Poe's Cosmological "Eureka"

Extollager said:
Has anyone here read it?
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Yes. About thirty years ago. One of my parents bought me** a second-hand anthology of stories about the sea that they'd seen while out shopping in town, Great Sea Stories of All Nations. Poe story was one of the contributions from the US. (Some of the stories are excerpts from longer works, such as the final encounter between Ahab and the whale from Moby Dick.)

I must say that (as far as I can recall) I took Poe's tale as being an adventure; I don't recall any musings about cosmology. But as I know where the book is -- which isn't always the case -- I'll read it before I read the essay to which you've linked and see if I notice anything cosmological on this reading.


** - As it happens, it never left their house, which is why I only ever read a few of the stories in it, including A Descent into the Maelstrom.
 
Claims of a determined starting point for the universe go all the way back to and before the creation story in the Bible. Poe added something to the idea, but the ideas of infinite and finite universe have been in shifting contention, the accepted truth usually changing with the social/cultural mood of the time. This is a correlation, though. Not necessarily causation. It's been a while, but I recall that being a good story.
 
I'm not a huge fan of Poe's but besides Eureka I read his Gold Bug, the City of Sin, and one about Annie (or rather for Annie). I must say Eureka is quite different from all the others.
 
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