艾伦·坡《那桶阿芒蒂雅朵酒》的艺术美刍议

A Discussion of the Aesthetic Beauty of Edgar Allen Poe's The Cask of Amontillado

《那桶阿芒蒂雅朵酒》是艾伦·坡的优秀短篇小说之一。该小说的艺术美主要来自以下两方面艺术特色:采用第一人称叙事,有利于凸显杀人者人格中被忽视的病态、邪恶、阴暗,让读者与复仇者再次一起经历整个谋杀过程,道德和心灵受到震撼;巧妙运用反讽艺术手法,使叙事呈现出明暗相间、话里有话、弦外有音的艺术张力,反衬出人物的疯狂与病态。此外,小说还通过大量呈现人物对话,削减背景信息,删除一切不必要的铺陈,加强作者、人物与读者之间的交流,揭示人物性格特征与内在病态心理;恰当运用象征,强化恐怖效果,加强恐怖气氛。所有这些艺术手法使得故事短小精悍,浑然一体,引人入胜,达到了独特的美学效果,成为短篇小说艺术的经典。

The Cask of Amontillado is one of Edgar Allen Poe＇s excellent short stories. Its aesthetic beauty comes mainly from two artistic features. First, the first-person narrative helps sharpen the neglected morbidity, wickedness and darkness in the murderer＇s personality, lets the readers and the avenger experience the whole process of the murder once again and gives them a moral and psychological shock. Secondly, the adoption of the artistic technique of irony endows the narrative with an artistic tension between surface and hidden meaning, sly hints and implication, thus setting off the murderer＇s insanity and morbidity. Moreover, the short story strengthens the communion between the author, the characters and the readers and reveals the personalities of the main characters and the murderer＇s morbid psyche by presenting a good many dialogues between the characters, minimizing background information, and crossing out unnecessary narration. Finally, the use of symbols intensifies the horrible atmosphere and enhances the ghastly effect. All these artistic techniques mentioned above render the story terse and forceful, of a unified entity and breath-takingly engrossing, with the result that special aesthetic effects are achieved that make this short story a classic of its kind.