Edgar Allan Poe

a cura di Annabel Pope
 
 Five short-stories by Edgar Allan Poe: The Oval Portrait (the story of an artist who wants to make a painting of his young wife, but becomes so obsessed with it that he doesn’t realize his wife is dying meanwhile), Berenice (a horror story in which the protagonist is unable to stop thinking about his cousinwife’s beautiful teeth), The Premature Burial (a sequence of different episodes where people are buried alive by mistake), The Cask of Amontillado (a tale of terror in which a man takes his cruel revenge during a Carnival in Italy), The Fall of the House of Usher (Usher’s sister Madeline dies from a mysterious illness; she comes back from the grave and the visitor flees the house before it collapses.)
 Teacher's Resources available online: Answer Key - Audioscripts - Summing-up Activities 
 
 Cinque famose short-stories del grande scrittore americano: The Oval Portrait, Berenice, The Premature Burial, The Cask of Amontillado, The Fall of the House of Usher.
 Completano il reader diversi approfondimenti, tra cui: lo strano decesso del geniale autore, la ritrattistica, la tafofobia, la rivalità con alcuni critici letterari del periodo, le regole d’oro stabilite da Poe per scrivere un buon racconto breve.

Story 1 – The Oval Portrait

Extension: Portrait painting

Story 2 – Berenice

Extension: What’s in a name? Berenice

Story 3 – The Premature Burial

Extension: Taphophobia

Story 4 – The Cask of Amontillado

Extension: Rivalry and revenge

Story 5 – The Fall of the House of Usher

Extension: The perfect short story – Poe’s rules

Summing-up activities

Glossary

people having been mistakenly considered dead. As recently as 2005, a ???? funeral director in Massachusetts in the U.S.A discovered someone alive inside a body bag which had been sent to him. It is an ancient fear which has always been with us; even Pliny the Elder talks about it and there is quite a list of famous people who suffered from thoughts of how horrifying it would be to find oneself buried alive, with the mind still conscious but the body in a state of sleep. The list includes Arthur Schopenhauer, the philosopher, Frédéric Chopin, the musician, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, the artist, Hans Christian Anderson, the writer, and George Washington, the U.S.A. president, some of whom arranged to be cremated so as to be certain of not suffering this fate worse than death itself. The obsession reached such heights, that strange contraptions4 were invented and sold at high prices to be put into coffins. Safety coffins with ropes attached to bells above the ground, and even telephones and tombs whose doors could be opened from the inside  just in case! It is worth noting that the medical profession took much of the vocabulary it used to describe these phobias and obsessions from the gothic literature which was in fact one of the very causes of them. Panic, terror, suffocation, darkness, it was an almost paradoxical situation, where, instead of writers taking ideas and facts from science, they appeared to teach science from their investigation of the human mind in such terrifying circumstances. 4. contraptions: machines or devices that seem unnecessarily complicated and are often badly made. 52 

4 The Cask of Amontillado BEFORE READING Story 1 Which of the following themes do you think are likely to occur in The Cask of Amontillado? Underline the ones you think will be found: murder, rape, revenge, insanity, hatred, the art of bricklaying, the death of a beautiful woman, loss of face, dignity, being buried alive, poisoning, nobility, addiction to drugs or alcohol, freemasons, pride, losing a loved one, honor, infidelity. 2 Amontillado is a type of sherry, renowned for its flavor. What is sherry? Circle the correct answer. a. A white wine. b. A red wine. c. A herbal liqueur. d. A fortified wine. e. A strong spirit like vodka. f. A type of cognac. g. A drink similar to Martini. 3 Poe frequently uses the words below in the left hand column in his stories. Match them to their synonyms. a. dampness b. darkness c. terror d. burial e. vault f. remote g. tremble h. death i. soul 1. cavern 2. decease 3. isolated 4. shiver 5. spirit 6. interment 7. fear 8. humidity 9. gloom A cask or barrel of Amontillado 53 

Narrativa inglese, livello B2 intermedio, cinque famose short-stories del grande scrittore americano Edgar Allan Poe.

The Oval Portrait - Collana RAINBOWS

Level B2 • Intermediate - Collana RAINBOWS

The Oval Portrait and other stories

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