Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- 1 The poet as critic
- 2 Poe and his circle
- 3 Poe’s aesthetic theory
- 4 Poe’s humor
- 5 Poe and the Gothic tradition
- 6 Poe, sensationalism, and slavery
- 7 Extra! Extra! Poe invents science fiction!
- 8 Poe’s Dupin and the power of detection
- 9 Poe’s feminine ideal
- 10 A confused beginning
- 11 Poe’s “constructiveness” and “The Fall of the House of Usher”
- 12 Two verse masterworks
- 13 Poe and popular culture
- 14 One-man modernist
- Select bibliography
- Index
2 - Poe and his circle
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 May 2006
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- 1 The poet as critic
- 2 Poe and his circle
- 3 Poe’s aesthetic theory
- 4 Poe’s humor
- 5 Poe and the Gothic tradition
- 6 Poe, sensationalism, and slavery
- 7 Extra! Extra! Poe invents science fiction!
- 8 Poe’s Dupin and the power of detection
- 9 Poe’s feminine ideal
- 10 A confused beginning
- 11 Poe’s “constructiveness” and “The Fall of the House of Usher”
- 12 Two verse masterworks
- 13 Poe and popular culture
- 14 One-man modernist
- Select bibliography
- Index
Summary
The obituary notices following Poe's death in 1849 struggled to make sense of what fellow-authors felt was the central contradiction of his life: that he was one of the country's preeminent literary “geniuses” yet he had lived a life of misery and privation. Overwhelmingly, Poe's contemporaries were forced to conclude that his peculiar personality was responsible for his lack of professional success. Many, like fellow-author Nathaniel Parker Willis, felt that Poe's particular habits and talents as a writer foreclosed the possibility of material reward: “Mr Poe wrote with fastidious difficulty, and in a style too much above the popular level to be well paid.” George R. Graham agreed: “[T]he very organization of a mind such as that of Poe - the very tension and tone of his exquisitely strung nerves . . . utterly unfitted him for the rude jostlings and fierce competitorship of trade.”
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Companion to Edgar Allan Poe , pp. 21 - 41Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2002
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