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Edgar Allan Poe and the Southern Gothic

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The Palgrave Handbook of the Southern Gothic

Abstract

This chapter explores the complex relationship of Edgar Allan Poe’s works to the Southern Gothic. Though raised in Virginia, and known during his lifetime as a Southern writer, Poe’s relationship to the region remains hard to pin down. Nonetheless, as this chapter explores, certain of his key works offered influential gothic critique of the antebellum South. This is explored in two texts which would exert a strong influence over later Southern writers: ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ (1839) and The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838). The chapter ends by arguing that thinking about Poe in terms of the Southern Gothic helps readers to appreciate his role as literary precursor, whilst allowing us to reflect upon the limitations of the very term itself.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Harold Bloom, ‘Inescapable Poe’, New York Review of Books, 1984.

  2. 2.

    T.S. Eliot, ‘From Poe to Valêry’, Hudson Review, 1949; Richard Wilbur, ‘The House of Poe’ (1934) in G.R. Thompson, ed. The Selected Writings of Edgar Allan Poe (New York: Norton, 2004).

  3. 3.

    These readings are collaeted in John P. Muller ed. The Purloined Poe: Lacan, Derrida & Psychoanalytic Reading (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988).

  4. 4.

    Kennedy, J. Gerald, ‘Poe in Our Time’, A Historical Guide to Edgar Allan Poe (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2001), ix; for other influential historicist takes, see Shawn Rosenheim and Stephen Rachman. The American Face of Edgar Allan Poe. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995).

  5. 5.

    Shawn Rosenheim and Stephen Rachman. The American Face of Edgar Allan Poe. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995).

  6. 6.

    Teresa Goddu, Gothic America: Narrative, History and Nation (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), p. 78.

  7. 7.

    W.J. Cash, The Mind of the South (New York: Knopf, 1941), p. 93.

  8. 8.

    Edgar Allan Poe to George W. Poe, July 14, 1839 in John W. Ostrom et al. eds. The Collected Letters of Edgar Allan Poe, Volume 1. (Staten Island, NY: Gordian Press, 2008), p. 185.

  9. 9.

    John Carlos Rowe, ‘Poe, Antebellum Slavery and Modern Criticism’, in Poe’s Pym: Critical Explorations, ed. Richard Kopley (Durham: Duke University Press, 1992), p. 117. See also Dana D. Nelson, The Word in Black and White: Reading ‘Race’ in American Literature 1638–1867 (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1992).

  10. 10.

    Ellen Glasgow, A Certain Measure: An Interpretation of Prose Fiction (New York: Harcourt, 1943), p. 132.

  11. 11.

    Lewis P. Simpson, The Dispossessed Garden: Pastoral and History in Southern Literature (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1975), p. 80.

  12. 12.

    ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’, in G.R. Thompson, ed. The Selected Writings of Edgar Allan Poe (New York: Norton, 2004), p. 601.

  13. 13.

    Charles Crow, American Gothic (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2009), p. 96.

  14. 14.

    Harry Levin, The Power of Blackness: Hawthorne, Poe, Melville (New York: Knopf, 1958).

  15. 15.

    Richard Gray, ‘I am a Virginian’: Poe and the South’ in A. Robert Lee ed., Edgar Allan Poe: The Design of Order (London: Vision Press, 1987), p. 183.

  16. 16.

    David Leverenz, ‘Poe and Gentry Virginia’, in Shawn Rosenheim and Stephen Rachman eds. The American Face of Edgar Allan Poe. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995), p. 211.

  17. 17.

    Toni Morrison, Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1992), p. 101.

  18. 18.

    Toni Morrison, Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1992), p. 101.

  19. 19.

    Harry Levin, The Power of Blackness: Hawthorne, Poe, Melville (New York: Knopf, 1958).

  20. 20.

    See e.g. Joan Dayan, ‘Amorous Bondage: Poe, Ladies and Slaves’, in Shawn Rosenheim and Stephen Rachman eds. The American Face of Edgar Allan Poe. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995), p. 197.

  21. 21.

    ‘The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym’, in G.R. Thompson, ed. The Selected Writings of Edgar Allan Poe (New York: Norton, 2004), p. 923.

  22. 22.

    Toni Morrison, Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1992), p. 102.

  23. 23.

    John Carlos Rowe, ‘Poe, Antebellum Slavery and Modern Criticism’, in Poe’s Pym: Critical Explorations, ed. Richard Kopley (Durham: Duke University Press, 1992), p. 117.

  24. 24.

    Teresa Goddu, Gothic America: Narrative, History and Nation (New York: Columbia, 1997), p. 75.

  25. 25.

    Teresa Goddu, Gothic America: Narrative, History and Nation (New York: Columbia, 1997), p. 80.

  26. 26.

    Teresa Goddu, Gothic America: Narrative, History and Nation (New York: Columbia, 1997), p. 85.

  27. 27.

    Teresa Goddu, Gothic America: Narrative, History and Nation (New York: Columbia, 1997), p. 82.

  28. 28.

    Teresa Goddu, Gothic America: Narrative, History and Nation (New York: Columbia, 1997), p. 82.

Bibliography

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  • Carlos Rowe, J. (1992). Poe, antebellum slavery and modern criticism. In R. Kopley (Ed.), Poe’s Pym: Critical explorations (p. 117). Durham: Duke University Press.

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  • Cash, W. J. (1941). The mind of the South. New York: Knopf.

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  • Crow, C. (2009). American Gothic. Cardiff: University of Wales Press.

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  • Glasgow, E. (1943). A certain measure: An interpretation of prose fiction. New York: Harcourt.

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  • Goddu, T. (1997). Gothic America: Narrative, history and nation. New York: Columbia.

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  • Gray, R. (1987). ‘I am a Virginian’: Poe and the South. In A. Robert Lee (Ed.), Edgar Allan Poe: The design of order (p. 183). London: Vision Press.

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  • Kennedy, J. Gerald. (2001). Poe in our time. In A historical guide to Edgar Allan Poe. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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  • Leverenz, D. (1995). Poe and gentry Virginia. In S. Rosenheim & S. Rachman (Eds.), The American face of Edgar Allan Poe (p. 211). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

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  • Levin, H. (1958). The power of blackness: Hawthorne, Poe, Melville. New York: Knopf.

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  • Morrison, T. (1992). Playing in the dark: Whiteness and the literary imagination. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

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  • Moses, M. J. (1910). The literature of the South. New York: Thomas Crowell and Co.

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Further Reading

  • Goddu, T. (1996). The ghost of race: Edgar Allan Poe and the Southern Gothic. In W. Henry (Ed.), Criticism and the color line: Desegregating American literary studies. New Brunswick: Rutgers. One of the more crucial modern re-interpretations of Poe’s relationship to the Southern Gothic.

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  • Shawn, R., & Stephen, R. (1995). The American face of Edgar Allan Poe. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. In addition to the essays cited in this work, the remainder of pieces in this excellent collection are invaluable for their historicisation of Poe’s gothic within the complex cultural and political milieu in which he lived and wrote.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Sussex, Brighton, UK

    Tom F. Wright

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  1. Tom F. Wright
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Harriet Beecher Stowe Professor Emerita Department of English Language and Literature, King’s College London, London, United Kingdom

    Susan Castillo Street

  2. Professor Emeritus of English, Bowling Green State University, Ohio, USA

    Charles L. Crow

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© 2016 The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s)

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Wright, T.F. (2016). Edgar Allan Poe and the Southern Gothic. In: Castillo Street, S., Crow, C. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of the Southern Gothic. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-47774-3_2

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