Introduction: Essays on Poe, Epistemology, and Modern Thought

Susan Amper Introduction: Essays on Poe, Epistemology, and Modern Thought The Second International Edgar Allan Poe Conferencewasdrawingtoaclose .Theillustriousguest of honor had departed, having delivered himself the previous night of ripe,witty, and not unfmiliarjudgments upon Poe's literaryworth. Here, at the final session of the conference, the following three essays, in slightlydifferent form, were presented .Theysparkeda livelydiscussion-and soon after, the editorialdecision that a wider audience should have the opportunity to consider them. The title of the panel was "Calculation and Detection,"but the papers share larger perspectives than might be inferred from that name. A recurring theme is Poe's reach, the waysin which motifs and conceptsin his work prefigure prominent developmentsnot only in subsequentliterature but in modern science and mathematics as well. To characterizeis to risk circumscribing,yet I think it fair to say generally that these articles take up issues relating to how the world may be apprehended-ways of seeing,analyzing,and rep resenting.Exploredhere are the varietiesof such methods, their utility, and their limits. Susan Elizabeth Sweeney, examining "The Man of the Crowd,"observes that the narrator of the tale successivelyadopts two distinctmodes of observation,firstviewingthe crowd (and the old man) mediately through the lens of the window in which he sits, and later undertaking a more directand personalscrutiny.Sweeneydiscussesthe operation of these modes of seeing both in the storyand in relation to Poe's career and the subsequent evolutionof the detectivestory. Paul A. Harris's essay first situates "The Purloined Letter" in the context of mathematical debatescurrentin Poe's time. Harrisdescribesthe respective approaches of the Prefect, the Minister , and Dupin as corresponding to competing mathematical approaches, and then goes on to suggestthat the story's preferred concept of space and mathematicalreasoningimaginativelyanticipates the branch of geometryknown as topology. Ruth M. Harrison takes a broader look at Poe's work,uncoveringa lodeof themesandstructural elements that resonate strikingly with contemporaryintellectualconstructs : ideasin Eureka that encapsulate chaos theory; images that resemblemathematicalphenomena suchasM6bius strips and fractals; story structures evincing the paradoxand self-reflectionthat characterizepostmodernism . These essays are strikingin their persuasiveness as well as in their scope. The patterns they trace in the carpets of the texts they consider emerge clearlyto the eyeand mind. Equallycompelling are the connections they draw between Poe's work and what comes later. Often enough do we find essays purporting to reveal in their subjectsthatwhich isseminal;rarelydo the claims seem so welljustified. Poe's interest in scienceand technologyis of coursealreadywidely known,although the nature and depth of this interest is subject to debate. In recent years criticshave viewed Poe's involvement in suchareasmainlyin the context of the general public interest in these subjects.If he is not seen as merely appealing to the popular taste, at least he is thought of asexploringthese topicsasmanifestations of popular culture. The essays here, by contrast, present Poe as genuinely interested in modem scienceand technology,particularlywith regard to their epistemologicalimplications.Harris argues convincingly that Poe, scientific dilettante that he was, nevertheless demonstrates in "The Purloined Letter" a more-than-passing acquaintance with the mathematicaldebates of his 2 Poe Studies/Dark Romanticism day. Sweeneysees the inability of the narrator of “The Man of the Crowd” to understand the old man as a genuine failure, which acknowledges Poe’s own inability to understand the crowd and the social, political, or cultural forces it embodies . From these articles Poe’s expressed ideas emerge as powerful, viable-worthy of greater respect than they have lately enjoyed, and of further consideration. At the same time, nothing in these essays can be taken as denying the possibility that the texts in question contain elements of hoax; and the essays are tonic too for those like me disposed to doubt that Poe’swork should ever be taken quite in earnest. Certainly,if Poe’stales are characteristically self-reflective,as all of these articles point out, then one of the features they most consistently reflect is their own unreliability. If ever a tale did “not permit itself to be read,” it is “The Man of the Crowd” (PT, 388).More baffling than the old man, about whom the narrator ultimately assures us we can learn nothing, is the narrator himself: a man who professing keen insight, sees nothing, and...