The narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym1994
and the abyss of interpretation
by J. Gerald Kennedy
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym is Edgar Allan Poe's only novel; indeed, Poe likely wrote it because he was unable to interest his publisher in a collection of his stories at that time (1836). Poe himself dismissed the novel shortly after its publication as "a very silly work," and Pym enjoyed minimal commercial success.
After the novel's inclusion in a collection of Poe's works in the 1850s, however, it exercised considerable influence on or was recognized by such writers as Jules Verne (who wrote a sequel), Arthur Rimbaud, Henry James, and W. H. Auden. Further, certain elements of Pym prefigure Herman Melville's Moby-Dick.
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In this new study of Pym J. Gerald Kennedy considers the novel in light of the political turbulence and racial unrest prevalent at the time of its publication...