Taking a break from lecturing and writing novels about Edgar Allan Poe, English Boyd Professor J. Gerald Kennedy gave his insight in PBS’s documentary “Edgar Allan Poe: Buried Alive.”
“The idea was to have a number of scholars and biographers who have years of study and expertise to fill in pieces of the story,” Kennedy said.
The title of the film “Edgar Allan Poe: Buried Alive” has both literal and metaphorical meaning. In the antebellum period, especially during times of epidemic, people were literally often buried alive, Kennedy said.
“The title is also a nice metaphor for the way that Poe was in a way buried in obscurity in a culture that did not particularly value what he was doing in an age of territorial expansion and money making,” Kennedy said. “Poe never experienced much economic success in his career.”
In 2008, Kennedy was first contacted about the film and was interviewed in 2014 by the director, Eric Strange. The documentary starred Denis O’Hare as Edgar Allan Poe and other scholars who gave their insight on his life.
Poe was one of the most influential American writers of the 19th century. He was the first author to try to make a professional living as a writer. Much of his work was inspired by the events that happened around him, according to the Poe Museum website.
“It’s cinematically one of the most interesting Poe documentaries that’s been made,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy first became interested in Poe in middle school. He has since written and published eight works and taught several courses about Poe.
Kennedy’s latest work, “Strange Nation”, was influenced by Poe, but is about all of antebellum America and the nation-building taking place during the time. He is also currently editing the Oxford handbook of Edgar Allan Poe. He said he hopes to gear his next work toward students and general readers instead of scholars, and to tackle the topic of reading Poe in a time of terror.
In addition to his many works about Poe, Kennedy has also published essays on short story sequence and American writers in Paris.
“I think Poe, in a lot of ways, anticipated the way that death has become a presence in culture — that’s why he’s become the Santa Claus of Halloween,” Kennedy said in a news release. “The way that this movie was made has a really great balance in the way it represents Poe’s life.”

Gallery • 2 Photos

Jordan Marcell

University Boyd Professor of English J. Gerald Kennedy speaks about his latest book, Strange Nation, and of its purpose and inspirations on Nov. 21, 2016 in his office in Allen Hall.