Abstract

Every writer draws--in one way or another--on the work of other writers. Few thoughts are ever really original, and so most thought is a strand in an intricate net extending backwards in time, until in some remote region of the past we pass from literature to myth. I would like to untangle one knot, or better still one tiny part of such a knot, in some detail. I shall argue that two episodes in Thomas Pynchon's novel V. show a direct indebtedness to Edgar Allan Poe. Moreover, it is no coincidence that these episodes are Foppl's siege party in the chapter "Mondaugen's story" (which I link with "The Mask of the Red Death") , and the Vheissu affair (which I shall connect with the Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket); 'the' two pairings, I shall argue, are interdependent.

How to Cite:

Berressem, H., (1982) “Godolphin – Goodolphin – Goodol 'phin – Goodol 'Pyn – Good ol 'Pym: A Question of Integration”, Pynchon Notes 10, 3-17. doi: https://doi.org/10.16995/pn.434