Special Collections: Poe and His Progeny

This exhibit was created as an off-shoot of a class session held on October 8, 2007 in the fall term English Department Senior Seminar, Poe and His Progeny, being taught by Prof. April Selley. Librarians and faculty at Union College frequently collaborate on developing in-class presentations for courses of this kind, drawing upon the College’s rich holdings of primary resources to help students enter imaginatively into the eras they are studying and generate fresh ideas for their papers and classroom discussions.

Materials assembled by the librarians and presented to the students for hands-on consideration—only a portion of which could be included in this exhibit—were drawn from the increasingly diverse sources of primary documents available to researchers at Union, including the library’s extraordinary Special and Rare Book Collections, its College archives, its circulating collections (where numerous facsimiles or photo-reproductions of original documents may be found), its multimedia collections, and its growing electronic collections. Some of these materials were purchased by the library at the time that they were published, over the course of the College’s long history; others were acquired later as research tools or as representations of intellectual and cultural history; many others were gifts from generous donors.

Gallery Talk: ENG 404 Senior Seminar: Poe and His Progeny

Friday, October 12, 1:50 to 2:55 p.m.
Schaffer Library first floor exhibit area

Hear an informal talk by course instructor April Selley, College Archivist Ellen Fladger, and librarian / English Department liaison Annette LeClair about a library exhibit created for students in the English Department’s fall term senior seminar. Frequent exhibits and in-class presentations for courses of this kind draw upon Union College’s rare and rich holdings of primary sources to help students enter imaginatively into the eras and works they studying. This exhibit focuses on a major figure of American Romanticism and illustrates themes and texts taught in the class. Although sometimes identified wrongly with his drug-addicted, raving homicidal narratives, Poe was in fact an astute commentator on the dark side of American individualism and self-reliance. The course considers Poe’s own varied works as well as his “progeny”—illustrators, filmmakers, and especially authors who owe Poe a debt. Poe invented the modern detective story and modern science fiction. He influenced the French symbolist poets and a who’s who of American writers including Melville, Bierce, Fitzgerald, Flannery O’Connor, and Singer. His influence even extends to popular culture; he has the distinction of having had his poem The Raven recited on The Simpsons. Among works featured in the exhibition is yet another Raven: the hand-colored print created by John James Audubon, Poe’s contemporary, for the double elephant folio edition of the Birds of America (1827-1838), a work purchased for the College by Eliphalet Nott from Audubon himself.