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

Gero Guttzeit

Published by De Gruyter 2017

The Figures of Edgar Allan Poe

Authorship, Antebellum Literature, and Transatlantic Rhetoric

Gero Guttzeit

Volume 56 in the series Buchreihe der Anglia / Anglia Book Series

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110520156

Overview
Contents

About this book

The Figures of Edgar Allan Poe is the first study to address the rhetorical dimensions of Poe’s textual and discursive practices. It argues that Poe is a figure and figurer of the emergence of the modern understanding of literature in the early nineteenth century that resulted from the birth of the romantic author and the so-called ‘death of rhetoric’. Building on accounts of Poe as a skilled navigator of American antebellum print culture, Gero Guttzeit reinterprets Poe as representative of the vital role that transatlantic rhetoric played in antebellum literature. He 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 literary culture. In so doing, he also proposes a general rhetorical theory of theoretical, poetical, and performative figures of the author. Beyond Poe studies, the book intervenes in current debates on the romantic origins of the modern author and demonstrates that rhetorical theory offers new ways of exploring authorship beyond the nineteenth century.

Author / Editor information

Gero Guttzeit, Justus Liebig University Giessen, Germany.

Reviews

"All in all, Guttzeit’s study is not only innovative in its rhetorical approach, which uncovers a hitherto not adequately recognized essential dimension in the whole work of Poe, but it simultaneous locates Poe in a characteristically North American antebellum cultural climate which is intensely shaped by transatlantic rhetoric."
Wolfgang Müller in: Anglia 136/4 (2018), 763-767

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	I
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	VII
Acknowledgements Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	IX
Abbreviations Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	XI
Note on the Text Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	XIII
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part I. Authorship, Antebellum Literature, and Transatlantic Rhetoric
1 Towards a Rhetoric of Authorship: Theoretical, Poetical, and Performative Figures of the Author Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	21
2 “Under the Ban of the Empire of Literature”: Print Culture, the Rise of the Author, and the Transatlantic Dispersal of Rhetoric, 1776–1849 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	54
Part II. The Figures of Edgar Allan Poe
3 “Letters of Recommendation”: The Transatlantic Poet-Critic between the Rules of Rhetoric and Romantic Aesthetics Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	89
4 The Genius Rhetorician: The Rhetoric of “The Philosophy of Composition” Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	124
5 “The Ingenuity of Unravelling”: Abductive Powers and Rhetorical Inventors in the Tales of Ratiocination Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	148
6 The Jingle-Man and the Damned Rhetorician: Poetry, Elocution, and the Political Rationale of Verse Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	172
7 “The Only Proper Stage for the Literary Histrio”: Delivery and its Dangers in the Antebellum Cultures of Rhetoric and Print Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	196
Concluding Remarks Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	223
Works Cited Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	226
Index of Names Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	250
Index of Subjects Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	253

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: De Gruyter
Audience: Researchers (English Literature, American Studies, Literary Studies, Rhetoric)
Pages
- Front matter: 13
- Main content: 256
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 2
Keywords: Edgar Allan Poe; 19th-Century American Literature; Depiction of Literary Characters

eBook

Published: May 8, 2017
ISBN: 9783110520156

Hardcover

Published: May 8, 2017
ISBN: 9783110518146

Paperback

Published: November 19, 2018
ISBN: 9783110635270