylistics, “The Black Cat”, Short Story, Leech and Short’s method

Edgar Allan Poe’nun 'the Black Cat' Adlı Eserinin Biçembilimsel Açıdan Ayrıntılı Analizi

Abstract

Hem dil hem de edebi çalışmaları kapsayan bir disiplin olarak biçembilim birçok çalışmanın odak noktası olmuştur. Kökeni retoriğe dayanan biçembilim, edebi eserlerin incelenmesinde farklı bakış açılarına sahip olmanın yolunu açmıştır. En geniş anlamıyla, Biçembilim edebi bir figürün tarzının dilbilimsel çerçevede analizini gerçekleştiren bir bilim dalı olarak tanımlanabilir. Bu alanının içinde yeralan bu çalışma, ünlü yazar Edgar Allan Poe’nun “The Black Cat” adlı kısa hikâyesinde yansıtılan tarzını incelemeyi hedeflemiştir. Çalışmada takip edilen yöntem, edebi eserlerdeki kelime, dilbilgisi, söz sanatları, bağlam ve tutarlılık yönlerine odaklanan Leech and Short (1981)’un yöntemidir. Metinlerin titiz bir şekilde analizi ile elde edilen bulgular, Edgar Allan Poe’nun edebi bir figür olarak tarzının anlaşılmasına katkıda bulunmaktadır. Buna göre, noktalama işaretlerindeki kasıtlı seçimi, yazı yazmadaki hünerini sergileyen kelime seçimleri, okuyucuda korku ve dehşet uyandıran kelimerin tekrarını kullanması ve söz sanatlarını yetenekli bir şekide kullanması, Poe’nun biçeminin kendine özgü özellikleri arasında sayılabilir.

Keywords

Biçembilim, The Black Cat, Kısa Hikaye, Leech ve Short’un Metodu

References

• Alemu, A. (2015). Stylistic analysis of selected short stories of O. Henry, (MA Dissertation). Addis Ababa University: Ethiopia.
• Bally, C. (1909). Traite de Stylistique Francaise: Paris (1960).
• Beck, W. (1960) William Faulkner's Style. In F. J. Hoffman and O. W. Vickery (Eds.), William Faulkner: Three Decades of Criticism. East Lansing (pp. 142-156). Michigan: Michigan State UP.
• Burke, M. & Evers, K. (2014). Formalist stylistics. In M. Burke (Ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Stylistics (pp.11-31).London: Routledge.
• Fouzia, D. (2014). Interpretation of the symbol Black Cat in Edgar Allan Poe's Short Story. p. 5. Retrived June, 2016, from https://bu.univ-ouargla.dz/master/pdf/Djaafour-Fouzia.pdf?idmemoire=4315.
• Fowler, R. (1986). Linguistic criticism. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
• Halliday, M.A.K. (1994). An introduction to functional grammar (revised by C. Matthiessen). London: Routledge.
• Montgomery, T. & Hayes, K. J. (2012). Edgar Allan Poe in context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Iıu, Q. (2017). A stylistic analysis of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Black Cat”, International Journal of English and Literature, 7(6), 43-48.
• Isaoglu, H. (2014). A psychoanalytic criticism of Natheniel Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter and Melville’s Moby Dick, (MA Dissertation). İstanbul Aydın University, İstanbul.
• Jaafar, E. A. (2014). A stylistic analysis of two selected poems, Journal of College of Education for Women, 25(1), 238-248.
• Jakobson, R. (1960). Closing statement: Linguistics and poetics. In D. Birch & M. O’Toole (Eds.), Functions of style (pp. 350–377). Massachusetts: The MIT Press.
• Jianbo, L. (2015). Idiosyncrasies and literary Functions of Long Sentences in The Sound and the Fury. Comparative Literature: East & West, 24(1), 40-49.
• Kaya, S. (2009). Stylistic snalysis of Charles Dickens’ Chrismas Book, (PhD Dissertation), Ankara University, Ankara. Koçsoy, F. G. Shirley Jackson’ın Hill House’un Büyüsü adlı romanında gotik mekân ve anne-kız ilişkileri. Fırat Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi, 20(2), 91-104.
• Lauchman, R. (2010). Punctuation at work: simple principles for achieving clarity and good style. AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn.
• Leech, G. & Short M. (1981). Style in fiction. London: Pearson.
• Liu, L. (2011). On the interactivity of stylistic analysis. Studies in Literature and Language, 2(3), 103–107.
• Lukeman,N.(2006). A dash of style - The Art of Punctuation Mark. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
• Nørgaard, N. Busse, B., & Montoro, M. (2010). Key terms in stylistics. New York: Continuum International Publishing.
• Piercy, J.(2013). Symbols: A universal language. London: Michael O’mara Books.
• Sağıroğlu, R. A. (2013). Stylistic Analysis of Lorrie Morre’s selected short stories: Like Life, People Like that are the only people here: Canonical Babling in Peed Onk and How to be an other woman, (MA Dissertation), Selçuk University, Konya.
• Seemann, O. (1894). The mythology of Greece and Rome. London: Harper & Brothers.
• Short, M. (1996). Exploring the language of poems, plays and prose. London: Longman.
• Simpson, P. (2004). Stylistics: A Resource Book for Students. London: Routledge.
• Susoy, Z. and Tanyer, S. (2019). The role of vocabulary vs. syntactic knowledge in L2 reading comprehension. Eurasian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 5(1), 113-130.
• Virtanen, T, 1992. Issues of text typology: narrative—a‘basic’type of text? Text 12, 293–310.
• Wales, K. (1990). A dictionary of stylistics. New York/London, Longman.
• Widdowson, H.G. (1975). Stylistics and the teaching of şiterature. London: Longman.