Dear listmembers, The E.A.Poe influence on Ernst Juenger has been researched in detail by Karl Heinz Bohrer in _Die Aesthetik des Schreckens_ (1978). Bohrer mainly focuses on Poe's stories "A Descent into the Maelstrom" and "The Pit and the Pendulum".=20 The other day I found EJ mentioning the only book length story of Poe, _The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket_. It is a note from the 30th of December 1988 in _Siebzig Verweht IV_. In Madrid EJ had read about a stowaway passenger on a jetplane who had hid in the wheel compartment of the plane. The plane hade problems releasing one wheel on landing in Palma and the extra passenger was probably then squeezed to death. The rests of his body, after falling from the plane, was found by Spanish hunters. EJ notes that "Der blinde Passagier ist mir literarisch nur in der Figur des Gordon Pym bekannt, die auch Carl Schmitt sch=E4tzte, wie Poes Capriccios ueberhaupt." The story of Arthur Gordon Pym is a horror story with much relation to European romanticism. Just like _Frankenstein_ and "The Ancient Mariner" it relates to Polar regions. In short Poe's book tells of Pym, who travels on the whaler Grampus as a stowaway, when his friend Augustus has joined the=20 crew. Then there is a mutiny, a successful revolt against the mutiny, the wrecking of the brig in a storm, the discovery of a plague ship, the death of Augustus, deliverance by a trading schooner, a stay on an island inhabited by black savages, betrayal by the blacks, who kill almost the whole crew of Grampus, and finally the escape by Pym "into the wide and desolate Antarctic Ocean." in a canoe with others. All described with much violence=20 and horrific detail. The ending of the 25th chapter and the book=20 as a whole is a note by Pym: "March 22. - The darkness had materially increased, relieved only by the glare of the water thrown back from the white curtain before us. Many gigantic and pallidly white birds flew continously now from beyond the veil, and their scream was the eternal Tekeli-li! as they retreated from our vision. Hereupon Nu-Nu stirred in the bottom of the boat; but upon touching him we found his spirit departed. And now we rushed into the embraces of the cataract, where a chasm threw itself open to receive us. But there arose in the pathway a shrouded human figure, very far larger in its proportions than any dweller among men. And the hue of the skin of the figure was of the perfect whiteness of the snow." One might remember that a bird plays an important role in=20 Coleridge's "The Ancient Mariner". With Juengerian greetings Bertil Haggman
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