Unpacking Poe’s idiolect: a study of authorial lexical choices

Marushchak, Nika (2025) Unpacking Poe’s idiolect: a study of authorial lexical choices Актуальнi питання гуманiтарних наук, 93 (1). с. 171-177. ISSN 2308-4855

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Анотація

Edgar Allan Poe has often been viewed exclusively as either a poet or a prose writer, although his system of linguistic and conceptual authorial preferences in both his poetry and prose, namely his poetics, remains unexplored. The research of the unique linguistic and stylistic features of Poe’s texts is an important part of studying his poetics, which involves unpacking the key characteristics of its components, namely his idiolect, idiostyle, and idionarration. The paper examines Poe’s idiolect, focusing on detecting tendencies in the authorial lexical choices. The material for the study includes not only Poe’s famous works, such as his poem «The Raven» or his short story «The Fall of the House of Usher», but also less popular texts, namely his poems «Tamerlane», «The Conqueror Worm», «Oh, Manners! Oh, Manners!», «Dream-Land», as well as his short stories «The Man of the Crowd», «Bon-Bon», «The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar» – to name just a few. The results show that the lexical level of Poe’s idiolect is characterised by stylistic neologisms, code-mixing, and archaisms. Poe’s neologisms are often coined through affixation or compounding (e.g., bediamonded, bewinged, demon-light). The fact that Poe spoke at least five languages results in frequent code-mixing in his texts, with the embedding of foreign words (primarily Latin and French) within a single utterance or a sentence. Additionally, Poe blends the common vocabulary of his period with a range of archaic words in his poetry and prose. Thus, the lexical authorial preferences, combined with graphological foregrounding (e.g., italics for code-mixing), create a multilayered space that balances mythology, philosophy, and linguistic innovations. The lexical features in both Poe’s poetry and prose lend support to our claim that his idiolect is a complex mechanism for constructing meaning and aesthetic effect in his texts, offering new insights into the uniqueness of his poetics.

Тип елементу :	Стаття
Ключові слова:	E. A. Poe; poetry; prose; idiolect; stylistic neologisms; code-mixing; archaisms
Типологія:	Статті у періодичних виданнях > Фахові (входять до переліку фахових, затверджений МОН)
Підрозділи:	Факультет романо-германської філології > Кафедра лінгвістики та перекладу
Користувач, що депонує:	Ніка Андріївна Марущак
Дата внесення:	26 Січ 2026 09:02
Останні зміни:	26 Січ 2026 09:02
URI:	https://elibrary.kubg.edu.ua/id/eprint/56136

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