Provides a new account of the emergence of Irish gothic fiction in mid-eighteenth century. This book provides a robustly theorised and thoroughly historicised account of the ‘beginnings’ of Irish ...gothic fiction, maps the theoretical terrain covered by other critics, and puts forward a new history of the emergence of the genre in Ireland. The main argument the book makes is that the Irish gothic should be read in the context of the split in Irish Anglican public opinion that opened in the 1750s, and seen as a fictional instrument of liberal Anglican opinion in a changing political landscape. By providing a fully historicized account of the beginnings of the genre in Ireland, the book also addresses the theoretical controversies that have bedevilled discussion of the Irish gothic in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. The book gives ample space to the critical debate, and rigorously defends a reading of the Irish gothic as an Anglican, Patriot tradition. This reading demonstrates the connections between little-known Irish gothic fictions of the mid-eighteenth century (The Adventures of Miss Sophia Berkley and Longsword), and the Irish gothic tradition more generally, and also the gothic as a genre of global significance. Key Features * Examines gothic texts including Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Charles Robert Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer, (Anon), The Adventures of Miss Sophia Berkley and Thomas Leland's Longsword * Provides a rigorous and robust theory of the Irish Gothic * Reads early Irish gothic fully into the political context of mid-eighteenth century Ireland This title was made Open Access by libraries from around the world through Knowledge Unlatched.
Gothic Things Weinstock, Jeffrey Andrew
07/2023
eBook
Offering an innovative approach to the Gothic, Gothic
Things: Dark Enchantment and Anthropocene Anxiety breaks
ground with a new materialist analysis of the genre, highlighting
the ways that, since ...its origins in the eighteenth century, the
Gothic has been intensely focused on "ominous matter" and "thing
power." In chapters attending to gothic bodies, spaces, books, and
other objects, Gothic Things argues that the Gothic has
always been about what happens when objects assume mysterious
animacy or potency and when human beings are reduced to the status
of just one thing among many-more powerful-others. In exploring how
the Gothic insistently decenters the human, Jeffrey Andrew
Weinstock reveals human beings to be enmeshed in networks of human
and nonhuman forces mostly outside of their control. Gothic
Things thus resituates the Gothic as the uncanny doppelgänger
of twenty-first-century critical and cultural theory, lurking just
beneath the surface (and sometimes explicitly surfacing) as it
haunts considerations of how human beings interact with objects and
their environment. In these pages the Gothic offers a dark
reflection of the contemporary "nonhuman turn," expressing a
twenty-first-century structure of feeling undergirded by anxiety
over the fate of the human: spectrality, monstrosity, and
apocalypse. Substituting horror for hope, the Gothic, Weinstock
explains, has been a philosophical meditation on human relations
to the nonhuman since its inception, raising significant questions
about how we can counter anthropocentric thought in our quest to
live more harmoniously with the world around us.
The Gothic is more than just maidens-in-peril fleeing supernatural villains in another age. Historically, it was a form used to depict and critique the dangerous labour conditions faced by workers ...during the Industrial Revolution.
An essential quick-reference book for students of Gothic literature, theatre and literary theory Key Concepts in the Gothic provides a one-stop resource which details and defines, in accessible ...language, those contexts essential for the study of the Gothic in all periods and media. The volume is divided into three sections: Concepts and Terms; Theories of the Gothic; and Key Fictional Texts. Bibliographies are provided with the last two sections. The book clearly explains the critical terms – from 'Ab-human' to 'Zombie' – as well as the main theories, including ecocriticism, queer theory and Postcolonial theory, which any student of the Gothic is likely to encounter. This book will be a reliable companion for students of the genre from school and through university. Key Features * Covers the Gothic from the eighteenth century to the present * Provides a comprehensive survey not just of movements and theories but also of the essential terminology used in Gothic Studies * A reference work for those working with genres inflected by the Gothic, such as Romanticism, theatre studies and crime writing * Provides a readily accessible resource for developing further research
This collection of newly commissioned essays brings together major scholars in the field of Gothic studies in order to re-think the topic of 'Women and the Gothic'.
This collection examines Gothic fiction written by female authors in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Analysing works by lesser known authors within a historical context, the ...collection offers a fresh perspective on women writers and their contributions to Gothic literature.
This collection of essays redefines what gothic has become in the contemporary world, examining the idea of an emerging gothic that is inextricable from the broader global context in which it ...circulates. Globalgothic expands the horizons of the genre in diverse new and exciting ways.‘The dead travel fast and, in our contemporary globalised world, so too does the gothic.’ Examining how gothic has been globalised and globalisation made gothic, this collection of essays explores an emerging globalgothic that is simultaneously a continuation of the western tradition and a wholesale transformation of that tradition which expands the horizons of the gothic in diverse new and exciting ways. Globalgothic contains essays from some of the leading scholars in gothic studies as well as offering insights from new scholars in the field. The contributors consider a wide range of different media, including literary texts, film, dance, music, cyberculture, computer games, and graphic novels. This book will be essential reading for all students and academics interested in the gothic, in international literature, cinema, and cyberspace.
