Edgar Allan Poe’s Narrative Use of Literary Doubling

Abstract

The present article analyzes the incidence of the literary tradition of doubling in the short narratives of Edgar Allan Poe. It
presents an analysis of doubling in Poe’s short narratives from the different critical perspectives of previous research on literary
and non-literary doubling, and also from Poe’s own views as a literary critic. It contends that Poe’s compliant and subversive
use of traditional literary doubling corresponds with his critical views on the compositional unity of effect as he developed them
in “The Philosophy of Composition.”