Poe's Difference

"Poe's Difference argues that Poe has much more in common with early American, medieval, and ancient writers than with the modern and post-modern ones with whom the writer is so often associated. R.C. De Prospo emphasizes Poe's anachronisms to make a number of theoretical, pedagogical, literary historical, and political claims about the backwardness of antebellum US culture generally. Some time ago Michael Colacurcio issued the challenge: 'the full case for the Puritan character of Poe's 'horror' remains to be made.' Although going back a good deal further than just to the 'Puritans,' Poe's Difference aspires fully to make precisely this case"--