C19: The Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists

Abstract
In Underland (2019), Robert Macfarlane describes the paradox of underground spaces: “that darkness may be a medium of vision, and that descent may be a movement towards revelation rather than deprivation.” In my paper, I consider this paradox of underground vision by exploring how the cave functions as a philosophical image of distorted understanding in Emerson’s essay “Illusions” (1860) and Poe’s novel Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym (1838). Unlike more adventure-driven cave settings—from spaces of refuge in Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans to spaces of exploration in Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer—Emerson’s and Poe’s pieces use caves as sites of epistemological obscurity. For Emerson, the “Star-Chamber” of Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave, where the ceiling glimmers with false stars and comets in the dark, suggests the disorientation of human thought more broadly: “The senses interfere everywhere, and mix their own structure with all they report of.” For Poe, the winding Antarctic caverns with their mysterious hieroglyphic markings invite exploration, but they only result in Pym’s abrupt disappearance. Even when Poe suggests translations of some of the hieroglyphics to the reader in the novel’s postscript, their interpretation remains obscure. Where Emerson’s essay cautions against the influence of mere illusion, Poe’s novel warns about the destructive appeal of ambiguity. Yet, both transform these epistemological dangers into creative possibility. Emerson encourages readers to observe nature more carefully, sifting through illusions to find the hard bottom of reality. Poe inspires readers to imagine the novel’s possible endings, resulting in multiple streams of potential meaning. Whether through Emerson’s emergence toward clarity or Poe’s descent into mystery, the cave serves as a space of creativity—for the writer as well as the receptive reader—in the face of epistemological uncertainty.