Poe and the Subversion of American Literature (eBook)

Acknowledgements

Introduction: A Poetics of Descent

1. Subterranean Noises
Undercurrents of American Thought
The Man of the Street
The Diddler's Grin

2. A Nomad in a Land of Settlers
The Early Poe: Nomadic Peripety
The Mature Poe: Unsettling Movement
The Late Poe: Extravagant Trajectories

3. Points of No Return
The Return of Personal Narrative
"Of my country and of my family I have little to say"
Irreversible Descent
Uncharted Territories

4. The Nightmare of the Unknowable
The Legitimate Sources of Terror
Terror as Anti-Epistemic
Unfathomability

5. Captivating the Reader
Perverse Designs
"To be appreciated you must be read"
The Apparatus of Capture

6. The Perverse Originality of Literature Proper
True Originality
Generic Ambiguities

7. The Cosmopolitan's Uncanny Duplicity
At Sea in the City
The Doppelgänger's Mirror Image

8. Extra Moenia Flammantia Mundi: Satire, Fantasy, and the Critic's Laughter
Phantasy Pieces
The Laugh of Edgar Allan Poe

Conclusion: Premature Burials
Bibliography
Index