Abstract
One of the clichés which haunts critical assessments of Poe is that not only did he write the Gothic, but he lived a gothic life. Accordingly, this article begins with a biographical sketch before proceeding to a critical assessment of Poe’s contribution to the tradition of American and indeed global gothic literature. The Poe oeuvre is defined by its wildly miscegenated and at times contradictory impulses: the gothic is entangled with other genres (detective and science fiction, comedy and adventure) and interiorised in surreal scenarios which anticipate the Freudian exploration of psychology. We conclude with an assessment of Poe’s enduring influence and iconic status in popular culture.
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Jarvis, B. (2021). The Horrors of Edgar Allan Poe. In: Bloom, C. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Steam Age Gothic. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40866-4_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40866-4_5
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