EDGAR ALLAN POE'S ¿THE SPECTACLES¿. APPEARANCE AND ICONOGRAPHY IN VICTORIAN AMERICA

In this thesis I analyse the Victorian American society through Edgar Allan Poe's ¿The Spectacles¿ and Godey's Lady's Book, the most read and famous women magazine of the time. In the first part I discuss the importance of the appearance in the middle-class culture making reference to Poe's ¿The Spectacles¿. In a period of great economic and social changes, middle-class was threatened by ¿Confidence Men¿ and ¿Painted Women¿, whose aim was to get richer destroying other's gentility. To protect themselves, middle-class established a set of rules governing different levels of the social life: the dress code, etiquette and mourning ritual. On the contrary of what it could be thought, men had not the absolute power on the control of the social life: women also had some influence. In the second part of the thesis I examine the history of Godey's Lady's Book. In the publishing golden age, it was the first magazine to publish hand-coloured fashion plates, feature that guaranteed high number of subscriptions. Initially fashion plates had the role of informing women on the latest fashion, then they started to be juxtaposed to texts in order to convey a certain message. The aim of the magazine was to educate women, not only to entertain them: the magazine helped them in the war against the Confidence Game, it taught them how to dress, how to behave, how to be a true woman.