Poe and the Apocalyptic Sublime
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12445447 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jonathan A Cook (0000-0001-6067-0960, 1 Middleburg Academy), Jonathan Cook (0000-0001-8717-9127, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 23 |
| Issue | 5 |
| Pages | 489-515 |
| Publication date | 2019-12-10 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Religion and the Arts (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1079-9265 • E-ISSN: 1568-5292 |
| Publisher | Brill (PUBLISHER • NL) |
| DOI | 10.1163/15685292-02305002 |
| OpenAlex | W2996469974 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 4 |
This essay examines “The Masque of the Read Death,” one of Poe’s most allusive tales, as a striking example of the aesthetics of the apocalyptic sublime. Combining several key ideas from Burke’s Philosophical Enquiry into the Origins of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful with numerous motifs from biblical apocalyptic symbolism, Poe’s “Masque” was specifically designed to create an effect of sublime terror in the reader. Basing his image of mass death on the cholera pandemic of 1832, which killed thousands of individuals in Europe and America, Poe created a historically grounded parable of apocalyptic extinction with a myriad of connections with literary, biblical, and artistic tradition. Poe’s tale echoes many of Burke’s remarks on the nature and sources of sublime and beautiful effects while conveying a biblically based vision of human mortality
Aesthetics · Art · Key (lock · Literature · Sublime · Crime, Deviance, and Social Control · Philosophy
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |