Moviegoers who have seen the recent film Stonehearst Asylum (with Kate Beckinsale, Michael Caine, and Ben Kingsley) may not know that the Poe story on which it is based is not one of his Gothic tales of horror but is instead a rather offbeat, if dark, comedy describing one of the wackiest dinner parties in all of American literature. Like the latest movie adaptation, Poe’s story (The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether) is set in a mental hospital turned upside down. Since its publication, it has been read variously as a satire on democracy, an invective against abolitionism, or a parody of writing by Charles Dickens. But the esteemed Poe scholar Thomas Ollive Mabbott described it simply as one of his best humorous pieces. . . . There is obviously (as in most of Poe’s stories) an undercurrent of serious thought, but it is not clinical.” The image below is an engraving from the early 1830s by K. H. Merz, based on the painting Irrenhaus [Madhouse], by German artist Wilhelm von Kaulbach.
Posted on: Wed, 05 Nov 2014 23:33:10 +0000
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