愛倫·坡小說中富含的游戲元素常見于情節、語言乃至于創作哲學等諸多層面。本文以荷蘭文化史學家赫伊津哈和法國社會學家羅杰·卡約的游戲學說為理論觀照,首先梳理整合坡在作品中尤為熱衷描述的博弈游戲,分析它們圍繞作者與(理想)讀者的關聯所體現的敘事學模型;其次,聚焦于19世紀30年代曾引發廣泛關注的"梅伊策爾的象棋游戲機",一方面探討那一機械裝置與坡的創作哲學之間發生的隱喻性契合,另一方面圍繞坡對此發明的關注,分析其"揭秘"的創作動機與杜賓的博弈美學之間存在的有機關聯;最后,本文立足于文學與哲學就"語言游戲"所產生的對話可能,探求"游戲規則"對坡的創作所施予的語義增殖功效。

Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories are imbued with games ranging from plots to language and even to the philosophy of composition. By having recourse to the theories of games from Johan Huizinga and Roger Caillois, this article first and foremost sorts out the competitive games as Poe is most infatuated with, and analyzes their narratological model in light of the author-(ideal) reader nexus. Secondly, this article focuses on the legendary "Maezel’s Automaton Chess-Player," studying on one hand the allegorical association of this mechanical equipment with Poe’s philosophy of composition, and on the other, the identity between Dupin’s game aesthetics and Poe’s motivation of revealing the trick of the alleged "pure mechanism." Last but not least, this article ushers in a latent literature-and-philosophy dialogue in terms of the concept of "language game" so as to expound the effect of semantic proliferation imposed by rules of games upon Poe’s making of literature.