Section A01 - The Short Fiction of Edgar Allan Poe

Institution:

Wheaton College - Massachusetts

Subject:

Description:

Without using ghosts, vampires, werewolves and other supernatural beings, Edgar Allan Poe produced a body of supernatural fiction that made him famous in Europe and America. Until Poe much American fiction was didactic, sentimental, and clichéd. By exploring the depths of the human mind, including his own, exposing dream states, fears and anxieties, desires and obsessions, cruelty both artless and intentional, Poe elevated American fiction with its limited focus on national character to the realms of literature (writ large) focusing on the terrible yet beautiful state of human existence. "William Wilson"or "The Man of the Crowd," for example, speaksof isolation and alienation from the very things to which one ought to be connected. "The Pit and the Pendulum" and "The Masque of the Red Death?eal directly with the inescapable terrors of life and death, while "The Cask of Amontillado" and"Hop-Frog" indulge archaic fantasies of revengeand murder. Equally compelling are the stories that deal less with unusual states of mind than with a superior intellect contemplating uncanny situations, such as the detective stories, "The Purloined Letter"and "The Gold-Bug." Suspending Poe biography?hich is indeed extraordinary-we will interpret the stories based on their contributions to the development of a story tradition in the United States that can be seen today in fiction by Joyce Carol Oates, Mary Gaitskill, Robert Girardi, Mark Richard and Valerie Martin, among other internationally known American writers. (Deyonne Bryant)

Credits:

3.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.wheatoncollege.edu

Phone Number:

(508) 285-7722

Regional Accreditation:

New England Association of Schools and Colleges

Calendar System:

Semester

The Course Profile information is provided and updated by third parties including the respective institutions. While the institutions are able to update their information at any time, the information is not independently validated, and no party associated with this website can accept responsibility for its accuracy.