Edgar Allan Poe and the Psychology and Rhetoric of Religious Autobiography

FAIN: FT-12812-76

Erich W. Sippel
Occidental College (Los Angeles, CA 90041-3314)

To study spiritual autobiographies written in America between 1800-1850 as well as works on rhetoric and logic. Poe's work exhibits a systematic exploration of states of consciousness that can be called religious, he also stressed rationality and logic. By examining how spiritual accounts use the principles of rhetoric and logic, a new perspective on the combination of poet and logician in Poe's sensibility will be shown.