A Catalogue of Selected Rhetorical Devices Used in the Works of Edgar Allan Poe

METANOIA: qualifying a recalled statement by expressing it in a better way, often by using a negative (Lanham 100):

Poe's overuse of the dash has been noticed by some critics (Levin, for instance) and, according to Poe's understanding of how that punctuational mark should be used, it is apparent that he often employs the dash to stand in for metanoia or epanorthosis. In his Marginalia, Poe states that the dash is exploited to represent "a second thought--an emendation" (and Poe in these words illustrates its use); "The dash gives the reader a choice between two, or among three or more expressions, one of which may be more forcible than another, but all of which help out the idea. It stands, in general, for these words-'or, to make my meaning more distinct'" (16: 131). In "The Spectacles," for example, we find numerous instances of dashes used in just this way:

my Christian name is Napoleon Buonaparte-or, more properly, these are my first and middle appellations. (5: 177)

This extraordinary behaviour, by throwing me into a perfect fever of excitement--into an absolute delirium of love--served rather to embolden than to disconcert me. (185-86)

It is useless, of course, to dwell upon my joy--upon my transport--upon my illimitable ecstasy of heart. (186)

Of course, Poe does not use the dash exclusively for this purpose. For more on this exciting subject, see Zimmerman, "Versatility" (112).

NOTIONAL SET: see Zimmerman, "Versatility" (112-14).

PALINDROME: words, phrases, verses, or sentences that read the same and make sense backwards as well as forwards (ABCCBA). The term means, after all, "running back again." Lanham compares the device to chiasmos (106; see also Dupriez's discussion [313-14]). In his chapter on Poe's use of the "biblical" style in prose, Forrest cites the following passages to demonstrate how Poe approaches palindrome:

"It was night, and the rain fell; and, falling, it was rain, but, having fallen, it was blood. And I stood in the morass among the tall lilies, and the rain fell upon my head.... And mine eyes fell upon a huge gray rock which stood by the shore of the river, and was lighted by the light of the moon. And the rock was gray, and ghastly, and tall,--and the rock was gray." ("Silence" 2: 221)

The polysyndeton (see below) and obsolete language ("mine eyes") in the passage are, for me, anyway, a more convincing demonstration of Poe's "biblical" language. At any rate, Poe's use of palindrome figures as well in a single pair of names in "A Tale of the Ragged Mountains": the near-perfect mirror-image version of the name "Bedlo[e]"-"Olbed"--reinforces the theme of metempsychosis, the transmigration of the soul, from the British Olbed to the Virginian Bedlo[e].

PARALLELISM: the putting of like ideas in similar grammatical form, often with anaphora. I have arranged a bit of prose from Poe's review of "Twice-Told Tales" the better to illustrate the parallel grammatical form:

He [Nathaniel Hawthorne] has the purest style,