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
13 - Poe and popular culture
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
When the newly reformed Baltimore professional football team chose to call itself the Ravens in 1996, Poe received a fin-de-siècle apotheosis as one of popular culture's favorite sons. The fact that football and Poe have nothing to do with each other only highlights the extent to which this nineteenth-century American author has remained not only present, but much appreciated in the minds of the general public throughout the world. Poe pops up almost everywhere: from a commemorative stamp issued by the US Post Office to a somewhat confused John Wayne listening to Robert Mitchum recite lines from Poe's poem “Eldorado” in the Hollywood western of the same name. Poe's face appears amidst the crowd on the cover of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band; the enigmatic “I am the Walrus” on Magical Mystery Tour includes the line “Man, you should have seen them kicking Edgar Allan Poe.” The Simpsons has made several allusions to Poe, including an admirable cartoon dramatization of “The Raven.” The Crow (1994) offers a triple-level tribute as Eric Draven (Brandon Lee) quotes “The Raven” after returning from the dead and entering a pawn shop in search of his murdered fiancée's ring. In the world of consumer goods, Raven Beer uses a publicity poster incorporating an irresistible pun: “I Know You're in the Pits. How about a Raven?”
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- Information
- The Cambridge Companion to Edgar Allan Poe , pp. 205 - 224Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2002
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