The Count

Poe’s short, sharp story moves with menace along precisely measured lines of space and time and text that take it, in just a few pages, to the end of the world. Specific measurements of space and time convey a sense of inexorable progression, culminating in the universal devastation that follows the final confrontation of the prince with the “pestilence” in person. At the same time, though, the tale introduces other features that work against the plausibility of this evidence and conclusion. This essay seek to bring out these scattered elements of other possible times and logics: other possible outcomes of the plague.