The Figures of Edgar Allan Poe: Authorship, Antebellum Literature, and Transatlantic Rhetoric

Description

This book is the first study to address the rhetorical dimensions of Poe`s works. It investigates rhetorical figures of the author in Poe`s critical writings, tales, poems, and lectures to give a new account of Poe`s significance for antebellum literature. Beyond Poe studies, the book intervenes in current debates on the so-called ´death of rhetoric`, the romantic origins of the modern author, and the theory of authorship. Contents Acknowledgements Abbreviations Note on the Text Introduction Part I. Authorship, Antebellum Literature, and Transatlantic Rhetoric 1 Towards a Rhetoric of Authorship: Theoretical, Poetical, and Performative Figures of the Author 2 “Under the Ban of the Empire of Literature”: Print Culture, the Rise of the Author, and the Transatlantic Dispersal of Rhetoric, 1776–1849 Part II. The Figures of Edgar Allan Poe 3 “Letters of Recommendation”: The Transatlantic Poet-Critic between the Rules of Rhetoric and Romantic Aesthetics 4 The Genius Rhetorician: The Rhetoric of “The Philosophy of Composition” 5 “The Ingenuity of Unravelling”: Abductive Powers and Rhetorical Inventors in the Tales of Ratiocination 6 The Jingle-Man and the Damned Rhetorician: Poetry, Elocution, and the Political Rationale of Verse 7 “The Only Proper Stage for the Literary Histrio”: Delivery and its Dangers in the Antebellum Cultures of Rhetoric and Print Concluding Remarks Works Cited Index of Names Index of Subjects