The American Face of Edgar Allan Poe

by Shawn Rosenheim (Editor), Stephen Rachman (Editor)

"The problem of Poe's place in American culture cannot be settled canonically, since, unlike the works of Melville or Hawthorne, Poe's texts have not been primarily transmitted through the schools. Indeed, at its most radical level, the failure of criticism to account for the remarkable diversity of Poe's influence leads one to question the utility of the canon itself as an instrument for the study of American culture."—from the Introduction The contributors to this volume share the conviction that Poe is central to current work on American culture—and that strictly theoretical approaches to Poe have become increasingly irrelevant. Aiming to transform his place in the American canon, they bring sophisticated theoretical awareness to bear on the particular historical, social, political, and economic circumstances of his literary career. Their essays offer new insights into the complex and unavoidable relations between traditionally literary issues and the broader aspects of a democratic mass culture. The contributors are Gillian Brown, Stanley Cavell, Eva Cherniavsky, Joan Dayan, Jonathan Elmer, John T. Irwin, Barbara Johnson, David Leverenz, Meredith L. McGill, Stephen Rachman, Louis A. Renza, Shawn Rosenheim, and Laura Saltz.

408 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1995

Reviews

[Paul Haspel]

For Edgar Allan Poe scholars and enthusiasts, a fine collection of essays, published by the Johns Hopkins University Press. Of the 13 essays in this collection, the two that I found most compelling were David Leverenz's "Poe and Gentry Virginia" and Joan Dayan's "Amorous Bondage," both of which look at the antebellum South as a cultural context for Poe and his work.