Table Of ContentGero 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
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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-
