Becoming America - An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution, 2018a

BECOMING AMERICA
REVOLUTIONARY AND EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD LITERATURE
Rowena at all—the fair-haired, the blue-eyed Lady Rowena Trevanion of Tremaine?
Why, why should I doubt it? The bandage lay heavily about the mouth—but then
might it not be the mouth of the breathing Lady of Tremaine? And the cheeks—
there were the roses as in her noon of life—yes, these might indeed be the fair
cheeks of the living Lady of Tremaine. And the chin, with its dimples, as in
health, might it not be hers?—but had she then grown taller since her malady?
What inexpressible madness seized me with that thought? One bound, and I had
reached her feet! Shrinking from my touch, she let fall from her head, unloosened,
the ghastly cerements which had conned it, and there streamed forth, into the
rushing atmosphere of the chamber, huge masses of long and dishevelled hair; it
was blacker than the raven wings of the midnight! And now slowly opened the eyes
of the gure which stood before me. “Here then, at least,” I shrieked aloud, “can
I never—can I never be mistaken—these are the full, and the black, and the wild
eyes—of my lost love—of the lady—of the LADY LIGEIA.”
4.16.5 “The Fall of the House of Usher”
(1839)
Son cœur est un luth suspendu;
Sitt qu’on le touche il résonne.
De Béranger
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 rst glimpse of the building, a
sense of insuerable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insuerable; 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
everyday life—the hideous dropping o 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 aecting us, still the
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