The Oval Portrait

The oval portrait

A tale by edgar allan poe

Edgar allan poe

• Born on January 19,1809,in Boston
• Separated from his family,he lives with a weathly merchant
• He drinks and gambles
• 1832 METZENGERSTEIN
• He contributed to the SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSANGER magazine
• 1838 THE NARRATIVE OF ARTHUR GORDON PYM
• He died on October 7,1849,in Maryland

Context

Poe's finances

• He drank excessively
• He had a recurring depression
• He couldn't get along with his foster father
• Serious crisis in America

The Kingdom of Italy

• In 1861,the House of Savoy was unified with the Kingdom of Italy
• It was still a hodgepodge of duchies,city-states and monarchies

The Castles of Apennines

• Poe spent a fair amount of his childhood in Europe
• Beh visited the ancient of the English countryside and in Scotland and was deeply influenced by their gloomy environments
• He describes the apartment in which the characters reside as laying "in a remote turret of the building."

Autobiographical Connection

• His wife fell ill with tuberculosis
• He didn't dedicate much time to his wife

The Oval Portrait

The Plot

1. The arrival of the narrator and his companion, Pedro, at the castle.
2. The description of the castle and the choice of the room
3. The little book
4. The discovery of the lady's painting
5. The story of the lady and the painter

Characters

- Unnamed protagonist- Injured -Tense state of Mind - Victim of art

- Passionate- Scholar - Crazy - Symbolizes fanaticism

The Painter

The Narrator

- The narrator's waiter- He never speaks - He takes care of the master - Only character whose name we know

- Victim of the painter's fanaticism - Rare beauty - Full of light - Love the painter - Hates art

The Young Woman

Pedro

THEMES

MOCKING GOTHIC ROMANCE

Life

ART

• Poe uses the horror genre to demonstrate the dangers of valuing art over life
• The narrator is extremely fascinated by a painting
• Life is more important than art

• Poe is known as one of the founders of the horror genre
• Gothic horror rarely includes romance
• Poe makes fun of Gothic romance

• life vs. death
• inattentiveness
• the painter failed to notice until it was too late

The Oval Portrait

The analysis of the plot

• Art delineated as a destroyer of life

• The picture that imprisons the life of the lady

• The story is connected to the life of E.A. Poe

• Author's anxiety reflected in the story of the Oval Portrait

A scene from "Dorian Gray"

How life is connected to art?

The Oval Portrait vs The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

The image of the portrait in the gothic literature

1. Art and beauty like an inspiration that turns into a mania
2. The entrusting of the character's souls into the portraits
3. Poe's story: The reader have a personal point of view at the end of the narration; The author analyzes his own emotional sphere
4. Wilde's story: The story have a logical series of events explaining rationally; The author touches different and external keys from his personal experiences

The Oval Portrait's quote

"And then the brush was given, and then the tint was placed; and, for one moment, the painter stood entranced before the work he had wrought; but in the next, while he yet gazed, he grew tremulous and very pallid, and aghast, and crying with a loud voice, "This is indeed Life itself!" turned suddenly to regard his beloved: She was dead!"

Edgar Allan Poe, The Oval Portrait

THANK YOU For the attention

A presentation made by Ghelardoni Elsa, Nannini Caterina and Orsi Angelica, IV D LSU Paladini, Lucca

Sitography & Bibliography

https://www.coursehero.com/lit/Oval-Portrait https://interestingliterature.com/2017/02/a-summary-and-analysis-of-edgar-allan-poes-the-oval-portrait/ https://www.fucinemute.it/2013/02/il-ritratto-in-letteratura-edgar-allan-poe-e-oscar-wilde/ Edgar Allan Poe, I Racconti (traduzione di Giorgio Manganelli, introduzione di Julio Còrtazar - ET Biblioteca Einaudi