MUSIC OF NAMES IN EDGAR ALAN POE’S WORKS

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to survey aesthetic potential of E. Poe’s anthroponomy and to analyse the author’s unique strategy in the process of creating the names of his characters. This study aims at explicating the functioning of literary names in the works of American romanticist and at defining the specific features of their semantic content. The writer worked out theory of musicality within the frames of his own concept of “unity of effect”. Masterly balancing the sounds as figure melodies of a musical staff became the basis of his nomination principle, adding special emotional content both to the name itself and the tale or the poem, mobilizing reader’s emotional intelligence in the process of poetic reception. As a result, several kinds of Poe’s musical devices have been sorted out. Among the most widely used components of writer’s musical approach to anthroponomy are sonority (phonetic musical level); symbolic content of sounds or psychological parallelism (sematic musical level); rhythm (repetition of sounds in the nominative segments, acoustic symmetry); melodiousness (as a tendency towards elegiac, muted beauty); connection with visual arts. The above characteristics became the markers of Poe’s idiostyle, demonstrated the unity of “sound and thought” as a prerequisite for creating new meanings. These factors help to underline the specific features of E. Poe’s aesthetic and philosophical perception. Such an approach may be used for investigation of modern technique in the works of contemporary writers and poets as it helps to delve into some principles of synthesis of Arts in Post-modern paradigm.