Indirect Influence in Literature: The Case of Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Baudelaire, and Han Mac Tu

Abstract

ABSTRACT From the perspective of “new aesthetics,” a trend of post-theoretical criticism, this paper looks back at some of the achievements of Influence Study (French school) in comparative literature, in particular those who are quite similar to the works of Jean-Marie Carré and Marius François Guyard. The two research areas mentioned above share a concern with the emotion of a text as well as its effect and transmittability. Bearing this in mind, this paper studies the indirect influence of Edgar Allan Poe on Han Mac Tu (Vietnam) through the intermediary Charles Baudelaire and considers the chain of “affective contagion.” This is a case of interesting and complex indirect influence cited by the critic Hoai Thanh as early as 1942 in Vietnam.