O gótico em The City in the Sea: uma análise do mar e da cidade no poema de Edgar Allan Poe

Abstract

Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most relevant names of Gothic Literature, known worldwide for his famous tales and for The Raven, a modern poetry icon. In 1831, he wrote the poem The Doomed City, which was revised and modified to compose The City of Sin in 1836. In 1845, after further revision, the poem took its final form and received the title The City in the Sea. The aim of our research is to analyze The City in the Sea, considering its two previous versions with a view towards understanding the Gothic images represented in it. The research highlights the representation of the sea for not being traditionally linked to the gothic style, as well as the figure of the city for the space that it occupies in the poem and in the gothic literature. For this analysis, we rely on the research of David Fisher (2006), Jerold Hogle (2006), José Carlos Aissa (2006) and David Punter and Glennis Byron (2004) for the construction of our understanding of the gothic aspect of the sea and how it appears on these poems. These studies also provide our basis for analysing the image of the city and of Death within them. Moreover, we look at the changes that we consider most relevant for the establishment of the Gothic tone of the poem’s final version.