Edgar Allan Poe The Mask Of The Red Death
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Edgar Allan Poe The Mask Of The Red Death
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:He was born on January 1, 1809 in Boston. He was an american poet, storywriter and critic. In his childhood he had lost his parents. He was brought up in a family of businessman John Allan. He spent years 1815-1820 in England and then he came back to the USA. After misunderstandings with his stepfather he left to Boston, where he anonymously published poem collection Tamerlane and other Poems. In 1830 his stepfather sent him to military academy West Point. Later he had been expelled for neglecting his duties. After that he moved to his relative and married her 13-years old daughter. In 1831 he published his second poem collection Poems. He wrote sketches, stories and reviews. He won a financial prize for his story Manuscript Found in a Bottle. Later in New York he wrote The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym and in Philadelphia Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque. In years 1841-1842 he was the editor of Graham`s Magazine and he won another prize for The Gold-Bug story. The poem The Raven secured him a later world fame. In 1847 his young wife died. Poe got in a mental crisis and in 1848 he tried to commit a suicide. He became a drunk and he was involved in fight in a tavern. On October 7, 1849 he died in a hospital in Baltimore. His last collection is The Bells. His poetry is prominent by sense for melody of words and sonorous rhymes. In prose he shows his excellent sense for notion by atmosphere or secret and mystery an ability of precise logical deduction. Stories like The Pit and the Pendulum or A Cask of Amontillado are masterpieces of a literature terror. The moment of terror doesn`t rise from the dark, supernatural powers, but as a result of sophisticated human wrath and this keep an action on a plain of reality. Poe was a master of calculated psychological essence. The most famous Poe`s novelettes which are precedessors of modern novels are: The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Mystery of Marie Roget, The Gold-Bug and The Purloined Letter. Poe was the first to create a character of detective-amateur, who solved mysterious cases by logical thinking. His Dupin is precedessor of Sherlock Holmes. Poe was also an excellent literary critic. He founded a theory of modern short story. THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH
Main characters: Prince Prospero, “Red Death”
Setting: Story is set in the Middle Ages to one monastery.
The story: The “Red Death” has been destroying the country for a long time.
It was a pest causing aches, stains on the body and bleeding. It didn`t take more than an hour before infected man died. Prince Prospero was happy, dauntless and clever. He gathered thousand friends among all of his court knights and dames. Then, he and his company went to one of his monasteries. Along with them were many musicians, ballet-dancers, and comedians. All of them were safely inside, while outside was the “Red Death”. At the end of the fifth month of this isolation Prince Prospero organized a grand fancy-dressed ball. It was held in seven beautiful rooms – an imperial suite. Every room had different colour and windows were made of stained glass. Every window was same colour like the room. The first room was blue colour, the second room was purple, the third room was all green, fourth room was orange, the fifth white and the sixth was violet. The seventh room was all black and it was the only room, where the colour of windows was different from the colour of room. The windows were dark bloody red. Behind every window burnt a flame which projected coloured light through the window into the room. Fiery light in this room terrified everybody who entered the room. Near the west wall stood the hugh ebony clock. Their ticking was so loud that the musicians couldn`t play any longer. But when the clock stopped, the party carried on and everyone was happy again. When the clock began to strike midnight, what last twelve strokes and it`s longer then before, visitors began to have more thoughts. Last strokes still lasted and some of them noticed a person in mask that evoked first surprise, but later horror and disgust. This mask reminded the “Red Death“, so much, that Prince Prospero, who was very angry with it wanted to hang the person wearing it. When he ordered this, he was in the blue room. But nobody moved. The mask went by slowly steps through the blue room to the purple – through the purple to the green – through the green to the orange – through this again to the white – and through this one he came to the violet and then to the black. The Prince Prospero ran through six rooms to the seventh, but nobody dared to follow him. They met in the black room, where Prince Prospero tried to kill the mask with a dagger, but it was him who fell dead on the black carpet. After that everybody realized, that “Red Death“ is among them. One by one they fell dead on the floor too and the life of the ebony clock went out.
Flames expired and “Darkness” and “Decay“ ant the “Red Death“ held the sway over all.
MY REACTION:
I like this book because I like read about unusual things and my favourite books are detective stories and horror stories.
VOCABULARY:
misunderstandings – nezhody
neglecting duties – zanedbávanie povinností
involve – zapliesť (sa )
sonorous – zvučný
notion – predstava
ability – schopnosti, zručnosti
sophisticated – rafinovaný
precedessor – predchodca
dauntless – neohrozený
fancy-dressed ball – maškarný ples
stained glass – farebné sklo
fiery – ohnivý
terrify – podesiť, naplniť hrôzou
notice – všimnúť si
order – nariadiť, rozkázať
dare – odvážiť sa
dagger – dýka
sway – vláda, nadvláda.