Diss.--Neuphilologische Fakultät--Tübingen--Universität Tübingen, 1988.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 49-50).

Thesis (M.A.)--Brigham Young University. Dept. of English, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 64-69).

Thesis--Freiburg im Breisgau. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 271-289).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 49-50). Also available in print.

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

Thesis (M.A.)--Acadia University, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 111-119). Also available on the Internet via the World Wide Web.

Charles Meryon is considered to be among the most skilled etchers in the history of French printmaking. Born in 1821, Meryon reached professional maturity during the French etching revival. His most ambitious and well-known project is his Eaux-fortes sur Paris (1850-1854), a suite of 22 etchings comprising twelve large views of Parisian landmarks and ten smaller prints of poems and other images. What is perhaps most remarkable about Meryon's representations of Paris is that they seem to show objective, detailed views of the city while also conveying the artist's subjective, uncanny perceptions of it. This tension between the real and the metaphysical is often interpreted as an indication of Meryon's mental illness, which was well known by critics of his time. One of the most frequently touched on but least developed themes in the scholarship on Meryon is his connection with Edgar Allan Poe, who was widely read and embraced in France beginning in the 1840s. The first French translation of Poe's work was published in 1844 and by the time that Meryon began the Eaux-Fortes suite, several of Poe's short stories had been translated in French journals and newspapers. Meryon began the suite in 1850, just a year after Poe's death, and had completed at least the first state of all of the etchings by 1854. Meryon's suite, like Poe's tales, has an ominous mood and, when considered as a whole, tells a story of a city haunted by corruption and evil and by its own history. In his depictions of the city's architecture and landscape, Meryon penetrates beneath Paris's surface into what he sees as its character and his treatment of his subject aligns closely with Edgar Allan Poe's representations of the modern world. The urban environment's metaphysical underpinnings that are evident in Meryon's Eaux-Fortes sur Paris merit a thorough examination, and a consideration of Meryon's representation in conjunction with Edgar Allan Poe's tales that were popular in France during the years in which Meryon was working makes it possible to put Meryon's work and his perceptions of Paris into a larger context. / text

Despite being one of the most influential writers of his era, Edgar Allan Poe led a mostly tragic life of impoverishment and personal failures and tragedies. This essay explores to what extent this affected Poe’s writing, by examining the portrayals of the emotions of grief and sorrow in some of Poe’s work, via close-reading. Further, the essay contains a shorter biographical analysis of Poe’s life and work, in order to establish a connection between the two. The meaning of the emotions of grief and sorrow within Poe’s works are discussed, and connected to Poe’s biography. The results show that Poe’s works are sometimes converging with tragedies from his own life, his personal tragedies and his stories featuring death, grief and sorrow converge on several occasions throughout his intense career.

This thesis focuses on the creative work of Edgar Allan Poe, and pieces together how various references to music in his poems and tales function in ways that echo throughout his oeuvre. By taking into account the plots and themes that surround references to music in Poe’s works, this thesis explores how Poe uses and describes music as it inhabits real world settings, liminal spaces, and otherworldly sites. The literature this thesis draws from ranges from tales little-discussed in Poe criticism, such as “The Spectacles” and “The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether,” to more complex and popular tales such as “The Fall of the House of Usher” and “The Masque of the Red Death”; the same is true of the poems, which range from “Fanny” to “Annabel Lee.” The exploration of the less critically popular texts in conjunction with the more critically popular ones brings to light a clear hierarchy of music’s function in the tales and poems of Edgar Poe in ways that converse with his treatment of madness and the divine. The work of music and literature scholars will serve as the basis for distinguishing and historically positioning Poe’s use of certain musical terms, as well as ultimately providing a means to express the mythical, philosophical, and theological implications of music’s place in Poe’s works.