Transformations and new expressions of nervousness in the construction of Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories

Abstract

The problem of nervousness has a significant role to play in the construction of several of Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories and shows the influence on his work of the gradual transformation of this concept in the field of psychopathology in Europe and North America during the nineteenth century. An analysis of these references raises questions not only about the existence of a transcendental source of inspiration underlying the creative act, but also about the traditional biographical interpretations that have defined his pathological personality traits, or the fatality of his life, as paradigmatic keys to understanding the function of anguish, madness, and death in his short stories.