Details

Poe, Queerness, and the End of Time


Poe, Queerness, and the End of Time


American Literature Readings in the 21st Century

von: Paul Christian Jones

96,29 €

Verlag: Palgrave Macmillan
Format: PDF
Veröffentl.: 16.05.2022
ISBN/EAN: 9783030970833
Sprache: englisch
Anzahl Seiten: 207

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Beschreibungen

This book builds upon recent theoretical approaches that define queerness as more of a temporal orientation than a sexual one to explore how Edgar Allan Poe's literary works were frequently invested in imagining lives that contemporary readers can understand as queer, as they stray outside of or aggressively reject normative life paths, including heterosexual romance, marriage, and reproduction, and emphasize individuals' present desires over future plans. The book's analysis of many of Poe's best-known works, including "The Raven," "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Black Cat," "The Masque of the Red Death," and "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," show that his attraction to the liberation of queerness is accompanied by demonstrations of extreme anxiety about the potentially terrifying consequences of non-normative choices. While Poe never resolved the conflicts in his thinking, this book argues that this compelling imaginative tension between queerness and temporal normativity is crucial to understanding his canon.
1. Introduction: Poe, Time, and Queerness.- 2. Resisting Reproduction in Poe’s Family Fictions: “Morella,” “Ligeia” and “The Fall of the House of Usher”.- 3. “My Evil Destiny”: The Queer Childhood and Queer Adulthood of William Wilson.- 4. Queer Spaces in “The Masque of the Red Death” and the Dupin Mysteries.- 5. “Nevermore!”: Non-Normative Desire and Queer Temporality in “The Black Cat” and “The Raven”.- 6. Epilogue: Poe’s Queer Afterlife: Revisiting “The Masque of the Red Death” in the AIDS Era.
<b>Paul Christian Jones</b>&nbsp;is Professor of English at Ohio University, USA, and the author of two books, Unwelcome Voices: Subversive Fiction in the Antebellum South (2005) and Against the Gallows: Antebellum American Writers and the Movement to Abolish Capital Punishment (2011).
Resourcefully adapting insights from recent queer theorists, Jones shifts the conversation on a queer Poe from sexuality to temporality, creating fresh, provocative perspectives on some of Poe’s most influential works. Jones exposes problematic heteronormative assumptions that have persistently structured Poe’s reception, with broader implications for how we read other nineteenth-century American authors.<br>--Carl Ostrowski, Professor of English at Middle Tennessee State University and editor of&nbsp;<i>Collected Tales, Poems, and Other Writings of Edgar Allan Poe&nbsp;</i>(Bloomsbury 2021)<p>&nbsp;Jones establishes, definitively, the validity of considering Poe as a queer author. Indeed, future studies will have to make a strong case about why we should&nbsp;not&nbsp;read Poe as queer. This galvanizing book is most welcome.--David Greven, Professor of English at the University of South Carolina and author of&nbsp;<i>Gender Protest and Same-Sex Desire in Antebellum American Literature</i></p><p><br>This book builds upon recent theoretical approaches that define queerness as more of a temporal orientation than a sexual one to explore how Edgar Allan Poe's literary works were frequently invested in imagining lives that contemporary readers can understand as queer, as they stray outside of or aggressively reject normative life paths, including heterosexual romance, marriage, and reproduction, and emphasize individuals' present desires over future plans. The book's analysis of many of Poe's best-known works, including "The Raven," "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Black Cat," "The Masque of the Red Death," and "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," show that his attraction to the liberation of queerness is accompanied by demonstrations of extreme anxiety about the potentially terrifying consequences of non-normative choices. While Poe never resolved the conflicts in his thinking, this book argues that this compelling imaginative tension between queerness and temporal normativity is crucial to understanding his canon.<br></p><p><b><br>Paul Christian Jones</b>&nbsp;is Professor of English at Ohio University, USA, and the author of two books, Unwelcome Voices: Subversive Fiction in the Antebellum South (2005) and Against the Gallows: Antebellum American Writers and the Movement to Abolish Capital Punishment (2011).<br></p>
​Winner of the 2022 Poe Studies Association's Patrick F. Quinn Award for outstanding monographs on Poe Offers queer readings of some of Poe’s most well-known and frequently taught texts Challenges our consensus understandings of these texts, reconsidering villains and monsters as queer heroes
"Resourcefully adapting insights from recent queer theorists, Paul Christian Jones in&nbsp;<i>Poe, Queerness, and the End of Time</i>&nbsp;shifts the conversation on a queer Poe from sexuality to temporality, creating fresh, provocative perspectives on some of Poe’s most influential works. Jones exposes problematic heteronormative assumptions that have persistently structured Poe’s reception, with broader implications for how we read other nineteenth-century American authors."<br>--Carl Ostrowski, Professor of English at Middle Tennessee State University and editor of&nbsp;<i>Collected Tales, Poems, and Other Writings of Edgar Allan Poe&nbsp;</i>(2021)<p>&nbsp;“Jones offers original and always useful contributions throughout this book. He establishes, definitively, the validity of considering Poe as a queer author. Indeed, future studies will have to make a strong case about why we should&nbsp;not&nbsp;read Poe as queer. Jones convincingly argues that Poe’s work reflects queer temporality, given its frequent depiction of characters who do not conform to rigid temporal standards. This galvanizing book is most welcome.”</p>

--David Greven, Professor of English at the University of South Carolina and author of&nbsp;<i>Gender Protest and Same-Sex Desire in Antebellum American Literature </i>(2014)<p></p>

<p>"Focusing brilliantly on Poe’s exploration of alternative concepts of time, Paul Jones shows Poe exploring other forms of deviance and non-normative behavior—queer conceptions of time and life management, refusals to adapt to normative progressive expectations, such as marriage and child production. Grounding this study in the rich history of queer scholarship, Jones offers smart, fresh readings of Poe’s best-known stories."&nbsp;<br>--Leland Person, Professor of English at the University of Cincinnati and author of&nbsp;<i>Aesthetic Headaches: Women and a Masculine Poetics in Poe, Melville, and Hawthorne </i>(1988)</p>

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