Poe, Queerness, and the End of Time

Reviews / Votes

"Resourcefully adapting insights from recent queer theorists, Paul Christian Jones in Poe, Queerness, and the End of Time shifts the conversation on a queer Poe from sexuality to temporality, creating fresh, provocative perspectives on some of Poe's most influential works. Jones exposes problematic heteronormative assumptions that have persistently structured Poe's reception, with broader implications for how we read other nineteenth-century American authors."
--Carl Ostrowski, Professor of English at Middle Tennessee State University and editor of Collected Tales, Poems, and Other Writings of Edgar Allan Poe (2021)

"Jones offers original and always useful contributions throughout this book. He establishes, definitively, the validity of considering Poe as a queer author. Indeed, future studies will have to make a strong case about why we should not read Poe as queer. Jones convincingly argues that Poe's work reflects queer temporality, given its frequent depiction of characters who do not conform to rigid temporal standards. This galvanizing book is most welcome."

--David Greven, Professor of English at the University of South Carolina and author of Gender Protest and Same-Sex Desire in Antebellum American Literature (2014)

"Focusing brilliantly on Poe's exploration of alternative concepts of time, Paul Jones shows Poe exploring other forms of deviance and non-normative behavior-queer conceptions of time and life management, refusals to adapt to normative progressive expectations, such as marriage and child production. Grounding this study in the rich history of queer scholarship, Jones offers smart, fresh readings of Poe's best-known stories."
--Leland Person, Professor of English at the University of Cincinnati and author of Aesthetic Headaches: Women and a Masculine Poetics in Poe, Melville, and Hawthorne (1988)