Poe and the Apocalyptic Sublime: “The Masque of the Red Death”

This essay examines “The Masque of the Read Death,” one of Poe’s most allusive tales, as a striking example of the aesthetics of the apocalyptic sublime. Combining several key ideas from Burke’s Philosophical Enquiry into the Origins of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful with numerous motifs fro...

Ausführliche Beschreibung

Gespeichert in:  
Bibliographische Detailangaben
1. VerfasserIn: Cook, Jon 1953- (VerfasserIn)
Medienart: Elektronisch Aufsatz
Sprache:Englisch
Verfügbarkeit prüfen: HBZ Gateway
Journals Online & Print:
Lade...
Fernleihe:Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste
Veröffentlicht: Brill [2019]
In: Religion and the arts
Jahr: 2019, Band: 23, Heft: 5, Seiten: 489-515
normierte Schlagwort(-folgen):B Poe, Edgar Allan 1809-1849, The masque of the red death / Apokalyptik / Das Erhabene / Burke, Edmund 1729-1797, A philosophical enquiry into the origin of our ideas of the sublime and beautiful
RelBib Classification:AB Religionsphilosophie; Religionskritik; Atheismus
CB Christliche Existenz; Spiritualität
CE Christliche Kunst
weitere Schlagwörter:B Burke
B Apocalyptic
B beautiful
B Sublime
B Grotesque
B Cholera
Online Zugang: Volltext (Verlag)
Volltext (doi)
Beschreibung
Zusammenfassung:This essay examines “The Masque of the Read Death,” one of Poe’s most allusive tales, as a striking example of the aesthetics of the apocalyptic sublime. Combining several key ideas from Burke’s Philosophical Enquiry into the Origins of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful with numerous motifs from biblical apocalyptic symbolism, Poe’s “Masque” was specifically designed to create an effect of sublime terror in the reader. Basing his image of mass death on the cholera pandemic of 1832, which killed thousands of individuals in Europe and America, Poe created a historically grounded parable of apocalyptic extinction with a myriad of connections with literary, biblical, and artistic tradition. Poe’s tale echoes many of Burke’s remarks on the nature and sources of sublime and beautiful effects while conveying a biblically based vision of human mortality.
ISSN:1568-5292
Enthält:Enthalten in: Religion and the arts
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1163/15685292-02305002