Front cover image for Gender and the poetics of reception in Poe's circle

Gender and the poetics of reception in Poe's circle

"Poe is frequently portrayed as an isolated, idiosyncratic genius who was unwilling or unable to adapt himself to the cultural conditions of his time. Eliza Richards revises this portrayal through an exploration of his collaborations and rivalries with his female contemporaries. Richards demonstrates that he staged his performance of tortured isolation in the salons and ephemeral publications of New York City in conjunction with prominent women poets whose work he both emulated and sought to surpass. She introduces and interprets the work of three important and largely forgotten women poets: Frances Sargent Osgood, Sarah Helen Whitman, and Elizabeth Oakes Smith
Print Book, English, 2004
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2004
Criticism, interpretation, etc
xvii, 238 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.
9780521832816, 0521832810
53993017
"The poetess" and Poe's performance of the feminine
Frances Sargent Osgood, salon poetry, and the erotic voice of print
Sarah Helen Whitman, spiritualist poetics, and the "phantom voice" of Poe
Elizabeth Oakes Smith's "unspeakable eloquence"
Coda : the raven's return
Based on the author's thesis (doctoral)--University of Michigan, 1997