Poe's Difference

ISBN-13: 9781433169328 / Angielski / Twarda / 2019 / 192 str.

R. C. De Prospo

Opis

Poe's Difference argues that Edgar Allan Poe has much more in common with early American, medieval, and ancient writers than with the modern and post-modern ones with whom the writer is so often associated. This book emphasizes Poe's anachronisms to make a number of theoretical, pedagogical, literary historical, and political claims about the backwardness of antebellum U.S. culture. Some time ago Michael Colacurcio issued the challenge that "the full case for the Puritan character of Poe's `horror' remains to be made." Although going back a good deal further than just to the "Puritans," Poe's Difference aspires fully to make precisely this case.

Recenzje

"Once upon a time, Poe was 'Halloween'-a freak with fancies. Redeemed from this, he became first a major romantic and then, with the aid of the French, an epitome of the post-modern, hiding out somewhere in the canon of classic American literature. Time to think again. In R. C. De Prospo's revisionist account, Poe's deepest roots are in a number of ancient and venerable traditions, both pagan and Christian, his themes more neo-medieval than post-modern. Brave to challenge the prophets of deconstruction and authorial nonentity, De Prospo's wide learning and theoretical sophistication are well up to the task." -Michael Colacurcio, Distinguished Professor of English, University of California, Los Angeles

Spis treści

Foreword: Poe's Difference - Acknowledgements - "An Anomaly on the Face of the Earth": Poe's Reviews - Poe's Pym/Stevenson's Jim - Pym, Prometheus, and the Marinere - Afterword: Poe's Parelcon - Index.

O autorze

R. C. De Prospo is Chair of American Studies at Washington College, where he is also Professor of English and American Studies. De Prospo has published two books on early American literature, co-edited a book on Harriet Beecher Stowe, and published numerous articles on American literature and literary theory.