Startseite Literaturwissenschaften 12. Edgar Allan Poe, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838)
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12. Edgar Allan Poe, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838)

  • Stephanie Sommerfeld
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Handbook of the American Novel of the Nineteenth Century
Ein Kapitel aus dem Buch Handbook of the American Novel of the Nineteenth Century

Abstract

Of all of Poe’s works, his novel is the text that still invites the most critical controversy and plurality. The variety of readings that the famously inconclusive ending of Pym’s travel narrative has received illustrates this critical diversity. Pym intensely engages with the expansionism, scientific speculations, racial conflicts, and ideological foundations of antebellum culture. Created by an author who privileged poetry and short fiction over longer pieces of writing but was forced to act against his own convictions because of an economic impasse, the novel impudently plagiarizes contemporary exploration accounts and sea adventures. Its preface and editorial note serve to complicate the narrator’s, the supposed coauthor’s, and the editor’s reliability and also betray the novel’s conflicted relationship with its audience. In a narrative structure that is constructed like a hall of mirrors, the narrating protagonist keeps misreading signs and lives through various extreme situations that hold him in suspense on the verge of death.

Abstract

Of all of Poe’s works, his novel is the text that still invites the most critical controversy and plurality. The variety of readings that the famously inconclusive ending of Pym’s travel narrative has received illustrates this critical diversity. Pym intensely engages with the expansionism, scientific speculations, racial conflicts, and ideological foundations of antebellum culture. Created by an author who privileged poetry and short fiction over longer pieces of writing but was forced to act against his own convictions because of an economic impasse, the novel impudently plagiarizes contemporary exploration accounts and sea adventures. Its preface and editorial note serve to complicate the narrator’s, the supposed coauthor’s, and the editor’s reliability and also betray the novel’s conflicted relationship with its audience. In a narrative structure that is constructed like a hall of mirrors, the narrating protagonist keeps misreading signs and lives through various extreme situations that hold him in suspense on the verge of death.

Kapitel in diesem Buch

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Editors’ Preface V
  3. Contents VII
  4. Reading the Nineteenth-Century Novel in the Present: An Introduction 1
  5. Part I
  6. 1. Sentimentalism 17
  7. 2. Romance and Gothic 34
  8. 3. Realism and Naturalism 58
  9. 4. Race and Citizenship 74
  10. 5. Media and Print Culture 91
  11. 6. Transnationalism and Transculturation 108
  12. 7. Nature and Environment 130
  13. Part II
  14. 8. Charles Brockden Brown, Wieland; or, The Transformation. An American Tale (1798) 157
  15. 9. James Fenimore Cooper, The Pioneers, or The Sources of the Susquehanna; a Descriptive Tale (1823) 174
  16. 10. Lydia Maria Child, Hobomok, A Tale of Early Times (1824) 197
  17. 11. Catharine Sedgwick, Hope Leslie, or, Early Times in the Massachusetts (1827) 215
  18. 12. Edgar Allan Poe, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838) 230
  19. 13. Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter: A Romance (1850) 248
  20. 14. Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale (1851) 266
  21. 15. Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin: Or, Life Among the Lowly (1852) 281
  22. 16. William Wells Brown, Clotel; or the President’s Daughter (1853) 298
  23. 17. John Rollin Ridge, The Life and Adventures of Joaquín Murieta, the Celebrated California Bandit (1854) 315
  24. 18. Martin Delany, Blake; Or, the Huts of America (1859–1862) 338
  25. 19. Elizabeth Stoddard, The Morgesons (1862) 358
  26. 20. John William De Forest, Miss Ravenel’s Conversion From Secession To Loyalty (1867) 378
  27. 21. Louisa May Alcott, Little Women (1868) 399
  28. 22. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, The Silent Partner (1871) 418
  29. 23. Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady (1881) 434
  30. 24. Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens), Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885) 455
  31. 25. Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward 2000–1887 (1888) 474
  32. 26. William Dean Howells, A Hazard of New Fortunes (1890) 490
  33. 27. Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage (1895) 508
  34. 28. Sarah Orne Jewett, The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896) 525
  35. 29. Kate Chopin, The Awakening (1899) 543
  36. Index 559
  37. List of Contributors 575
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110481327-013

Kapitel in diesem Buch

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Editors’ Preface V
  3. Contents VII
  4. Reading the Nineteenth-Century Novel in the Present: An Introduction 1
  5. Part I
  6. 1. Sentimentalism 17
  7. 2. Romance and Gothic 34
  8. 3. Realism and Naturalism 58
  9. 4. Race and Citizenship 74
  10. 5. Media and Print Culture 91
  11. 6. Transnationalism and Transculturation 108
  12. 7. Nature and Environment 130
  13. Part II
  14. 8. Charles Brockden Brown, Wieland; or, The Transformation. An American Tale (1798) 157
  15. 9. James Fenimore Cooper, The Pioneers, or The Sources of the Susquehanna; a Descriptive Tale (1823) 174
  16. 10. Lydia Maria Child, Hobomok, A Tale of Early Times (1824) 197
  17. 11. Catharine Sedgwick, Hope Leslie, or, Early Times in the Massachusetts (1827) 215
  18. 12. Edgar Allan Poe, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838) 230
  19. 13. Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter: A Romance (1850) 248
  20. 14. Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale (1851) 266
  21. 15. Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin: Or, Life Among the Lowly (1852) 281
  22. 16. William Wells Brown, Clotel; or the President’s Daughter (1853) 298
  23. 17. John Rollin Ridge, The Life and Adventures of Joaquín Murieta, the Celebrated California Bandit (1854) 315
  24. 18. Martin Delany, Blake; Or, the Huts of America (1859–1862) 338
  25. 19. Elizabeth Stoddard, The Morgesons (1862) 358
  26. 20. John William De Forest, Miss Ravenel’s Conversion From Secession To Loyalty (1867) 378
  27. 21. Louisa May Alcott, Little Women (1868) 399
  28. 22. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, The Silent Partner (1871) 418
  29. 23. Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady (1881) 434
  30. 24. Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens), Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885) 455
  31. 25. Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward 2000–1887 (1888) 474
  32. 26. William Dean Howells, A Hazard of New Fortunes (1890) 490
  33. 27. Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage (1895) 508
  34. 28. Sarah Orne Jewett, The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896) 525
  35. 29. Kate Chopin, The Awakening (1899) 543
  36. Index 559
  37. List of Contributors 575
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