What question did this study set out to answer?

The research aims to analyze how Poe employs the grotesque and sublime to construct the notion of identity.

June 14, 2026Open Access

Grotesque and Sublime Identities in Poe’s Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque

Key Points

The research aims to analyze how Poe employs the grotesque and sublime to construct the notion of identity.
Literary analysis focusing on selected works from Poe including 'William Wilson' and 'The Man That Was Used Up'.
Utilizes Bakhtin's definitions of grotesque imagery to explore themes of identity and self.
Examining the relationship between the grotesque, sublime, and the narrative structure of Poe's tales.
Poe's works illustrate the tension between grotesque and sublime elements in identity formation.
The analysis reveals a dynamic interplay of self and environment, contributing to themes of personal alienation.
Poe's representation of identity is complex, reflecting both fragility and an ongoing process of construction.

Abstract

Abstract This study examines how Edgar Allan Poe combines the modes of the grotesque and the sublime to represent and examine the fragile and complex construction of an unstable inner self. By blending those two modes and using their tension to create a visualisation of the process of identity loss and self-alienation, Poe sets up a frame within which he can reflect on the interpenetrability of the self in its relation to the surrounding world. Drawing on Bakhtin’s definition of the grotesque imagery of the body and its limits and combining it with the notion of heroic subjectivity and its connection to the sublime, this study focuses on “William Wilson” and “The Man That Was Used Up” as two modern variations of what Bakhtin has termed the epic grotesque anatomy.

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