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- Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pymof Nantucket and Related Tale
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Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pymof Nantucket and Related Tale
ISBN: 9780199540471
Author : Poe, Edgar Allan
Published: 2008
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Number of pages: 336
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Author : Poe, Edgar Allan
Published: 2008
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Number of pages: 336
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Description
Edgar Allan Poe’s only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket is a pivotal work in which Poe calls attention to the act of writing and to the problem of representing the truth. It is an archetypal American story of escape from domesticity tracing a young man’s rite of passage through a series of terrible brushes with death during a fateful sea voyage. Included are eight related tales which further illuminate Pym by their treatment of persistent themes–fantastic voyages, gigantic whirlpools, and premature burials–as well as its relationship to Poe’s art and life.
And now I found these fancies creating their own realities, and all imagined horrors crowding upon me in fact’. The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym is an archetypal American story of escape from home and family which traces a young man’s rite of passage through a series of terrible brushes with death during a fateful sea voyage. But it also goes much deeper, as Pym encounters various interpretative dilemmas, at last leaving the reader with a broken-off ending that defies solution. Apart from its violence and mystery, the tale calls attention to the act of writing and to the problem of representing truth. Layer upon layer of elaborate hoaxes include its author’s own role of posing as ghost-writer of the narrative; Pym – his only novel – has become the key text for our understanding of Poe. This edition offers eight short tales which are linked to Pym by their treatment of persistent themes – fantastic voyages, gigantic whirlpools, and premature burials – or by their ironic commentary on Poe’s mystification of his readers.
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