Epistemic Modality in Translation: Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher"

"The Fall of the House of Usher" is one of Edgar Allan Poe's best known Gothic short stories. As is common for the genre, its macabre tone is set by elements such as an eerie mansion, mysterious disease, sudden death of a protagonist, ghost-like side characters, stormy nights, and a coffin in a vaulted cellar. Poe further enhanced the Gothic effects on the discourse level by consistently using epistemic modality. As the analysis shows, the first person narration abounds in verbal and adverbial phrases such as might have been, seemed to be, possibly, perhaps, and beyond doubt, which add to the narrator's uncertainty and are indicative of his inability to comprehend the mysterious events he witnessed during his visit to the House of Usher. Conversely, in the Slovene translation, epistemic modality markers are sometimes left out or modified. This has an effect on the macrostructural level of the narrative. Whereas in the original, the narrator's perception and reasoning are characterized by uncertainty, the 'same' narrator in the target text is seemingly better able to comprehend the reasons behind the otherwise inexplicable phenomena.