Retrospective Poe

Revista de Estudios Norteamericanos, 2021

Canons is the last addition to the vast Poe scholarship developed and published by Lehigh University Press (within their collection Perspectives on Edgar Allan Poe). After other similar titles such as Translated Poe (edited by Emron Esplin and Margarida Vale de Gato) or Poe's Pervasive Influence (edited by Barbara Cantalupo), among others, this volume comes to complete the comprehension of the global impact of Edgar Allan Poe and his works. The volume we are reviewing here is divided into four different sections, covering respectively the earlier anthologies of Poe's works during the 1840s, the collections that have been produced in the US, the UK, and the Anglophone context in general, specific anthologies based on genre and format, and how Poe has been anthologized in foreign contexts. By choosing such a division, the editors have been capable of collecting and addressing the most relevant perspectives considered by contemporary Poe scholars from different points of the planet. Within the first mentioned section of the book, three chapters are included. The first of them (by Jana L. Argersinger) opens, as probably could not be done otherwise, with the labor Poe developed as editor of anthologies when working in different literary magazines, but also on how Griswold and Osgood contributed to coin a

2018

Poe remains one of the most misread A merican writers. The slanders of his first biographer created a black legend that critics and poets have been trying to dispel for more than a century since. Although widely read, his popularity turned against him and many critics concurred with T.S. Eliot that he was merely a litterateur for teenagers, whose intellect was that "of a h ighly g ifted young person before puberty" (35). In his t ime, Poe was considered iconoclastic, yet he was just another High Ro mantic who assumed the role of an A merican Coleridge. Emerson called h im "the jingle man," Russell considered his work to be "two-fifths sheer fudge" (141-42) and Henry James condescended that "enthusiasm for Poe is the mark of a decidedly primitive stage of reflect ion" (280). In the twentieth century, Matthiessen omitted Poe in his monu mental American Renaissance (1941) while Yvor Winters censured his incoherence and obscurantism. Nevertheless, it should be said that the crit ics who fell under the influence of the New Critics produced one of the fines t interpretations of his texts. In many ways , Poe is the twin brother with a dark face, the "dejected cousin" (Tate 38-50) of the ontologically optimistic "party of hope," the new American Adams-Emerson, Whit man, Thoreau-, who believed in progress, man ifest destiny, and man's god-like greatness. Writing at a time when Emerson postulated that evil was non-substantive, Poe philosophized on the power of darkness and the dangers of the hubris of man's indo mitable will. Together with Hawthorne and Melv ille, he warned against the dangers of self-reliance and of the self-made man (Lewis, Patea). Haro ld Bloo m concluded as late as 1987 that "Emerson fathered pragmatis m; Poe fathered nothing" (5). However, as a poet and critic Poe is the founding father of Sy mbolism, Aestheticism and Decadentism. He is responsible for the birth o f the short story as a literary fo rm, wh ich is arguably America's characteristic literary genre (May 69). As a short story writer he invented the short story and the detective, mystery and horror

2014

El presente articulo explora una cuestion que ha sido objeto de debate por parte de la critica y el mundo academico: ?cual fue la primera traduccion de la obra de Edgar Allan Poe al espanol? Partiendo de las tesis y las propuestas de una serie de academicos, las autoras cartografian el contexto en el que se tradujo y se recibio el trabajo de uno de los autores norteamericanos mas importantes del siglo XIX.

The bicentenary of Edgar Allan Poe’s birth in 2009 generated a renewed enthusiasm in the American writer and his work. International conferences and monographic studies reexamined the importance of Poe and his influence on twenty-first-century national literatures. Among the most recent studies, Cantalupo’s Poe and the Visual Arts (2014) puts in context Poe’s oeuvre and the artwork to which he was exposed in the 1830s and 1840s. In the same vein, Emron Esplin and Margarida Vale de Gato’s edited volume Translated Poe deals with translations and translators of Poe in an attempt to demonstrate “how Poe’s translations constitute multiple contextual interpretations, testifying to how this prolific author continues to help us read ourselves and the world(s) we live in” (2014: xix). Echoes of Lois Davis Vines’ Poe Abroad (1999), a landmark in Poe studies published to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the writer’s death, abound in this compilation of articles. In this regard, Esplin and Vale de Gato, who acknowledge having been inspired by Vines’ work, commissioned an outstanding group of Poe experts and translators to assess the specific vehicle that delivers Poe to the world: translation. “One can understand Poe”, contends Cagliero in his review of Poe Abroad, “by understanding those who read his texts and how they understood him” (2000: 45). And this statement may also be fitting for Translated Poe....

2019

Poe's "How to Write a Blackwood Article" and "The Scythe of Time" have both drawn the attention of a number of scholars due to their undeniable connection and their satirical tone. Studies such as those of Daniel Hoffman and Kenneth Silverman have made note of Poe's satire which features allusions to foreign literatures. In fact, Poe does not hesitate to quote from several foreign authors in the text and he admits it right away. However, even though one can come across studies such as those of Gustav Gruener, Carl F. Schreiber, and Susan Levine all dealing with the German and Spanish influence in Poe, one may not encounter research that explores the Hellenic aspect of the matter systematically. This paper focuses on the importance of Hellenic language and literature for Poe's literary devices, and it also offers additional links between "A Predicament" and Hellenic mythology that have perhaps been overlooked by relevant research so far. RESUMEN: El relato corto "How to Write a Blackwood Article" de Poe y su "The Scythe of Time" llamaron la atención de varios eruditos debido a su conexión innegable y su tono satírico. Estudios como los de Daniel Hoffman y Kenneth Silverman han tomado nota de la sátira de Poe que presenta alusiones a literaturas extranjeras. De hecho, Poe no duda en citar a varios autores extranjeros en el texto, y lo admite de inmediato. Sin embargo, aunque se pueden encontrar estudios como los de Gustav Gruener, Carl F. Schreiber y Susan Levine sobre la influencia alemana y española sobre la obra de Poe, no se han producido investigaciones que exploran sistemáticamente el aspecto helénico del asunto. El presente artículo se centra en la importancia de la lengua y la literatura helénica para los recursos literarios de Poe y también ofrece enlaces adicionales entre "A Predicament" y la mitología helénica que tal vez hayan sido pasados por alto por investigaciones relevantes hasta el momento.

The Edgar Allan Poe Review, 2016

Journal of Transnational American Studies

This book examines the processes of editing and anthologizing as innovative contributions to the field of literary culture, analyzing how single-author editions and multi-author anthologies have created distinct reputations for Edgar Allan Poe. The book explores how Poe's editors, anthologizers, and translators continue to shape his global images"-Provided by publisher.

The Edgar Allan Poe Review, 2016

ES Review. Spanish Journal of English Studies, 2018