The
Fall of the House of Usher es un cuento de Edgar
Allan Poe. Fue publicado en setiembre de 1839. Aunque Poe escribió su cuento antes de la
invención de la moderna ciencia de la psicología la condición de Roderick puede ser descripta así:
hiperestesia, hipocondrismo, y ansiedad.
Más abajo ponemos unos párrafos en inglés con el vocabulario
correspondiente.
Paragraphs
DURING the whole of a dull,
dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung
oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback,
through a singularly dreary tract of
country, and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on,
within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was—but, with
the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my
spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that
half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment, with which the mind usually
receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible. I looked
upon the scene before me—upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features
of the domain—upon the bleak walls—upon the vacant eye-like windows—upon a few
rank sedges—and upon a few white trunks of decayed
trees—with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly
sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveller
upon opium—the bitter lapse into every-day life—the hideous dropping off of the
veil.
There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the
heart—an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading
of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime.
What was it—I paused to think—what was it that so unnerved me in the
contemplation of the House of Usher? It was a mystery all insoluble; nor could
I grapple with the shadowy fancies that crowded upon me as I pondered. I was
forced to fall back upon the unsatisfactory conclusion, that while, beyond
doubt, there are combinations of very simple natural objects which have the
power of thus affecting us, still the analysis of this power lies among
considerations beyond our depth. It was possible, I reflected, that a mere
different arrangement of the particulars of the scene, of the details of the
picture, would be sufficient to modify, or perhaps to annihilate its capacity
for sorrowful impression; and, acting upon this idea, I reined my horse to the
precipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn that lay in unruffled lustre by
the dwelling, and gazed down—but with a shudder even more thrilling than
before—upon the remodelled and inverted images of the gray sedge, and
theghastly tree-stems, and the vacant and eye-like windows.
Nevertheless, in this mansion of gloom I now
proposed to myself a sojourn of some
weeks. Its proprietor, Roderick Usher, had been one of my boon
companions in boyhood; but many years had elapsed since our last meeting. A
letter, however, had lately reached me in a distant part of the country—a
letter from him—which, in its wildly importunate nature, had admitted of no
other than a personal reply. The MS. gave evidence of nervous agitation. The
writer spoke of acute bodily illness—of a mental disorder which oppressed
him—and of an earnest desire to see me, as his best and indeed his only
personal friend, with a view of attempting, by the cheerfulness of my society,
some alleviation of his malady. It was the manner in which all this, and much
more, was said—it was the apparent heart that went with his request—which
allowed me no room for hesitation; and I accordingly obeyed forthwith what I
still considered a very singular summons... (The Fall of the House of Usher, de E. A. Poe)
Primera aparición en Burton´s |
Vocabulario
Dull: tedious
Dreary:
unexciting
Sedges:
juncos
Reveller:
celebrant
Goading:
urging
Aught: any part
Brink: edge
Tarn: lagoon
Unruffled:
unmoved
Sojourn:
stay
Boon:
intimate
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