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

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. 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. 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 The Anglia Book Series (ANGB) offers a selection of high quality work on all areas and aspects of English philology. It publishes book-length studies and essay collections on English language and linguistics, on English and American literature and culture from the Middle Ages to the present, on the new English literatures, as well as on general and comparative literary studies, including aspects of cultural and literary theory The Figures of Edgar Allan Poe gives a new account of the rhetorical dimensions of Poe’s texts. It investigates rhetorical figures of the author in Poe’s critical writings, tales, poems, and lectures, reframing antebellum literary culture as a transatlantic culture of rhetoric.