Poe and the Perfectability of Man, (1982), title page and table of contents

ABSTRACT

POE AND THE PERFECTIBILITY OF MAN

FUSCO, RICHARD A. B.A., University of Pennsylvania, 1973. M.A., University of Pennsylvania, 1974. — M.A:, University of Mississippi, 1982. Thesis directed by Professor Benjamin Franklin Fisher IV.

Edgar Allan Poe based his definition of the philosophical concept the perfectibility of man on five eighteenth-century writers: Turgot, Priestley, Price, Condorcet and de Staël. A probable source for Poe's perspective is George Tucker, a Professor of Moral History at the University of Virginia during Poe's matriculation. Although he felt some attraction by the prose in perfectionist argumentation, Poe rejected its premises, choosing instead to believe that the study of human history proves the degradation of men rather than their apotheosis.

Poe's critical stance has two implications for the interpretation of his fiction. First, three tales — “The Devil in the Belfry,” “The Masque of the Red Death,” and “The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether” — have counter-utopian elements, reflecting Poe's antisocial inclinations and his pessimism over the human condition. Second, three other Short stories — “The Colloquy of Monos and Una,” “Some Words with a Mummy,” and “Mellonta Tauta” — satirize the methodology of the perfectionists by inverting their historical analysis: the tales assert that each successive era is no better than any of its predecessors. Overall, Poe's fiction about and criticism of the idea of perfectibility tend to be more reactionary than creative: he had no alternative theories to offer; he merely wanted to challenge the notion that mankind could progress.