Edgar Allan Poe and the limits of the psychoanalytical approach

Overview & Synopsis

Edgar Allan Poe stands among these authors whose reputations were largely shaped by the nature of their works. The importance granted to the theme of insanity in the work of Edgar Poe has sparked debate amongst critics and scholars over the figure of the author as a neurotic subject, instead of focusing on the richness and originality of a collection of short stories imagined by a cunning author. The question seems therefore not to be of insane narrators but of a mad author. The thin line between these two entities is at the centre of this dissertation which questions the thriving psychoanalytical studies of Poe’s Tales (with a special focus onThe Black Cat, Berenice, The Tell-Tale Heart, The Imp of the Perverse, Loss of Breath and William Wilson) and reassesses the place of both psychoanalysis and literature in the interpretation of a work in which insanity is given a central place.