Embattled National Topics

Parochial and Universal in Edgar Allan Poe’s Depiction of the American South

Abstract

Although Poe never worked out a systematic relationship between his political and philosophical thought, or relied entirely on the South for his conceptual framework, the Southern argument seems to have been indispensable to him, it created that transitional area which helped formulate its perceptions and language: the means by which he saw and constructed the world. Edgar Allan Poe is shown to draw on both individual and national, or rather sectional, Southern fears, much like fellow writers, who struggled with by and large similar issues.