Unlocking the Text within the Text: Functions of the Act of Reading in Poe’s “The Sphinx” and “The Oval Portrait”
Unlocking the Text within the Text: Functions of the Act of Reading in Poe’s “The Sphinx” and “The Oval Portrait”

Summary/Abstract: The following paper seeks to explore the function of the act of reading in what concerns the dynamics of the plot in Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories “The Sphinx” and “The Oval Portrait”. Arguing how the revelatory moment of the narrative constitutes itself as an essential act of reading whose role is to unlock the text within the text, the paper also provides an analysis of the manner in which, in Poe’s texts, the scene of reading merges with the scene of the unconscious. Emphasizing the autoreferential dimension of Poe’s writing, the following analysis delimits itself from previous psychoanalytic approaches by showing how the scene of the unconscious unfolds within its own literariness.

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