This dissertation is a study of Edgar Allan Poe that illustrates the values for originality and creativity that he sought to institute for literature, and the connections that these values have to literary criticism. This dissertation seeks to accomplish this, first, by performing close readings of Poes criticism and fiction especially the Marginalia, which is a cornerstone of this study in order to demonstrate the importance of discontinuity in Poes understanding of creativity and historical emergence. I argue that Poe attempted to figure the work of the creative imagination in literature and criticism as a temporal and spatial discontinuity in order to confront the mechanical entrainment produced by the new forms and technologies of mass print. Secondly, the readings performed in this dissertation address and respond to the problems raised recently by Poe studies, which question Poes relation to the US. This recent work on Poe claims that Poe scholarship has suffered in light of a-historical and foreign studies that have concealed Poes relation to history. Critics, therefore, have lately proposed a closer contextualization of Poes work to return him to his rightful place in history as an American author. In disclosing the ongoing intention of Poes writing to seek discontinuity from temporal entrainment, however, this dissertation illustrates how the contextualization of Poe within America proposed by recent Poe studies colludes with the practices that Poe confronted. Further, this dissertation illustrates the discontinuous as an affirmation of historical emergence rather than a desire for an a-historical withdrawal, as numerous contextualizing studies of Poe have done. The readings of Poe offered here serve to illustrate how recent Poe studies far from offering the authentic version of Poe that they promise actually function as an effect of the tendencies expressed in journalism that produce a static, linear-chronological conception of time. This dissertation concludes, therefore, that much recent work in Poe studies obscures Poes understanding of creation, as well as the value for literature and criticism that Poe tied to possibilities for historical emergence.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-04082010-205613 |
| Date | 22 June 2010 |
| Creators | Lopez, Lope |
| Contributors | Donald Pease, Philip Watts, William Scott, Paul Bové, Ronald Judy |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-04082010-205613/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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