It is arguably a mistake to use the word "influence" when considering how Poe developed the Gothic genre in his own literature in the light of its predecessors. The connotations of "derivation" in the word risk unfairly discrediting the influence that Poe himself had on the genre. It should be remembered that Poe is widely credited as being one of the first authors to consolidate the American Gothic into a more powerful and tangible form. Considering the influence of his predecessors, it is therefore more appropriate to examine how Poe built on, and even improved upon, the legacy of European and American Gothic literature that preceded him.Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get an Original Essay At the risk of making arbitrary comparisons, the stylistic traits of Gothic fiction that Poe inherits are almost instantly evident in both his works and in those of his predecessors. In her book The Coherence of Gothic Conventions, Eve Sedgwick lists several "certain characteristic concerns" of Gothic fiction, among which she includes "doubles...unnatural echoes or silences, unintelligible writings, and the unspeakable... . nocturnal landscapes” and “a story within a story”, which can be traced through the Gothic heritage back to Poe. Gothic landscapes are an instant example of this. Frequent pathetic errors in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, such as the "dreary November night" when Victor Frankenstein's creation comes to life, the backdrop of castles and monasteries in Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto and The Monk , and "the gnarled, fantastic landscape" "The tulip tree near which the main gruesome action of Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow takes place are all natural ancestors of the memorable opening passage of The Fall of the House of Usher" the walls dark...the empty eye-shaped windows...a few row sedges" and the ensuing storm that surrounds the climax of the story. The employment of layered narration in Gothic novels is also an obvious legacy Poe's preferred use of the first person narrator, even as a stylistic trait, can be seen as directly drawn from novels such as Charles Brockden Brown's Wieland, narrated by Clara, and Frankenstein, which, at one point, reaches a most complex layer of storytelling when Shelley tells Walton's story by recording the story of Frankenstein recalling the story told by his creation. The narration of the main theme through a life story in the manner of these novels is used by Poe in stories such as William Wilson (itself a variation of the Gothic theme of the double). Irving also liked to use layers of narration through the device of the discovered manuscript, another Gothic trademark for example, in the stories of his alter ego Diedrich Knickerbocker, collected and edited by his "other" alter ego Geoffrey Crayon in The Sketch Book. The device of the “discovered manuscript” is of course used by Poe in MS Found in a Bottle, whose fragmented diary format can be seen echoed in another gothic novel, Bram Stoker's Dracula. MS Found in a Bottle is also a great example of the “discovered manuscript” method. another Gothic trait cited above of Sedgwick, namely “the unspeakable”. While the narrator's story and the journey of Discovery are drawn inexorably toward "exciting knowledge, a secret that will never be divulged, the realization of which is destruction," the broken, interrupted format of the narration also creates a feelingof omission. to the play, that curious details, despite the narrator's meticulous recording, are necessarily excluded because of the bizarre situation in which he finds himself trapped. The omnipresence of the “unspeakable” in Gothic fiction dates back to European novels. An early example of this is Frankenstein's refusal to divulge the secret of life he has discovered, because it would inevitably lead to "destruction and unfailing misery." Most notable is Walpole's dramatic and schematic use of the technique in The Castle of Otranto. Passim, he says that “words cannot paint the horror” of the tale he is recording. Isabelle "can't speak" about Manfred's evil divorce and marriage plan, while Manfred himself ultimately "can't speak out" about the terrible crimes he committed as he attempts to repent to her. Hippolita. As well as greatly increasing the atmosphere of profane horror at the unfolding events, Walpole uses it to prevent vital plot points from being revealed and thus prolongs the tension. A great example is the rescue of Isabella by the mysterious figure who turns out to be Theodore, where they are constantly interrupted in discovering each other's identities by each other and by the action around them. At a deeper level, we could look at specific cases of direct influence. In his introduction to The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Writings, David Galloway points out that we can "trace the growth of the detective story" in Poe's work, to which he cites Arthur Conan Doyle as owing a debt of gratitude. This growth nominally refers to the investigations of Poe's logician, C. Dupin, in stories such as The Murders in the Rue Morgue. The tone of this particular tale is undoubtedly inspired, at least in part, by passages of Gothic fiction such as Frankenstein's account of the murder of his friend Henry Clarvel. The evidence is presented to the reader in the formal tone of a police report. The corpse turns out to be a handsome young man, around twenty-five years old. He had apparently been strangled, as there were no signs of violence aside from the black finger marks on his neck. There are distinct echoes of this tone and subject matter in Poe's reporting of the Rue Morgue tragedy: The body was strangled. quite hot... On the face there were many serious scratches, and on the throat there were dark bruises and deep indentations in the nails, as if the deceased had been strangled to death. What is even more striking is the inclusion of evidence in each story. , in the form of reports collected from witnesses. In Frankenstein these include "Daniel Nugent...a woman...another woman" and "several other men", while in The Murders in the Rue Morgue the witnesses have been expanded to a spectrum covering different races and professions. In each text, a new paragraph is provided for the statement of each witness. We must also remember that the initial murder of William by Frankenstein's creature had a "detective novel" element, because the reader's suspicions are well-founded and it is only in the creature's narration that he confesses to himself. the murderer and the mystery. of the photo in Justine's possession is explained. Although this is largely speculation, and it must be acknowledged that Poe develops the idea into a much more curious and tense mystery, there is nevertheless a distinct influence in the style and organization of the plot from the first story to the second. Yet it is this point of development of ideas that must be emphasized when considering Poe's works in the light of his predecessors. This is particularly true when considering the influence of early conventionsFrankenstein Gothic. In many ways, this novel quite naturally demonstrates vestiges of the Romantic tradition, in that it is concerned with the power of the imagination and exploration of the self. Frankenstein himself describes passim how it was his “imagination” that sealed his fate and made the terrible events of the novel possible. Upon discovering the secret of life, he comments "my imagination was too excited by my first success to allow me to doubt my ability to give life to an animal as complex... as man". It is this same imagination which evokes terrors if he succeeds in making a partner for his creation, resolving him to abandon the work and thus seal the doom of those close to him. Throughout these events, but particularly early in his life, Shelley strives to examine moments such as the moving speech on his first day in Ingolstadt that drive Frankenstein, laying bare the psychology of the character. Yet in these vestiges of romance we can see Gothic conventions emerge, and it is on these that Poe draws on in a tale distinctly parallel to William Wilson's Frankenstein. Frankenstein is a classic paranoid hero in the Gothic tradition, and his paranoia about the actions of his creation is of course fueled by his imaginative ramblings. A similar, even more irrational hatred is inspired in Wilson (whose undisclosed real name is another testament to the "unspeakable" Gothic) toward his namesake, whose "affection" he attributes to "a consummate vanity taking the vulgar airs of patronage and protection". protection” and devotes considerable energy to humiliating, injuring and ultimately murdering his double. Frankenstein and his creation, who are "connected by bonds only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us", become two parts of the same creative and created entity which Sedgwick calls a "mirrored monstrosity", where all elements the most evil of Frankenstein and in fact, humanity is displaced in his creation. The “mirrored monstrosity” that germinates in Frankenstein is realized by Poe in William Wilson, but with a darker and more complicated twist; the narrator himself is revealed to be the evil incarnation of Wilson, while his eternal adversary is his conscience, thwarting his indulgences in luxury and deception. Moreover, this is achieved in the classic Gothic convention of the doppelganger, since the antagonist ultimately reveals himself "even in his most absolute identity" to be the narrator's inexplicable twin (and it is remarkable that, in doing so, Wilson thinks of ambiguous way that he looks in a mirror). Even the narrator's chosen pseudonym, "William Wilson", contains the syllable "Wil" reflected in each half of the name. Sedgwick also talks about the conventional Gothic picture of two men Frankenstein and his creation locked in pursuit at the beginning and end of the story. novel, but here again Poe excels in creating a spectacular picture. The climax of the story after the thrilling chase and sword fight sees the slain Wilson become the narrator's mirror image, bloodied and proclaiming "how completely murdered you are". In doing so, Poe not only creates a more melodramatic image, but also explores his own gothic preoccupation with the imp of the pervert, particularly with the ambiguity of the mirror image. The whole story can be interpreted as a psychological illusion in which William Wilson struggles. against himself and ultimately defeats him. The power of imagination within a being is given an even greater and deadlier force. Poe thus consolidates his issues, similar to those raised in Frankenstein, in a more provocative and extreme manner, further engaging in what would become the Gothic mode. Of the.