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Current Poe Activities

Organizations

The annual meeting of the Poe Studies Association was held at the Hyatt Hotel on December 28, 1975, in conjunction with the Modern Language Association Convention in San Francisco. Presided over by Benjamin Franklin Fisher IV (Hahnemann Medical College), Vice-President of the association, the meeting began with a business session at which Richard P. Benton (Trinity College) was elected Secretary-Treasurer of the association (replacing John E. Reilly of Holy Cross) and co-editor of the association newsletter (also replacing Reilly), a task he will share with Eric W. Carlson (University of Connecticut), President of the association. Three directors were installed: John E. Reilly, Joseph M. DeFalco (Marquette University), and Alexander Hammond (Washington State). Papers on The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym were then read by DeFalco and Hammond followed by one on Poe’s relationship to Elizabeth Browning by Donald Barlow Stauffer (State University of New York at Albany).

A Poe section meeting was held as part of the Northeast MLA annual meeting at the University of Vermont on April 8-10, with Eric W. Carlson as chairman and John E. Reilly as secretary. The following papers were read: “Poe’s Landscape of the Soul: Vision and the Visionary in ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’” by Barton Levi St. Armand (Brown), “Poe’s Arabesques: Visionary Architecture” by Glen A. Oman (Temple); and “‘Metzengerstein’ and the Soul of Man” by David H. Hirsch (Brown). Michael Stanton (Vermont) was program director and arrangements chairman.

The Bronx Society of Science and Letters, with Dr. William C. Woolfson, President, presiding, celebrated the 167th birthday of Edgar Allan Poe on Sunday, January 18, 1976, at the Hall of Fame, University Heights, Bronx Community College, Bronx, New York, in a ceremony that began at 2:00 P.M. The ceremony consisted of laying a wreath at the newly rehabilitated bust of Poe (originally sculpted by Daniel French), which had been missing from the Hall of Fame arcade for two years during its renovation. The wreath-laying was followed by a talk by Dr. Theodore Kazimiroff on the site of the Hall of Fame and readings from Poe and commentaries on his work and life delivered by Robert Kornfield of the Riverdale Contemporary Theatre, Riverdale Neighborhood House. Mr. Kornfield’s performance was entitled “A visit with Poe: Out of Space, Out of Time” and was written by him.

 

Publications

Richard P. Benton, Associate Professor of English, Trinity College, will edit a symposium of critical essays on Poe’s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym for The American Transcendental Quarterly. Those who wish to submit papers for his consideration should do so by December 1, 1976, and address him in care of the English Department, Trinity College, Hartford, CT 06106. Early submissions and terseness will be appreciated.

A new critical review, Delta, edited by Claude Richard at the Universite Paul Valery, has just begun publication. Delta will publish special numbers on southern American writers of all periods, with occasional numbers on other major American figures. Articles in French or in English are contributed by members and associates of the Centre d’Etude et de Recherches sur les ecrivains du Sud des Etats-Unis and by others on invitation. The first number is devoted to Edgar Allan Poe and includes articles on “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “Four Beasts in One” and The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. Communications in respect to Delta and submissions of manuscripts should be addressed to Claude Richard, Revue Delta, Universite Paul Valery, B. P. 5043, 34032 Montpellier Cedex, France.

Lois Davis-Vines, Assistant Professor of French, Ohio University, is preparing a book for publication entitled Poe-Valery: A Study of Influence. The manuscript is a re-edited, translated version of her doctoral dissertation, L’lnfluence d’Edgar Allan Poe sur Paul Valery (Georgetown University, 1973) . She includes evidence that Valery read a number of Poe’s tales and also borrowed titles from Poe for two of his own works. [page 32:]

Dissertations

 

Two German doctoral dissertations, Ulrich Horstmann’s Ansatze zu einer technomorphen Theorie der Dichtung bei Edgar Allan Poe [Technomorphism in Edgar Allan Poe’s Theory of Poetry] (Munster, 1974), and Bernd Gunter s Das Groteske ssnd seine Gestaltung in den Erzahlungen Edgar Allan Poes [The Grotesqsse and Its Presentation in the Tales of Edgar Allen Poe] (Freiburg i. Br., 1974), have been summarized in English in English and American Studies in German (Tubingen, 1975), pp. 153-154.

Some recent doctoral dissertations are Carol Besker, ‘Edgar Allan Poe: The Madness of the Method,” University of California at San Diego, 1975, DA, 36 (1976), 5290-A; Martin Elliot Bickman, “Voyages of the Mind’s Return: A Jungian Study of Poe, Emerson, Whitman, and Dickinson,” University of Pennsylvania, 1974, DA, 36 (1975), 266-A; Elizabeth Ann Heldman, “The Dilemma of the Fragmented Self: Psychological Allegories in the Major Tales of Edgar Allan Poe” University of Pittsburgh, 1975, DA, 36 (1975), 2206-A; Sister Madeleine Kisner, “Color in the Worlds and Works of Poe, Hawthorne, Crane, Anderson, and Welty,” Universiry of Michigan, 1973, DA 36 (1975), 3714-A; Maurice H. J. Morin, “Poe’s Fiction: The Metaphysic of a Darkening Vision,” Brown University, 1975; Paul Edward Nett, “A Closer Look at the Mind and Art of Edgar Allan Poe,” University of Kentucky, 1975, DA, 36 (1975), 1507-A; Nancy Ann Watanabe, “Creative Destruction: The Irony of Self-Betrayal in the Psychosymbolic Monologue — Browning, Poe, Eliot, Kafka and Camus,” Indiana University, 1975, DA, 36 (1976), 5289-A.

Richard P. Benton, Trinity College

NOTES

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