‘He crossed and re-crossed the way repeatedly’: Illegible Crossings in Poe’s ‘The Man of the Crowd’
This article proposes to reread Poe’s short story ‘The Man of the Crowd’ through the prism of the Baudelairean word croisement or ‘crossing’. Poe’s London-set tale famously crossed the Channel to inform Baudelaire’s visions of Paris, but this traffic of influences goes both ways. The Baudelairean wo...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Presses Universitaires de la Méditerranée
2016-06-01
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| Series: | Cahiers Victoriens et Edouardiens |
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| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/cve/2440 |
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| author | Estelle Murail |
| author_facet | Estelle Murail |
| author_sort | Estelle Murail |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | This article proposes to reread Poe’s short story ‘The Man of the Crowd’ through the prism of the Baudelairean word croisement or ‘crossing’. Poe’s London-set tale famously crossed the Channel to inform Baudelaire’s visions of Paris, but this traffic of influences goes both ways. The Baudelairean word croisement, enriched by its crossings with French texts and contexts, condenses several meanings which can shed light on Poe’s story. It designates a certain way of occupying space, and when applied to human relations, it can evoke (dis)connections. As a textual term, it can refer to the workings of intertextuality. This combination of spatial, social, and textual connotations makes it relevant to ‘The Man of the Crowd’. The sense of illegibility which pervades this enigmatic tale stems from these different forms of croisements. Both narrator and reader are confronted with the fear of not being able to read the many crossings at work in the (urban) text, which turns them into detectives on an endless hermeneutic journey. Indeed, the tale constantly seeks to involve us in hermeneutic crossings which shape the text, and thus forces us to ‘cross and re-cross the way repeatedly’. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-1751ba9a276341fc996fcf4e6e452eb5 |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 0220-5610 2271-6149 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2016-06-01 |
| publisher | Presses Universitaires de la Méditerranée |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Cahiers Victoriens et Edouardiens |
| spelling | doaj-art-1751ba9a276341fc996fcf4e6e452eb52025-01-30T10:21:36ZengPresses Universitaires de la MéditerranéeCahiers Victoriens et Edouardiens0220-56102271-61492016-06-018310.4000/cve.2440‘He crossed and re-crossed the way repeatedly’: Illegible Crossings in Poe’s ‘The Man of the Crowd’Estelle MurailThis article proposes to reread Poe’s short story ‘The Man of the Crowd’ through the prism of the Baudelairean word croisement or ‘crossing’. Poe’s London-set tale famously crossed the Channel to inform Baudelaire’s visions of Paris, but this traffic of influences goes both ways. The Baudelairean word croisement, enriched by its crossings with French texts and contexts, condenses several meanings which can shed light on Poe’s story. It designates a certain way of occupying space, and when applied to human relations, it can evoke (dis)connections. As a textual term, it can refer to the workings of intertextuality. This combination of spatial, social, and textual connotations makes it relevant to ‘The Man of the Crowd’. The sense of illegibility which pervades this enigmatic tale stems from these different forms of croisements. Both narrator and reader are confronted with the fear of not being able to read the many crossings at work in the (urban) text, which turns them into detectives on an endless hermeneutic journey. Indeed, the tale constantly seeks to involve us in hermeneutic crossings which shape the text, and thus forces us to ‘cross and re-cross the way repeatedly’.https://journals.openedition.org/cve/2440citydoublePoe (Edgar Allan)crossingscrowdillegibility |
| spellingShingle | Estelle Murail ‘He crossed and re-crossed the way repeatedly’: Illegible Crossings in Poe’s ‘The Man of the Crowd’ Cahiers Victoriens et Edouardiens city double Poe (Edgar Allan) crossings crowd illegibility |
| title | ‘He crossed and re-crossed the way repeatedly’: Illegible Crossings in Poe’s ‘The Man of the Crowd’ |
| title_full | ‘He crossed and re-crossed the way repeatedly’: Illegible Crossings in Poe’s ‘The Man of the Crowd’ |
| title_fullStr | ‘He crossed and re-crossed the way repeatedly’: Illegible Crossings in Poe’s ‘The Man of the Crowd’ |
| title_full_unstemmed | ‘He crossed and re-crossed the way repeatedly’: Illegible Crossings in Poe’s ‘The Man of the Crowd’ |
| title_short | ‘He crossed and re-crossed the way repeatedly’: Illegible Crossings in Poe’s ‘The Man of the Crowd’ |
| title_sort | he crossed and re crossed the way repeatedly illegible crossings in poe s the man of the crowd |
| topic | city double Poe (Edgar Allan) crossings crowd illegibility |
| url | https://journals.openedition.org/cve/2440 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT estellemurail hecrossedandrecrossedthewayrepeatedlyillegiblecrossingsinpoesthemanofthecrowd |