｢멜젤의 체스 플레이어｣: 과학, 사기술, 그리고 대중

“Maelzel’s Chess Player”: Science, Trickery and Spectatorship

This paper aims to examine the public opinion towards the development of technology by focusing on Edgar Allan Poe’s essay, Maelzel s Chess Player.” The so-called automaton catches the attention of the general public, and produces countless speculations on its mechanical operation. While watching the chess play between the randomly chosen opponent and the automaton, the spectators have brief moments of belief in the automaton, and its ability to emulate human logic and complex thinking. Thus, it will be explored how the spectators appreciate scientific achievements and the social reality to which they belong are represented through the performance. Poe encourages the spectators and readers to penetrate the combination of science and trickery with the help of deductive reasoning. In “Von Kempelen and His Discovery,” Poe addresses the unrealistic and almost unimaginable scientific discovery, alchemy, by seemingly reliable narrator as realistically as possible. I will trace how Poe alerts the readers to think over and filter out the scientific information they have consumed without any discretion.