...grief is It was either my dear Jane or the playwright John Webster who once remarked that the death of a beautiful woman is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world. I think that it was probably Mr Webster. He was much possessed by death. (In view of how things turned...

...fantasy whose central principle was championed by Edgar Allan Poe in 'The Philosophy of Composition': 'the death, then, of a beautiful woman, is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world - and equally is it beyond doubt that the lips best suited for such topic are those of a bereaved lover'...

...women's violent summons to war. 77 77 Cf. Huston (1 986). 100 CHAPTER 5 Over her dead body The death of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world. (Edgar Allan Poe, The Philosophy of Composition') In Greco-Roman mythology and legend, the death of...

...credo which Poe enunciated in "The Philosophy of Composition" now seems unsavory to us: "The death of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world. ..." And finally, in each tale of this sort, Poe provides an escape valve. We see the action through...

...Perhaps Poe best appreciated women's death as an occasion of male cathexis in his 1846 remark that "the death, then, of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world." 1o3 Poe is only about half right, however. The image of a dead woman is one of the most political topics...

...logopoeic critique of poetry's foundational cluster via Edgar Allen Poe's remarkable statement ". . . the death, then, of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world" (Poe 1984, 19). In his essay, this conclusion is a triumphant synthesis, with the glue being Woman,...

..."tone" of all good poetry. And since death is the most melancholy of all subjects, Poe concluded that "the death, then, of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world" (1082-84). P°e had merely articulated the rationale behind an aesthetic principle that had informed...

...famously wrote in his scientific analysis of "The Raven" in "The Philosophy of Composition" (1846): "[T]he death, then, of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world" (Works, 14:201). In the poem, however, the "lost Lenore," like Ligeia and Madeline Usher, refuses to...

...with her serious problems of anemia and pneumonia" (374). True to Poe's aesthetic that "the death . . .of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world" ("Philosophy" 19), Veronica finds her recovery disappointing: Her thin cheeks were growing rounded...

...Allen Poe as a focal point for her analyses of the conflation of women, death, and beauty: "the death of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world." In dealing with the connection between death and femininity, she summarizes Eugénie LemoineLuccioni's...