the fall of the house of usher full text

Philip Glass’s 1988 opera of the same name, with a libretto by Arthur Yorinks, became the first full operatic adaptation of Poe’s story.īoston Lyric Opera’s production adds to and expands upon this history of adaptation, creating a multilayered story that introduces new narrative elements while retaining the essential ambiguity at the core of the original. In the realm of opera, it first attracted the attention of Claude Debussy, who worked on a score for years but never completed it. There have been several cinematic retellings, from an experimental French silent version (1928) to a low-budget American production (1960) to a Czech stop-motion animation (1982). First published in a literary magazine in 1839, “The Fall of the House of Usher” has inspired an outpouring of adaptations by other artists and writers. Such enigmatic mystique is at the heart of the tale’s enduring allure. Poe relies less on concrete detail than on what Charles Baudelaire (who translated his works into French) called “indefinite sensations.” Because the story hovers in the uncanny space between fact and myth, it is difficult to determine what, exactly, it means: it insists on keeping its secrets. Scrutinized for allegorical meaning, the story has also been understood as a meditation on the dualities of the human psyche, a Gothic tale of supernatural danger, or a commentary on the collapse of an old-guard aristocracy in the young United States. On one level, it is a straightforward, albeit horrific, tale that begins when the narrator is summoned to the disintegrating house of Roderick Usher, a long-lost friend who, along with his sister, Madeline, is suffering from a calamitous illness. “The Fall of the House of Usher” is shrouded in uncertainty. The precise origins of Poe’s celebrated story remain elusive – like so many elements of the work itself.

The Tremont Street home of eighteenth-century bookseller Hezekiah Usher (located just a few blocks from the house where Poe was born, in 1809) was demolished in 1830, and two bodies were said to have been discovered in the basement, locked in a ghastly embrace. Rumor has it that Edgar Allan Poe modeled the House of Usher on a dwelling in Boston with a gruesome secret.

The fall of the house of usher full text