The Figures of Edgar Allan Poe: Authorship, Antebellum Literature, and Transatlantic Rhetoric PDF
Preview The Figures of Edgar Allan Poe: Authorship, Antebellum Literature, and Transatlantic Rhetoric
Gero Guttzeit The Figures of Edgar Allan Poe Buchreihe der ANGLIA/ ANGLIA Book Series Edited by Lucia Kornexl, Ursula Lenker, Martin Middeke, Gabriele Rippl, Hubert Zapf Advisory Board Laurel Brinton, Philip Durkin, Olga Fischer, Susan Irvine, Andrew James Johnston, Christopher A. Jones, Terttu Nevalainen, Derek Attridge, Elisabeth Bronfen, Ursula K. Heise, Verena Lobsien, Laura Marcus, J. Hillis Miller, Martin Puchner Volume 56 Gero Guttzeit The Figures of Edgar Allan Poe Authorship, Antebellum Literature, and Transatlantic Rhetoric For an overview of all books published in this series, please see http://www.degruyter.com/view/serial/36292 Zugl.: Gießen, Univ., Diss., 2014 ISBN 978-3-11-051814-6 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-052015-6 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-051818-4 ISSN 0340-5435 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.dnb.de abrufbar. © 2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Druck und Bindung: CPI books GmbH, Leck ♾ Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com MeinerTochterLenjaSophia Contents Acknowledgements IX Abbreviations XI Note on the Text XIII Introduction 1 The Problem of Poe 1 Rhetoricizing Poe 9 Part I Authorship, Antebellum Literature, and Transatlantic Rhetoric Towards a Rhetoric of Authorship: Theoretical, Poetical, and Performative Figures of the Author 21 . The Figures of the Author 22 . Theoretical, Poetical, and Performative Figures of the Author 32 “Under the Ban of the Empire of Literature”: Print Culture, the Rise of the Author, and the Transatlantic Dispersal of Rhetoric, 1776–1849 54 . The Author, Rhetoric, and the Emergence of Literature 55 . The Effects of Poetry from the New Rhetoric to Romantic Aesthetics 64 . “How to Write a Blackwood Article”: Transatlantic Antebellum Cultures of Print and Rhetoric 77 Part II The Figures of Edgar Allan Poe “Letters of Recommendation”: The Transatlantic Poet-Critic between the Rules of Rhetoric and Romantic Aesthetics 89 . The Poet-Critic in the “Letter to B—” 92 . The Rules of Rhetoric and Doggerel Aesthetics 104 VIII Contents The Genius Rhetorician: The Rhetoric of “The Philosophy of Composition” 124 . Poe, Dickens, Godwin and the Question of Writing Backwards 124 . From “The Philosophy of Composition” to The Philosophy of Rhetoric 129 . The Poetical Madness of Composition 139 . Godwin’s Autocommentary 141 . Figuring the Rhetorical Poet-Critic in Times of Romanticism 145 “The Ingenuity of Unravelling”: Abductive Powers and Rhetorical Inventors in the Tales of Ratiocination 148 . The Author’s and Detective’s Creative and Resolvent Powers 149 . Author and Detectiveas Rhetorical Inventors of Truth 162 The Jingle-Man and the Damned Rhetorician: Poetry, Elocution, and the Political Rationale of Verse 172 . Poe and the Failure to Distinguish Between Poetry and Rhetoric: A Short Reception History 173 . The Elocutionary Production of Beauty: Style and Performance in “Ulalume” 177 . “A Well Understood Poetical License”: The Politics of Performance in “The Rationale of Verse” 187 “The Only Proper Stage for the Literary Histrio”: Delivery and its Dangers in the Antebellum Cultures of Rhetoric and Print 196 . “Stand and Deliver”: Poe’s Boston Lyceum Appearance and its Aftermath 201 . “The Characteristics of a Popular Performer”: Acting Against “Loss of Breath” 208 . “X-ing a Paragrab”: Technological Delivery, Anastatic Printing and Crossing Out the Author 218 Concluding Remarks 223 Works Cited 226 Index of Names 250 Index of Subjects 253 Acknowledgements Onlythosevoicesfromwithoutareeffectivewhichcanspeakinthelanguageofavoice within. KennethBurke,TheRhetoricofMotives(1969:39) SomeofPoe’sovertlymetatextualtales–suchas“ManuscriptFoundinaBottle” in1835and“ThePurloinedLetter”in1844–appearedinanannualpublication calledTheGift:AChristmas,NewYear,andBirthdayPresent.Thisisquitefitting inthattheveryoriginsofthisbooklieinaChristmaspresentin1998butalsoin thatIhavebeengivensomuchbymyteachers,colleagues,friends,andfamily, to all of whom I would like to give thanks. I could not have written, perhaps authored,this book without them. Atthe UniversityofSiegen, Iwas introducedtoAnglophone literaturesand ancient languages by Nancy Bunge,Werner Deuse, K. Ludwig Pfeiffer, and Bri- gitte Pichon. My interest in the rhetorical connections between Scotland and the United States originated during the Masters programme in creative writing attheUniversityofEdinburgh,whileIwasdiscussingmyownfledglingliterary attempts with, among others, Rajorshi Chakraborti and Mati Kaim.Thank you. At Gießen,where most of the work on this project was completed, I would like to thank my Doktorvater Ingo Berensmeyer,who introduced me to author- ship studies and supported me from the earliest to the latest stages of the book. Iamalso indebtedtomysecondsupervisorAnnetteSimonis,whotaught mecomparativeliterature,andtotheothermembersofmydissertationcommit- teeWolfgangHalletandAndreasLangenohl.Fortheirhelp,abedtocrashonor oneHanjertoomany,thankyou,RenéDietrich,JuliaFaisst,TobiasGabel,Mirjam Horn-Schott, Frank Ipgrave,Tim Kurtzweil, Reinhard Möller, Alexander Scherr, JuttaWeingarten,andKatharinaZilles.Firstandforemost,IwishtothankNata- lyaBekhtaandDanielHartleyforcountlesshoursofdiscussionsaboutrhetoric, poetics,dialectics, and narratology, for reading my workand helping me write, for their critical acuity and for their deep friendship. BeyondGießen,IamgratefultomycolleaguesandfriendsatGhentUniver- sity,whereIresearchedandtaughtaspartoftheResearchonAuthorshipasPer- formance(RAP)project,inparticularMaaheenAhmed,SeanBex,GertBuelens, MarysaDemoor,andDeboraVanDurmeaswellasmycolleaguesonthejournal Authorship Yuri Cowan and Jasper Schelstraete. At De Gruyter, my thanks go to the editors of the Anglia Book series and my in-house editors, Ulrike Krauß and Katja Lehming. I also wish to express mygratitude to the manycolleagues whoofferedaforumorcommentedthemselvesontheproject,amongwhomare Heinrich Detering,Christoph Ehland, Emron Esplin, Monika Fludernik, Margar-
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