Poe's Pym : critical explorations / edited by Richard Kopley.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Kopley, Richard.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Poe, Edgar Allan, 1809-1849. Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym.

Poe, Edgar Allan.

Sea stories, American--History and criticism.

Sea stories, American.

Whaling in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (369 p.)

Place of Publication:

Durham : Duke University Press, 1992.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

"The interpreter's dream-text," as one critic called Edgar Allan Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym has prompted critical approaches almost as varied as the experiences it chronicles. This is the first book to deal exclusively with Pym, Poe's longest fictional work and in many ways his most ambitious. Here leading Poe scholars provide solutions and interpretations for many challenging enigmas in this mysterious novel.The product of a decade of research and planning, Poe's "Pym" offers a factual basis for some of the most fantastic elements in the novel and uncovers surprising connections between Poe's text and exploration literature, nautical lore, Arthurian narrative, nineteenth-century journalism, Moby Dick, and other writings. Representing a rich cross-section of current modes of literary study—from source study to psychoanalytic criticism to new historicism—these sixteen essays probe issues such as literary influence, the limits of language, racism, the holocaust, prolonged mourning, and the structure of the human mind. Poe's "Pym" will be an invaluable resource for students of both contemporary criticism and nineteenth-century American culture.Contributors. John Barth, Susan F. Beegel, J. Lasley Dameron, Grace Farrell, Alexander Hammond, David H. Hirsch, John T. Irwin, J. Gerald Kennedy, David Ketterer, Joan Tyler Mead, Joseph J. Moldenhauer, Carol Peirce, Burton R. Pollin, Alexander G. Rose III, John Carlos Rowe, G. R. Thompson, Bruce I. Weiner

Contents:

Introduction / Richard Kopley

Part I. Literary origins

"Mutiny and atrocious butchery" : the Globe Mutiny as a source for Pym / Susan F. Beegel

Poe's "Manual of 'seamanship'" / Joan Tyler Mead

Pym's polar episode : conclusion or beginning? / J. Lasley Dameron

Novels, tales, and problems of form in The narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym / Bruce I. Weiner

Poe's reading of myth : the white vision of Arthur Gordon Pym / Carol Peirce and Alexander G. Rose, III.

Pym, the Dighton Rock, and the matter of Vinland / Joseph J. Moldenhauer

Poe's life reflected through the sources of Pym / Burton R. Pollin

Part II. Sociohistorical contexts

Mourning in Poe's Pym / Grace Farrell

Poe, antebellum slavery, and modern criticism / John Carlos Rowe

Part III. Prefigurings

"Postmodern" or post-Auschwitz : the case of Poe / David H. Hirsch

Part IV. Figuration

Consumption, exchange, and the literary marketplace : from the Folio Club tales to Pym / Alexander Hammond

Pym pourri : decomposing the textual body / J. Gerald Kennedy

The quincunical network in Poe's Pym / John T. Irwin

The arabesque design of Arthur Gordon Pym / G.R. Thompson

Part V. A writer's view

"Still farther South" : some notes on Poe's Pym / John Barth

Part VI. A bibliographer's view

Tracing shadows : Pym criticism, 1980-1990 / David Ketterer.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 266-274) and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780822312468

0822312468

9780822397601

0822397609

OCLC:

645832942