SOURCE: “Poe's Arthur Gordon Pym and the Narrative Techniques of Antarctic Gothic,” in CEA Critic, Vol. 53, No. 3, Spring/Summer, 1991, pp. 30-38.

In the following essay, Lenz suggests that it was Poe, as is particularly evident in his Pym, who discovered the Antarctic as a locale suitable for gothic tales leading to “the deepest regions of our primitive imagination.”

Edgar Allan Poe is best known for his depictions of extreme states of consciousness. It is easy to forget that he was a successful exploiter of contemporary cultural attitudes and popular literary conventions. Whether we think of the nineteenth-century interest in phrenology, occultism, orientalism, hoaxes, and mesmerism, or the nineteenth-century popularity of lyric poetry and Gothic fiction, Poe is always among the first to capitalize on topical issues and literary trends.

Early in his career, Poe was drawn to the sea narrative; in part, the sea seems to have represented...