The Fall of the House of Usher Study Guide

Glossary of Terms

"Son coeur est un luth suspendu;/Sitot qu'on le touch il resonne"

French for "His heart is a hanging lute;/Whenever one touches it, it resounds."

"which in sooth tarried not for his full coming"

which in truth did not wait for him to arrive

collocation

arrangement or juxtaposition

doughty

brave

ennuye

French for bored or apathetic

Fuseli

Henry Fuseli (1741-1825) was a painter in the Romantic style. He thereby participated in much the same artistic tradition which originally inspired Edgar Allan Poe. Noted for their grandiose intensity and wild imagination, Fuseli's paintings are referred to in this story as "reveries," reflecting the even more dreamlike, less "concrete" works of Usher.

hold parley

discuss or converse; negotiate with an antagonist

pinion

wing

porphyrogene

royal--in "The Haunted Palace," the implication is that the inhabitants of the palace are of royal descent (note that the ruler is called a "monarch")

prolixity

long-windedness. Much as Poe was famous for ripping apart works of literature in his reviews, here the Narrator flatly denounces the silly "Mad Trist" he reads to Usher as a way of calming both of them down.

seraph

celestial winged being

tarn

mountain lake, river