“That Was Poe, The Great American Hack”: Retracing Echoes of Poe’s Gothic Tales in Stephen King’s The Shining.

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Burton Pollin argues that, despite Edgar Allan Poe‟s evident legacy in Stephen King‟s fiction, Poe‟s influence on the writings of this author from Maine has often been overlooked and even ignored by Poe scholars. Pollin suggests that King‟s most acclaimed horror novel The Shining (1977) was mostly inspired by Poe‟s gothic tales “The Masque of the Red Death” and “The Fall of the House of Usher.” Taking Pollin‟s premise as a point of departure, this article aims to retrace examples of transtextuality – to use Gerard Genette‟s term − between King‟s novel The Shining and some of Poe‟s gothic tales, thus following Pollin‟s initial proposal, but with the view to analyse different passages from King‟s novel in comparison with other Poe‟s tales that have been hardly mentioned in relation to The Shining.RESUMEN: Burton Pollin defiende que, pese al evidente legado que Edgar Allan Poe atesora en la ficcion de Stephen King, la influencia que Poe ha ejercido en las obras del escritor de Maine a menudo ha sido menospreciada o includo ignorada por parte de los estudiosos de la obra de Poe. Pollin sugiere que la novela de terror mas aclamada de King, El resplandor (1977), fue inspirada principalmente por los relatos goticos de Poe “La mascara de la muerte roja” y “La caida de la casa Usher.” Tomando la premisa de Pollin como punto de partida, este articulo pretende identificar ejemplos de transtextualidad – utilizando el termino de Gerard Genette – entre la novela de King “El resplandor” y relatos de Poe, siguiendo la propuesta inicial de Pollin, pero con el objetivo de analizar diferentes pasajes de la novela de King comparandolos con otros relatos de Poe que apenas han sido mencionados en relacion a El resplandor.