- 著者
-
森本 光
- 出版者
- 日本アメリカ文学会
- 雑誌
- アメリカ文学研究 (ISSN:03856100)
- 巻号頁・発行日
- vol.53, pp.5-20, 2017 (Released:2018-05-18)
- 参考文献数
- 13
Edgar Allan Poe’s “Never Bet the Devil Your Head: A Tale with a Moral” was first published in Graham’s Magazine in September 1841 under the name “Never Bet Your Head: A Moral Tale.” This short story has been regarded as a literary satire that clearly attacked on the prevalence of transcendentalism and didacticism at the time. From the mid-thirties to the early forties, when Poe worked as a magazine editor and writer, the Transcendental Club held meetings for the northern intellectuals and writers, and the transcendentalist magazine The Dial began publication in 1840. Transcendentalism had much influence then, and the American literature of the time was guided by didacticism. Critics had a tendency to evaluate a literary work based on its moral, and readers demanded to read moral tales. Poe criticized the two currents of literature several times in his career; this short story can be thought as one of them.This view is supported by some references in the work to the transcendentalist magazine The Dial and by Poe ostensibly mentioning the transcendentalist Emerson by name. However, this is not enough to claim the work to be a literary satire with the singular purpose of criticizing prominent figures and schools of thought; the short story also contains some strange descriptions that are not explicable in terms of any satirical aims, and Poe himself claimed in a letter that it was not his design to ridicule any targets in particular. What, then, is the chief aim of this work? The fact that Poe called this short story an “Extravaganza” gives us a hint; an extravaganza is a large, extravagant show or spectacle in general, but in the U. S. in the early 19th century, it denoted a short skit particularly in the form of the minstrel show. The minstrel show was a popular American form of entertainment with performers in blackface who would dance, sing, and play the fool. It is possible that Poe made use of this piece of contemporary popular culture in his writing; in fact, this short story and the minstrel show have some characteristics in common, for example, the protagonist’s blackened face, his funny foolish gestures, and his habit of talking about bets. Therefore, this paper aims to analyze “Never Bet the Devil Your Head” by examining several commonalities between it and the minstrel show, and to make it clear how Poe adapted this form of contemporary popular theater for his original short story.