A Descent Into Edgar Allan Poe and His Works: The Bicentennial

Today Edgar Allan Poe is a well-known and highly regarded author. When, a hundred years ago (1909), a group of Poe acquaintances, fans and scholars got together at the University of Virginia to commemorate Poe's birth centenary, they had to do so in order to modify the persistent misstatements of his earlier biographers, and to correct the unsettled judgment of his literary rank.
Now, in 2009, many Poe fans and scholars are gathering together once more to honour Poe on the second centenary of his birth. Different types of events (theatrical and musical performances, book auctions, etc.) and academic conferences have been celebrated on both sides of the Atlantic, acclaiming Poe's literary rank again. This volume brings together a wide range of scholars with varied critical approaches and succeeds in shedding new light on E. A. Poe on the occasion of his Bicentenary. The book is organized into three principal sections; the first part focuses on the reception of Poe in Great Britain, France, and Spain; the second revisits some of Poe's main legacies, such as his stories of detection, the Gothic, and Science Fiction; and the third deals with the aesthetic quality of his narratives and also offers an analysis of his work integrating Text Linguistics within the broader study of social discourses.

The Editors: Beatriz González Moreno is Associate Professor at the University of Castilla-La Mancha in Spain. Her main field of research is the analysis of the aesthetic categories in the Romantic period, focusing on the relevance of the sublime in relation to traditional beauty. On that subject, she has published a book, Lo sublime, lo gótico y lo romántico: la experiencia estética en el romanticismo inglés, and articles on the issue of gender and the sublime, focusing on female characters which defy traditional aesthetics and categorization.
Margarita Rigal Aragón is Associate Professor at the University of Castilla-La Mancha in Spain. Her main field of research is the American Renaissance, focusing on Edgar Allan Poe’s works. On that subject, she has published a book, entitled Aspectos estructurales y temáticos recurrentes en la narrativa breve de Edgar Allan Poe as well as articles and chapters focusing on Poe’s works, life and reception, the Victorian Age, and the detective genre.