DOCSLIB.ORG

Erudition and Sickness in Edgar Allan Poe's Gothic Stories Syeda Rizvi

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Erudition and Sickness in Edgar Allan Poe's Gothic Stories Syeda Rizvi Erudition and Sickness in Edgar Allan Poe's Gothic Stories Syeda Rizvi Edgar Allan Poe's gender representation is intricate because it revolves around the sickness and disease of both men and women. The illness and death of women have captured the attention of fe minist scholars, but they have gen- erally overlooked how in portraying his physically invalid and psychologi- cally unstable narrators, Poe rejects the cultu.ral norms of ninetccnth-<:entury masculinity that stressed the intellectual and physical supremacy of men. If Poe's portrayal of women is a key to understanding his gender perceptions, it is equally imperative to critically analyze his representation of men and their diseased condition to understand his critical appraisal of the cultural discou.rses of male authority, and how he converts the patriarchal idea of male dominance and superiority into monomaniacal thinking. In this paper, l critically analyze Poe's representation of men in "Morella," "Berenice," "Ligeia," and "The Fall of the House of Usher" to understand his insight into antebellum gender discourses. Through the complicated relationship of the characters in the stories, Poe subverts and at the same time reinforces many gender ideologies. The first cultural assumption Poe targets is the notion of mentally independent and intelligent masculinity. Poe's women are intellectually independent and mentally strong, and his male narrators are mentally weak and are in awe of the erudite women. Poe further complicates his gender representation by making both men and women learned and creating a connection between their erudition and sickness. The women are better than men in handling the ideas of metaphysics. By making these moves, Poe undermines the dominant antebellum cultural ideology that men are intellectually superior. At the same lime, the consequences of women's actions suggest that in their portraiture, Poe reinforces the cultural notion that women should only study religious books, moral essays and se,mons. To some extent, Poe follows the trope of 16 17 representing invalid women in his work, but ultimately rejects the cultural discourses on female education by showing the "unnatural" oonsequences of notion of s ickness as being gender-bound. women's interest in ancient philosophy. The articles that appeared alongside To consider how Poe's stories interact~'(! in their immediate cultural context, Poe's stories in the 5-0uthern Uterary Messenger stressed women should only it is essential to historicize antebellum gender discourses. Without providing study sermons, moral stories, and religious essays because these subjects this background, it is difficult to surmise how Poe interacts with dominant would uplift their moral virtues and save them from sins such as vanity and cultural assumptions, and what new insights he provides. Analy Ling printed arrogance. Notably, none o f Poe's women is interested in these culturally sources is one of the best ways to understand socia I discourses in any given prescribed subjects. The actions and the mental condition of the male narra- era because periodicals and newspapers serve as cultural templates. Keeping tors demonstrate that if the obsession with metaphysics is bad for women, in view this idea, I interpret Poe's stories as being in connection with other it is equally or even more harmful to men. Furthermore, it will be explored pieces published in the 5011/lrem Uterary Messenger, a periodical published in in depth how Poe weakens the gender binary in two ways: first, by making Richmond, Virginia, from August 1834 to June 1864. The publication included his male narrators less capable of handling the ideas o f metaphysics, and letters, poetry, fiction, nonfiction, reviews, and historical notes. Poe served seoond, by making his men afraid of the erudite women. as its editor from 1835 to 1837, and his tales "Morella," and "Berenice" were Physicians have historically paid a lot of attention to female sickness and published in the periodical in 1835. Critically analyzing Poe's stories with have sometimes neglected to examine in depth the instance of male nervous the articles and essays of the SLM will give a better sense of how his work illness. In Hysterical Men: T/1e Hidden History of Male Neroous Illness (2008), is consistent with and at the same time, in juxtaposition with the cultural Mark S. Micale historicizes the oonnection between the study of philosophy notions reflected in other literary works. and sickness. According to Micale, gender d iscourses of male superiority Poe oomplicates his gender representation by making men and women have always ruled medical science. In this book, he has tried to reoover the intellectuals and creating a co1mection between their erudition and sickness. history o f male nervous invalidism through an analysis of personal letters Mysterious s ickness is one of the most conspicuous features of Poe's tales and and memoirs. Micale states that in the eighteenth century, physicians and serves as tool to weaken the gender binary. His women are sick, yet so are scholars believed that excessive book reading was a cause of triggering male his men. His "erudite" women are strong individuals, well versed in ancient nervousness. He records the case of David I Turne, a Scottish philosopher and history and philosophy. In their portraiture, Poe reinforces the cultural notion essayist. During his early twenties, Hume aspired to have a career in philos- that women should only study religious books, moral essays, and sermons ophy. Yet, his "intense intellectual exertion" diminished his stamina (Micale because Morella and Ligeia's obsession with metaphysics results m '\umat- 33). His concentration weakened, and he mentioned that he experienced ural" consequences. Nevertheless, Poe's intelligent and irnagina~ve women "heart palpitations, skin ulcers, and stomach pain," and all these problems undermine the dominant antebellum cultural ideology that men are physically tormented him for at least five years. During this period of ailment, Hume and intellectually superior. Poe's male characters, for instance, Egaeus and wrote letters to his family and friends and discussed in detail the treatments Roderick, arc also well read in philosophy and mysticism, but their studies he pursued to cure his malady. He frequently visited the family doctor, who make them psychologically unstable and physically s ick. However, Poe's gave him" Anti-Hysteric Pills" (Micale 33). Hwne self-diagnosed his malady women use their mental prowess to defeat death and h is male narrators as the"disease of the learned." He ended his letter by asking "whether I can are ill and afraid o f the erudite women. By making this move, Poe creates hope for a reoovery? ... whether my recovery will ever be perfect?" (quoted a form of masculinity in which the men arc mentally unstable and fearful by Micale, 34). Apart from Hurne, Micale has also recorded other instances of of the learned women. By linking erudition and disease in the stories, Poe male nervous illness.' Micale claims that ideas about male nervou~.,,ess were demonstrates that if intellectual abiLities and the studies of metaphysics are explored in the early nineteenth century, but they never gained prominence.2 detrimental to women's health, they are equally harmful to men. For instance, Edward Jenner, an eminent surgeon, famous for his discovery Historicizing the connection between erudition and s ickness is essential of the smallpox vaccine, recorded in h is journal that he was afflicted with because it is an e lement that has not been fully explored. This move will make it clear that Poe is incorporating the idea that excessive study of philosophy and metaphysics creates physical sickness and psychological instability in 1 Another account was \'1titten by George d\eynej a mathematician. He also declared that the main reason for nervous illness was "excessive Luxury and too much book readingN both men and women. The primary focus in interpreting the tales is on (M1calc 41). Chey1\e also delineated his O\'IIO nervous illness, \"hen he was in his early how Poe takes the link between the study of philosophy and s ickness to hventies. He suffered £ro1n anxiety, and he outlined his symptoms as "Fright, Anxiety, the extreme to weaken the gender binary because women are better able to Dread. and Terror'' flooding his mind, and he remailled bedridden for months (Micale 43). handle the notions of metaphysics than men. On the other hand, the male 2 From a journal v.•ritten by Joseph Fari.ngton.. he quotes the incident of a man undergoing nervous sei:r.ures. J le ootes that Farington \Yas a socialite and a landscape painter and his characters, who are interested in the studies of metaphysics and mysticism, journal brims ··,.,ith referencxs to doctors, health, and sickness." Farington labeled his dis- lose their sanity. It will also be explored how Poe reinforces antebellum gender e;isc as "'anxiety of mind"' (quoted by Micale. 32). ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 18 19 "a morbid sensitivity of sharp sound" (Micale 32). ln a letter to his friend Jmrnediately after mentioning her intellect, the narrator brings into the story referring to his nervous state, Jenner wrote that "in a female, I should call it the element of her mysterious disease. In this way, Poe makes a connection hysterical...but in myself, I know not what to call it, but the old sweeping beMecn her studies and malady. As Ligeia's studies of philosophy increase, term nervous" (quoted by Micale, 32). It is noteworthy that Jenner wanted her health deteriorates. The narrator mentions, "the pale fingers became of to label his invalidism as hysteria, but the stigma attached to the term pre- the transparent waxen hue of the grave, and the blue veins upon the lofty vented him from doing so. Micale's findings suggest that in the eighteenth forehead swelled and sank impetuously with the tides of the most gentle and the early nineteenth century; physicians regarded excessive inteUectual emotion" (164).
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Interactive Timeline
    http://knowingpoe.thinkport.org/ Interactive Timeline Content Overview This timeline includes six strands: Poe’s Life, Poe’s Literature, World Literature, Maryland History, Baltimore History and American History. Students can choose to look at any or all of these strands as they explore the timeline. You might consider asking students to seek certain items in order to give students a picture of Poe as a writer and the life and times in which he worked. This is not an exhaustive timeline. It simply highlights the major events that happened during Poe’s lifetime. Poe’s Life Edgar Poe is born in Boston on January 19. 1809 Elizabeth Arnold Poe, Poe’s mother, dies on December 8 in Richmond, Virginia. 1811 David Poe, Poe’s mother, apparently dies within a few days. John and Frances Allen adopt the young boy. The Allans baptize Edgar as Edgar Allan Poe on January 7. 1812 Poe begins his schooling 1814 The Allans leave Richmond, bound for England. 1815 Poe goes to boarding school. His teachers refer to him as “Master Allan.” 1816 Poe moves to another English school. 1818 The Allans arrive back in America, stopping for a few days in New York City 1820 before returning to Richmond. Poe continues his schooling. 1821 Poe swims against a heavy tide six or seven miles up the James River. 1824 In November, he also writes a two-line poem. The poem was never published. John Allan inherits a great deal of money and buys a huge mansion in Richmond 1825 for his family to live in.
    [Show full text]
  • Poe's Unreliable Narrator: the Reader As a Privileged Witness and The
    Poe’s Unreliable Narrator: the Reader as a Privileged Witness and the Narrator´s Credibility1 El narrador poco fiable de Poe: el lector como testigo privilegiado y la credibilidad del narrador Francisco Javier Sánchez-Verdejo Pérez UNED [email protected] Recibido 8 de marzo de 2019 Aceptado 24 de marzo de 2020 Resumen Un narrador en quien no se puede confiar (preso de la locura, lleno de mentiras…) es una de las armas más poderosas que puede usar un autor. Como veremos, los efectos se multiplican cuando ese escritor es Edgar Allan Poe. Por otro lado, o además, si hay algo que pueda deleitar más que leer a Poe, eso es enseñar a Poe. Sus narradores, los que aparecen en historias como “The Tell-Tale Heart” o “The Black Cat”, ofrecen un ejemplo magnífico para nuestro proyecto. Mentalmente inestables, a pesar de sus (¿)pretendidas(?) intenciones de credibilidad, dichos narradores suelen alejarse subjetivamente de los hechos. Es por ello que estas historias formarán parte del corpus de narraciones que aquí presentamos. Palabras clave: Unreliable narrator, percepción, Edgar Allan Poe, credibilidad. 1 This contribution comes to light as a research carried out with several (under)graduate students. This research is included in a project designed in the form of cooperative work with students of different educational levels, and presented at a round table entitled "Edgar Allan Poe in the classroom: new proposals for teaching in the 21st century", in the I International EAPSA Conference, “Poe in the Age of Populism”, held in Valladolid between January 31st and February 2nd, 2018. The participating students are: - María Victoria Arenas Vela - María Belén Casado Rodrigo - Beatriz Garrido García - Rubén Pareja Pinilla 128 Verbeia 2020 ISSN 2444-1333 Año VI, Número 5, 128-150 Francisco Javier Sánchez-Verdejo Pérez Poe’s Unreliable Narrator: the Reader ..
    [Show full text]
  • ''Mad I Am Not''…Or Am I? Poe's Voices of Madness
    ”Mad I am not”…or am I? Poe’s Voices of Madness Jocelyn Dupont To cite this version: Jocelyn Dupont. ”Mad I am not”…or am I? Poe’s Voices of Madness. Inventive Linguistics, PULM, 2010, pp.189-200. hal-02459359 HAL Id: hal-02459359 https://hal-univ-perp.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02459359 Submitted on 29 Jan 2020 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. “Mad I am not”…or am I? Poe’s Voices of Madness Jocelyn Dupont, Université de Perpignan It is generally agreed that Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales gave his contemporary readers a radically new vision of insanity. As such, they stand as a landmark in the history of literature, and generations of critics have since praised Poe’s genius and ability to put to writing the “the disintegrative vibration” (Lawrence 21) of the human mind. From the mid-1830s to the mid- 1840s, Poe’s narrators’ demented stories provided an unprecedented insight into extreme states of minds1, shattering the frame of rationality. Poe’s approach to madness is ambivalent. While anchored in the Romantic tradition according to which the creative imagination is visionary and designed to trigger a profound resounding echo in the psyche, it simultaneously anticipated the popular trend in the 1960s and 70s which was to consider the madman as a seer, one for whom the doors of perception have been flung wide open.
    [Show full text]
  • The Oedipus Myth in Edgar A. Poe's "Ligeia" and "The Fall of the House of Usher"
    Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Retrospective Theses and Dissertations Dissertations 1996 The ediO pus myth in Edgar A. Poe's "Ligeia" and "The alF l of the House of Usher" David Glen Tungesvik Iowa State University Follow this and additional works at: https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Tungesvik, David Glen, "The eO dipus myth in Edgar A. Poe's "Ligeia" and "The alF l of the House of Usher"" (1996). Retrospective Theses and Dissertations. 16198. https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd/16198 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Dissertations at Iowa State University Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Retrospective Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Iowa State University Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Oedipus myth in Edgar A. Poe's "Ligeia" and "The Fall of the House of Usher" by David Glen Tungesvik A thesis submitted to the graduate faculty in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS Major: English (Literature) Major Professor: T. D. Nostwich Iowa State University Ames, Iowa 1996 Copyright © David Glen Tungesvik, 1996. All rights reserved. ii Graduate College Iowa State University This is to certify that the Masters thesis of David Glen Tungesvik has met the thesis requirements of Iowa State University Signatures have been redacted for privacy iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ... .................................................................................................... iv INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................ 1 "LlGEIA" UNDISCOVERED ............................................................................... 9 THE LAST OF THE USHERS .........................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • The Ethical Aspect of Disease: Poe's “Morella” and Life
    Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies 44.1 March 2018: 41-60 DOI: 10.6240/concentric.lit.201803_44(1).0003 The Ethical Aspect of Disease: Poe’s “Morella” and Life Pei-yun Chen Department of English Tamkang University, Taiwan Abstract Edgar Allan Poe’s obsession with the morbid and the death of beautiful women not only serves as the embodiment of the sources of melancholy, but also functions as the embodiment of the beautiful. Readings of Poe’s terror tales commonly emphasize the beauty that is beyond the realms of ordinary life and even human perception. These readings constitute what I call aesthetic readings of Poe’s works. This paper attempts to develop an alternative reading of Poe, which involves the ethical aspect of disease and the notion of life. I argue that many of Poe’s readers, however impressive their readings may be, understand “disease” in a negative way and hence might overlook the insights within Poe’s tales. While aesthetic readings celebrate Poe’s dark, destructive, morbid, and even nihilist style, an ethical reading of Poe intends to illustrate that disease can “liberate” an individual through the “transmutation of values” and leads to the affirmation of life. Life, in this sense, refers not to a particular individual life, but to that which is never completely specified and always indefinite. The tale “Morella” depicts a return to life—but that which returns is difference instead of identity, and that which returns brings a new mode of living. This new mode of living requires people to know life as such differently, to know what is in oneself as more-than-individual, to actively engage with vitality, and to eventually realize that life is impersonal and indefinite.
    [Show full text]
  • The Representation of Women in the Works of Edgar Allan Poe
    Faculteit Letteren & Wijsbegeerte Elien Martens The Representation of Women in the Works of Edgar Allan Poe Masterproef voorgelegd tot het behalen van de graad van Master in de Taal- en Letterkunde Engels - Spaans Academiejaar 2012-2013 Promotor Prof. Dr. Gert Buelens Vakgroep Letterkunde 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Prof. Dr. Gert Buelens, without whom this dissertation would not have been possible. His insightful remarks, useful advice and continuous guidance and support helped me in writing and completing this work. I could not have imagined a better mentor. I would also like to thank my friends, family and partner for supporting me these past months and for enduring my numerous references to Poe and his works – which I made in every possible situation. Thank you for being there and for offering much-needed breaks with talk, coffee, cake and laughter. Last but not least, I am indebted to one more person: Edgar Allan Poe. His amazing – although admittedly sometimes rather macabre – stories have fascinated me for years and have sparked my desire to investigate them more profoundly. To all of you: thank you. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 6 1. The number of women in Poe’s poems and prose ..................................................................... 7 2. The categorization of Poe’s women ................................................................................................ 9 2.1 The classification of Poe’s real women – BBC’s Edgar Allan Poe: Love, Death and Women......................................................................................................................................................... 9 2.2 The classification of Poe’s fictional women – Floyd Stovall’s “The Women of Poe’s Poems and Tales” ................................................................................................................................. 11 3.
    [Show full text]
  • Freedom from Violence and Lies Essays on Russian Poetry and Music by Simon Karlinsky
    Freedom From Violence and lies essays on russian Poetry and music by simon Karlinsky simon Karlinsky, early 1970s Photograph by Joseph Zimbrolt Ars Rossica Series Editor — David M. Bethea (University of Wisconsin-Madison) Freedom From Violence and lies essays on russian Poetry and music by simon Karlinsky edited by robert P. Hughes, Thomas a. Koster, richard Taruskin Boston 2013 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: A catalog record for this book as available from the Library of Congress. Copyright © 2013 Academic Studies Press All rights reserved ISBN 978-1-61811-158-6 On the cover: Heinrich Campendonk (1889–1957), Bayerische Landschaft mit Fuhrwerk (ca. 1918). Oil on panel. In Simon Karlinsky’s collection, 1946–2009. © 2012 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn Published by Academic Studies Press in 2013. 28 Montfern Avenue Brighton, MA 02135, USA [email protected] www.academicstudiespress.com Effective December 12th, 2017, this book will be subject to a CC-BY-NC license. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/. Other than as provided by these licenses, no part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or displayed by any electronic or mechanical means without permission from the publisher or as permitted by law. The open access publication of this volume is made possible by: This open access publication is part of a project supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book initiative, which includes the open access release of several Academic Studies Press volumes. To view more titles available as free ebooks and to learn more about this project, please visit borderlinesfoundation.org/open.
    [Show full text]
  • Illuminating Poe
    Illuminating Poe The Reflection of Edgar Allan Poe’s Pictorialism in the Illustrations for the Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque Dissertation zur Erlangung des Grades des Doktors der Philosophie beim Fachbereich Sprach-, Literatur- und Medienwissenschaft der Universität Hamburg vorgelegt von Christian Drost aus Brake Hamburg, 2006 Als Dissertation angenommen vom Fachbereich Sprach-, Literatur- und Medienwissenschaft der Universität Hamburg aufgrund der Gutachten von Prof. Dr. Hans Peter Rodenberg und Prof. Dr. Knut Hickethier Hamburg, den 15. Februar 2006 For my parents T a b l e O f C O n T e n T s 1 Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 2 Theoretical and methodical guidelines ................................................................ 5 2.1 Issues of the analysis of text-picture relations ................................................. 5 2.2 Texts and pictures discussed in this study ..................................................... 25 3 The pictorial Poe .......................................................................................... 43 3.1 Poe and the visual arts ............................................................................ 43 3.1.1 Poe’s artistic talent ......................................................................... 46 3.1.2 Poe’s comments on the fine arts ............................................................. 48 3.1.3 Poe’s comments on illustrations ...........................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Science and Edgar Allan Poe's Pathway to Cosmic Truth
    SCIENCE AND EDGAR ALLAN POE’S PATHWAY TO COSMIC TRUTH by Mo Li A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English Middle Tennessee State University May 2017 Dissertation Committee: Dr. Philip Edward Phillips, Chair Dr. Maria K. Bachman Dr. Harry Lee Poe I dedicate this study to my mother and grandmother. They taught me persistence and bravery. !ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I must express my immense gratitude to Dr. Philip Edward Phillips for opening up Edgar Allan Poe’s starry worlds to me. Without Dr. Phillips’s generous guidance and inestimable patience, I could not have completed this study. I would also like to thank Dr. Maria K. Bachman and Dr. Harry Lee Poe. Their invaluable insights and suggestions led me to new discoveries in Poe. !iii ABSTRACT Poe’s early grievance in “Sonnet—To Science” (1829) against science’s epistemological authority transitioned into a lifelong journey of increasingly fruitful maneuvering. Poe’s engagement with science reached its apogee in Eureka: A Prose Poem (1848), his cosmological and aesthetic treatise published near the end of his life. While exalting intuition and poetic imagination as the pathway to Truth, Eureka builds upon, questions, and revises a wealth of scientific authorities and astronomical works. Many classic and recent studies, however, appreciate the poetic value but overlook or reject the scientific significance of the treatise. In contrast, some scholars assess Eureka by its response and contribution to specific theories and methods of nineteenth-century or contemporary science. Although some scholars have defended Eureka’s scientific achievements, they rarely investigate the role of science in Poe’s other works, especially his early or enigmatic ones.
    [Show full text]
  • Poe's Play-Full Narratives Criticism of Poe’S Work Published So Far—An Aesthetically-Focused Reading of His Narrative Gains Force in Light of Poe’S Own Critical Work
    Fernandez-Santiago 79 Poe’s Play-Full Narratives Miriam Fernandez-Santiago Introduction Edgar Allan Poe entered the U. S. literary canon mainly on his merits as a short story writer and as the creator of the detective story. Knowledge of his prolifi c career as editor and literary critic is rather restricted to specialized academic research or the poetics presented in “The Philosophy of Composition” (1846). Although the French Symbolists rescued his poetry for posterity, the disdain of his contemporary nationals did not provide Poe’s poetry with much popular recognition beyond “The Raven.” Poe’s Gothicism has often obscured the ironic sense of humor that pervades much of his work and which has not received much critical attention until lately.1 His only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1938), had a similar reception, and even Poe, himself, regarded it poorly. His only interest in drama2 seems to be restricted to his theater reviews (especially for the Broadway Journal) and a failed attempt at completing Politian (1835-6), a Jacobean-styled tragedy based on a 1825 true story3 that he began to publish serially in the Southern Literary Messenger. Whether it was the bad reviews of the fi rst instalments of Politian or the diffi culties of producing works for the stage in the U. S. during Poe’s lifetime,4 the truth is that he never made a second attempt to write a play.5 And yet drama pervades his both short fi ction and his criticism as much as his personal life. Deserted by his father, his mother dying just before his third birthday, separated from his siblings after his mother’s death, his foster mother dying, his foster father disinheriting him, his child bride dying, and his own mysterious death all describe a rather melodramatic life.
    [Show full text]
  • Absolute Poe: His System of Transcendental Racism Maurice S
    Absolute Poe: His System of Transcendental Racism Maurice S. Lee American Literature, Volume 75, Number 4, December 2003, pp. 751-781 (Article) Published by Duke University Press For additional information about this article https://muse.jhu.edu/article/51013 Access provided by Lehman College (31 Mar 2017 22:24 GMT) Maurice S. Absolute Poe: His System of Lee Transcendental Racism 6986 AMERICAN LITERATURE / 75:4 / sheet 63 of 255 A haunting image appears on the cover of the 1995 essay collection The American Face of Edgar Allan Poe.Fromaper- spective slightly above the subject, we see a grainy, black-and-white figure with vaguely familiar features: disheveled hair, broad forehead, thin mustache, deep-set eyes. The picture is not unlike a still frame taken from a surveillance video, as if Poe had come back from the grave and was captured leaving a convenience store. The hazy image simultaneously suggests Poe’s modern presence and historical alter- ity, a fitting introduction to an essay collection that signaled a shift in Poe studies from abstract, ahistorical universals toward ‘‘Poe’s synco- pated relation to American culture.’’ Subsequent scholarship in this vein has rendered rich interpretation.1 TheproblemisthatPoeisbe- coming something of a divided figure, embedded in his era’s material discourse but divorced from the metaphysics of his day. It may be pos- sible,however,tobringintofocusamorestubbornlyhistoricalPoe who not only participates in his era’s political, economic, and mass cultural life but also uses historically available ideas to theorize his American world. This world, as critics have increasingly found, was torn by slavery and race.
    [Show full text]
  • Myriad Approaches to Death in Edgar Allan Poe's Tales of Terror Jenni A
    Regis University ePublications at Regis University All Regis University Theses Spring 2011 Living in the Mystery: Myriad Approaches to Death in Edgar Allan Poe's Tales of Terror Jenni A. Shearston Regis University Follow this and additional works at: https://epublications.regis.edu/theses Part of the Arts and Humanities Commons Recommended Citation Shearston, Jenni A., "Living in the Mystery: Myriad Approaches to Death in Edgar Allan Poe's Tales of Terror" (2011). All Regis University Theses. 550. https://epublications.regis.edu/theses/550 This Thesis - Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by ePublications at Regis University. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Regis University Theses by an authorized administrator of ePublications at Regis University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Regis University Regis College Honors Theses Disclaimer Use of the materials available in the Regis University Thesis Collection (“Collection”) is limited and restricted to those users who agree to comply with the following terms of use. Regis University reserves the right to deny access to the Collection to any person who violates these terms of use or who seeks to or does alter, avoid or supersede the functional conditions, restrictions and limitations of the Collection. The site may be used only for lawful purposes. The user is solely responsible for knowing and adhering to any and all applicable laws, rules, and regulations relating or pertaining to use of the Collection. All content in this Collection is owned by and subject to the exclusive control of Regis University and the authors of the materials.
    [Show full text]