Loss of Breath E-Book

Edgar Allan Poe

• Herausgeber: SAMPI Books
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 22

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

The tale follows a narrator who, in a violent quarrel, quite literally loses his breath—his physical ability to breathe disappears. Though still conscious, he is assumed dead and endures a series of grotesque misadventures: doctors dissect him, he is buried alive, and he suffers the indignities of mistaken death. The story blends horror and absurd comedy, satirizing medical practices, philosophical ideas about life and death, and the fragility of human existence.

Leseprobe

Loss of Breath

Edgar Allan Poe

SYNOPSIS

The tale follows a narrator who, in a violent quarrel, quite literally loses his breath—his physical ability to breathe disappears. Though still conscious, he is assumed dead and endures a series of grotesque misadventures: doctors dissect him, he is buried alive, and he suffers the indignities of mistaken death. The story blends horror and absurd comedy, satirizing medical practices, philosophical ideas about life and death, and the fragility of human existence.

Keywords

Satire, Grotesque, Absurd horror

NOTICE

This text is a work in the public domain and reflects the norms, values and perspectives of its time. Some readers may find parts of this content offensive or disturbing, given the evolution in social norms and in our collective understanding of issues of equality, human rights and mutual respect. We ask readers to approach this material with an understanding of the historical era in which it was written, recognizing that it may contain language, ideas or descriptions that are incompatible with today's ethical and moral standards.

Names from foreign languages will be preserved in their original form, with no translation.

Loss of Breath

O breathe not, etc.—Moore’s Melodies

The most notorious ill-fortune must in the end yield to the untiring courage of philosophy—as the most stubborn city to the ceaseless vigilance of an enemy. Shalmanezer, as we have it in holy writings, lay three years before Samaria; yet it fell. Sardanapalus—see Diodorus—maintained himself seven in Nineveh; but to no purpose. Troy expired at the close of the second lustrum; and Azoth, as Aristaeus declares upon his honor as a gentleman, opened at last her gates to Psammetichus, after having barred them for the fifth part of a century....

“Thou wretch!—thou vixen!—thou shrew!” said I to my wife on the morning after our wedding; “thou witch!—thou hag!—thou whippersnapper—thou sink of iniquity!—thou fiery-faced quintessence of all that is abominable!—thou—thou—” here standing upon tiptoe, seizing her by the throat, and placing my mouth close to her ear, I was preparing to launch forth a new and more decided epithet of opprobrium, which should not fail, if ejaculated, to convince her of her insignificance, when to my extreme horror and astonishment I discovered that I had lost my breath.

The phrases “I am out of breath,” “I have lost my breath,” etc., are often enough repeated in common conversation; but it had never occurred to me that the terrible accident of which I speak could bona fide and actually happen! Imagine—that is if you have a fanciful turn—imagine, I say, my wonder—my consternation—my despair!

There is a good genius, however, which has never entirely deserted me. In my most ungovernable moods I still retain a sense of propriety, et le chemin des passions me conduit—as Lord Edouard in the “Julie” says it did him—à la philosophie véritable.