Full-text story with hyperlinked vocabulary: click here
Full-text Poe's poems with hyperlined vocabulary: click here and scroll down to locate poems

Vocabulary in The Oval Portrait

• comingle: mixed
• vehemently: intensely
• delirium: near faint; hallucinations; disorientation
• austere: harsh or severe
• candlebrum: single-base candlestick with many (usually 5) holders for cancles
• *arabesque: highly detailed, ornamented work
• *moresque: highly filigreed tracery, detailed work
• renown: famous
• chateau: French (in this story) mountain house
• fervid: passionate
• tremulous: trembling; shaking
• ardor: passion

Poe's Frame Story is a triple frame story:

1. the picture frame that contains the oval portrait is the organizing frame for the picture as well as the story
2. the framing story is about the man and his valet, Pedro, at the chateau in the turret room
3. the story inside of the man's story (#2) is the story of the painting of the portrait--the story of the artist and and his wife