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Poe Studies/Dark Romanticism forward to this ecstatic moment in “Eureka” to resolvethe endingof “Usher,”but Peeplesprovides a useful model for students interested in testing whether Poe practiced what he preached. In comparison to the other essays in the Companion , “TwoVerse Masterworks:‘The Raven’and ‘Ulalume,”’by Richard Kopley and Kevin Hayes, seems modest. There is no striving for “original insight” here; the aim rather is to inform readers about the sources,allusions,compositionand p u b lication history, and reception of the poems. The discussionof “Ulalume”is more interpretive than that of “The Raven,”but there is little to suggest what makes the poems “masterworks.”If you are not using an edition of Poe’sworkswith extensive notes, this essay will fill the gap. The Companionconcludes with essays by Mark Neimeyer on popular culture and by Hayes on Poe’smodernism. Neimeyer discussesPoe’s interest in popular culture and its persistent interest in him, touching brieflyon historicalpreservation of places associatedwith Poe and his presence in illustrated and comic books, movies, music, and dramatic performance. This is an excellent, brief overview, a good place for students to begin an inquiryinto the subject.Hayes takeshis title, “OneMan Modernist,”from Robert Motherwell’scharacterization of Poe and approaches the question of his influence more narrowly,making a case for his impact upon high art, especially of the modernist period. Hayes traces Poe’srelation to French and German modernism in particular, including the poets Baudelaire and Mallarmk,and the painters Manet, Gauguin, Redon, Magritte, Max Ernst, and Alfred Kubin. Again, students might profitably begin an inquiry here. Given the scope of the Cambridge Companion, it is not surprising that the essays are uneven in purpose, conception of audience, and quality. It could be friendlier to undergraduates, more consistentlyaddressing their needs foraccessibleoverviews of Poe’s works and for reviews of previous criticism. In this regard it does not surpass the Companion to Poe Studies (1996) edited by Eric W. Carlson, but it is more amenable to classroom use than Carlson’scomprehensive tome and holds its own with the more tightlyfocused Historical Guide to EdgarAUan Poe (2001),edited byJ. Gerald Kennedy . There is much for students and instructors to glean from the Cambndge Companion, though they will want to be selective. In a recent “literary methods” course centered on Poe, I directed students to essays in the Cambridge Companion with good results, and I will continue to do so. Bruce I. Weiner St. Launence University Refreuding Lacan William Freedman. The Porous Sanctuary: Art and Anxiety in PoeS Short Fiction. Sexuality and Literature , vol. 10.NewYork: Peter Lang, 2002. 155 pp. $48.95 cloth. I toyed with the idea of trying to repress William Freedman until the end of this review essay after I realizedthat nearly twothousand words have gone by in ThePorous Sanctuary: Art and Anxiety in PoeS ShortFictionbefore we get to Poe (Freud,Foucault, Pauline Marie Roseman, Nietzsche, Nietzsche, Nietzsche,Jean-Franqois Lyotard,“Miller”[aka, to the uninitiated, J. Hillis Miller], Freud, Lacan, Freud, and daughter Anna all come first). Unfair and too clever, the stunt would also have been pointless:of course a reader getting all the way to volume 10 of a series called Sexuality and Literature , whosejacket copy contains the word “autotelic ,” knows what she (acceding to Freedman’s revanchist feminist grammar) is in for. But consideringchapter 1,“OnLiterature and Denial,”perhaps not entirely.Less than, or rather in addition to, a retheorizing or a re-psychoanalyzing of Poe, the opening of ThePorous Sanctuary introduces an aspiration ultimatelyto mediate the rancorous debate-from the beginning avery real, zero-sum debate, and at least since les affaires Heidegger and de Man virtually a talk show-pittingpro -theory againstanti-theoryculturewarriors. It is not easy to rise above partisanship in the RariacrS 107 academy’scurrent politicalandcumcular climate, however,and in Freedman’svery assertionsto be providinga thirdway-what he developsin hisfirst the communicativeinadequacies of language, makesof her [first“her,” presumably1work a magnifyingvalidationof her [second“her”? both her"^?] conviction.[2] chapter & “textual denial,’ a concept hovering somewherebetween the psychologicaland the textual ” [I]-he betrays his resistance, even his antipathy , to what has become the more embattled of the adversaries:“sometexts may be indeterminate not for the attractively ornate reasons...

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