Aesthetic disruptions: Crises of the artist in Poe, James and Nabokov.

摘要

This project considers the relationship of the artist and his acolyte and its erotic energies in the works of Edgar Allan Poe, Henry James and Vladimir Nabokov. By bringing these three self-conscious stylists into the same discussion, it is hoped that intertextual resonances will enhance the readings of the various texts. The fictional artists of all three writers must cope with aesthetic disruptions: alterations in their working milieu often brought about by the appearance of a devoted acolyte. The devotion of the acolytes typically exceeds its aesthetic bounds and becomes enmeshed with erotic energies. The readings of each text consider how the non-normative sexualities implicit in this particular mixture of the aesthetic and erotic reshape each artist's world. The readings are informed by such theorists as Sedgwick, Person and Rowe, however the overarching frame for the readings is provided by the concept of the "dominant fiction" as theorized by Kaja Silverman.;The first chapter examines Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher", considering Usher as a failed Romantic artist and his relationship with the tale's narrator. The works of Henry James are the focus of Chapters Two through Five. Chapter Two begins to trace the Jamesian duo of the Master and acolyte as it appears in the embryonic form of Rowland Mallett and the title character. Chapter Three considers four James tales which include "the death of the author": "The Death of the Lion", "The Middle Years", "The Next Time" and "The Figure in the Carpet". A second set of James's writer tales, those of the surviving authors, makes up Chapter Four. They include "The Private Life", "The Author of Beltraffio", and "The Lesson of the Master". Chapter Five concludes the consideration of James with a discussion of The Aspern Papers. Finally, Chapter Six brings the concerns of the previous chapters into the twentieth century with a reading of Nabokov's Pale Fire that attempts to uncover some of the same concerns in this work which animates the fiction of Poe and James.