Abstract
The fact that Nobel laureate T.S. Eliot discerns a “puerile” (1949, 327) quality in Edgar Allan Poe’s work in “From Poe to Valéry” does not come as a surprise if we consider how differently Eliot and Poe engage with the condition of modernity. While Eliot’s literary Modernism, at its heart, is intent on finding (new) meaning in the face of loss and fragmentation, Poe explodes self-congratulatory narratives of coherence and plays with the remaining epistemic fragments. Where Eliot strives for impersonal literature and truth, Poe is juggling with presumptuous authorial stand-ins in a hall of mirrors. If Eliot is the epitome of poeta doctus, Poe is poeta ludens, interested in the interplay of surface meanings and their destabilizing undercurrents rather than in learned profundity or unambiguous knowledge. These divergent approaches stem from conflicting assessments of authorial functions and the purpose of the literary medium, and result from how the authors position themselves with respect to the hegemonic cultural narratives of their time.
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Notes
- 1.
Although David Rosen cautions against taking the Modernists’ claims for impersonal poetry at face value, arguing that Eliot could never quite believe in it himself, I still take this concept to be a theoretical stance vital to Eliot’s authorial persona (Rosen 2003, 485 and footnote 21 on 485).
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Sommerfeld, S. (2023). Poe: Poeta Ludens. In: Ibáñez, J.R.I., Guerrero-Strachan, S.R. (eds) Retrospective Poe. American Literature Readings in the 21st Century. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09986-1_5
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