A World of Words: Language and Displacement in the Fiction of Edgar Allan Poe

Michael J. S. Williams

Published by Duke University Press 1988

A World of Words

Language and Displacement in the Fiction of Edgar Allan Poe

Michael J. S. Williams

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822381495

Overview
Contents

About this book

A World of Words offers a new look at the degree to which language itself is a topic of Poe's texts. Stressing the ways his fiction reflects on the nature of its own signifying practices, Williams sheds new light on such issues as Poe's characterization of the relationship between author and reader as a struggle for authority, on his awareness of the displacement of an "authorial writing self" by a "self as it is written," and on his debunking of the redemptive properties of the romantic symbol.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Abbreviations Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	xiii
I. "A World of Words" Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
II. "The Personage in Question": Self and Language Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	17
III. "An Unknown Quantity of X": Some Anxieties of Authority Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	45
IV. "Duelli Lex Scripta, et Non, Aliterque": The Struggle for Authority Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	62
V. "Word of No Meaning": Denial of the Symbol Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	80
VI. Voice and Text: Displacements of Authority Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	105
VII. Conclusion: Allegories of Reading Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	122
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	153
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	179

Language: English
Publisher: Duke University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 201

eBook

Published: July 12, 2013
ISBN: 9780822381495