Suggested Reading:
“Ulalume,” by Edgar Allan Poe
“The Domain of Arnheim,” by Edgar Allan Poe
Read Poe's poem "Ulalume." It first gave me the idea of what Poe was trying to say, at least in the vast majority of his work. His Psyche pacified, the narrator of the poem attempts to forget tragedy and pass by the place of its burial, but he is "stopped by the door of a tomb." He cannot become unaware of death. Notice, however, its meaning--that is, the history of his loss and its significance, which (one would think) ought to be conveyed to the reader--is opaque, left out of the poem. Poe is not interested in the details of the dramatic episode, but rather in the narrator's reaction at having been made aware of this significance. He draws attention to the universality of this feeling, in this case, through the absence of a story, which, I think, is the only way to account for its absence in this poem.
Like Stonehenge, the absence of meaning becomes meaningful in itself, and really ends in validating meaning and how much it matters to us as readers.
Outline of the Argument:
I. Introduction:
A. Teaching
people to know what they read
B. Why is great
literature great?
Great literature makes us feel small.
II. Edgar Allan Poe: ghosts, crime, and landscape gardening?
A. Poe
portrays the boundary of human knowledge.
1. Opaque meaning: we are aware of meaning we cannot comprehend.
o.paque:
not transparent; not see-through.
2.
Death, for Poe (and us), is opaque meaning.
B. This
notion unifies his writing around a central focus.
1. Ghosts and crime.
2.
Landscape gardening: artistic design + nature.
C. Poe writes
about that which makes us feel small.
III. Stonehenge makes us feel small.
A. It captures
something in human existence and human nature.
B. Inspires
wonder, pursuit of knowledge, and creative imitation.
C. Our
attempts; successes and failures to know = literature.
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