Poe, Queerness, and the End of Time (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9783030970826)

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.

Author: Paul Christian Jones
ISBN-10: 3030970825
ISBN-13: 9783030970826
Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan
Language: English
Published: 05/17/2022
Pages: 207
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 0.91lbs
Size: 8.27h x 5.83w x 0.56d