Abjection, sublimity, and the question of the unpresentable in Poe, Baudelaire, and Lovecraft

Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Baudelaire, and Howard Phillips Lovecraft: what do these three authors have in common, aside from superficial similarities prevalent to the "damned artist" type, such as a turbulent life marked by social alienation and an early death? Their respective statuses at the margins of the literary establishment during their lifetimes and their espousals of reactionary social and political perspectives (Poe championed slavery, Baudelaire was a misanthrope and an anti-Semite, and Lovecraft was, during the first part of his adult life, a proponent of Nazi eugenics) point to affinities than run deeper than merely biographical coincidences: all three were beholden to, yet distanced themselves from, the widespread currents of thought of their respective epochs. This tension that characterizes their worldviews informs their art: in defying the status quo, Poe and Baudelaire were committed to uncovering a new way of seeing that would radically change our relation to the world; Lovecraft, on the other hand, adopted a reactionary aesthetics in an attempt to ward off the horrors of modern life. In examining the critical and literary works of each author, this thesis argues that Poe's, Baudelaire's, and Lovecraft's common ground is aesthetic: each bases his critical theory on the sublime and engages aspects of sublimity in his literature. However, the subjective position conveyed in the poetry of Baudelaire and the fiction of Poe and Lovecraft is conditioned by the abject. In other words, a tension arises between the sublime that defines their poetics and the abjection that founds their fictional personae. Ultimately, by outlining the limits of the sublime experience by means of the abject, their literature explores the question of the unpresentable and enlists them as contributors to the modernist avant-garde project.;Unless otherwise indicated, emphasis in citations is present in the original source. All citations are unadulterated except for typographic symbols, which have been modified for consistency. In parenthetical references Poe's complete works are cited as CW; Baudelaire's are identified as OC. When quoting or paraphrasing critical works, parenthetical references provide the title of the scholarly text the first time it is cited; all other entries contain only the name of the author and the page number, except for cases in which I cite more than one work for a given writer. In such instances, in addition to the author's name and the page number, the abbreviated title of the work appears in parentheses in all subsequent entries.