Proper, Politic, and Fetishized Object: Representations of Body in the Fiction of Edgar Allan Poe

Authors

Courtney Glass, Florida International UniversityFollow

Document Type

Thesis

Degree

Master of Arts (MA)

Major/Program

English

First Advisor's Name

Bruce Harvey

First Advisor's Committee Title

Committee Chair

Second Advisor's Name

Nathaniel Cadle

Second Advisor's Committee Title

Committee Member

Third Advisor's Name

Michael P. Gillespie

Third Advisor's Committee Title

Committee Member

Keywords

Edgar Allan Poe, body studies, continental theory

Date of Defense

11-14-2019

Abstract

This thesis involves a close-reading of how Edgar Allan Poe writes the body and how bodies operate as discursive spaces to explore identity, sexuality, gender, and society and are constructed and deconstructed. Consideration is given to how Poe challenges, destabilizes, and problematizes notions of the body exacerbated by abnormal bodies absenting themselves via death, decay, or prosthetics and the meaning that is gathered around either their conjunction or disjunction.

The introduction gives an overview of relevant Poe criticism and a rationale for this project. Chapter II explores how Poe’s treatment of the body-proper and identity in “How to Write a Blackwood Article” and a “Predicament.” Chapter III looks at the body object in “Ligeia,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” and “Berenice.” Chapter IV investigates how the body politic functions in “The Man of the Crowd” and “The Man that Was Used Up.”

Identifier

FIDC008848

ORCID

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2401-5421

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License

Recommended Citation

Glass, Courtney, "Proper, Politic, and Fetishized Object: Representations of Body in the Fiction of Edgar Allan Poe" (2019). FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 4315.
https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/4315