The Gothic

by Punter, David; Byron, Glennis

• ISBN13: 9780631220626
• ISBN10: 0631220623
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-01-30
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Summary

This guide provides an overview of the most significant issues and debates in Gothic studies. The guide is divided into four parts: bull; bull;The opening section explains the origins and development of the term ls"Gothicrs", considers the particular features of the Gothic within specific periods, and explores its evolution in both literary and non-literary forms, such as art, architecture and film. bull;The following section contains extended entries on major writers of the Gothic, pointing to the most significant features of their work. bull;The third section features authoritative readings of key works, ranging from Horace Walpolers"s The Castle of Otranto to Bret Easton Ellisrs"s American Psycho. bull;Finally, the text considers recurrent concerns of the Gothic such as persecution and paranoia, key motifs such as the haunted castle, and figures such as the vampire and the monster. Supplementary material includes a chronology of key Gothic texts, listing literature and film from 1757 to 2000, and a comprehensive guide to further reading.

Author Biography

David Punter is Professor of English at the University of Bristol. He has previously taught at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and at Fudan University in Shanghai, among other institutions. His recent publications include Postcolonial Imaginings (2000), Writing the Passions (2000), Gothic Pathologies (1998), and The Literature of Terror (2 vols., 1996). He has also published four volumes of poetry.Glennis Byron is Reader in English Studies at the University of Stirling. She has also taught at the University of Alberta in Canada. Her previous publications include Dramatic Monologue (2003), Letitia Landon: The Woman Behind L.E.L (1995), and Elizabeth Barrett Browning and the Poetry of Love (1989).

Table of Contents

How to Use This Book	ix
Chronology	xi
Introduction	xviii
Backgrounds and Contexts	1	(76)
Civilization and the Goths	3	(4)
Gothic in the Eighteenth Century	7	(6)
Gothic and Romantic	13	(7)
Science, Industry and the Gothic	20	(6)
Victorian Gothic	26	(6)
Art and Architecture	32	(7)
Gothic and Decadence	39	(5)
Imperial Gothic	44	(6)
Gothic Postmodernism	50	(4)
Postcolonial Gothic	54	(5)
Goths and Gothic Subcultures	59	(6)
Gothic Film	65	(6)
Gothic and the Graphic Novel	71	(6)
Writers of Gothic	77	(98)
William Harrison Ainsworth (1805--1882)	79	(1)
Jane Austen (1775--1817)	80	(2)
J. G. Ballard (1930--)	82	(1)
Iain Banks (1954--)	83	(1)
John Banville (1945--)	84	(1)
Clive Barker (1952--)	85	(2)
William Beckford (1760--1844)	87	(1)
E. F. Benson (1867--1940)	88	(1)
Ambrose Bierce (1842--1914)	89	(1)
Algernon Blackwood (1869--1951)	90	(1)
Robert Bloch (1917--1994)	91	(1)
Elizabeth Bowen (1899--1973)	92	(2)
Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1835--1915)	94	(1)
Charlotte Bronte (1816--1855) and Emily Bronte (1818--1848)	95	(2)
Charles Brockden Brown (1771--1810)	97	(1)
Edward George Bulwer-Lytton (1803--1873)	98	(1)
James Branch Cabell (1879--1958)	99	(1)
Ramsey Campbell (1946--)	100	(1)
Angela Carter (1940--1992)	101	(2)
Robert W. Chambers (1865--1933)	103	(1)
Wilkie Collins (1824--1889)	104	(1)
Marie Corelli (1855--1924)	105	(1)
Charlotte Dacre (1771/1772?--1825)	106	(2)
Walter de la Mare (1873--1956)	108	(1)
August Derleth (1909--1971)	109	(1)
Charles Dickens (1812--1870)	110	(1)
'Isak Dinesen' (1885--1962)	111	(2)
Arthur Conan Doyle (1859--1930)	113	(1)
Lord Dunsany (1878--1957)	114	(1)
Bret Easton Ellis (1964--)	115	(1)
William Faulkner (1897--1962)	116	(2)
Elizabeth Gaskell (1810--1865)	118	(1)
William Gibson (1948--)	119	(1)
William Godwin (1756--1836)	120	(1)
H. Rider Haggard (1856--1925)	121	(2)
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804--1864)	123	(1)
James Herbert (1943--)	124	(1)
William Hope Hodgson (1877--1918)	125	(2)
E. T. A. Hoffmann (1776--1822)	127	(1)
James Hogg (1770--1835)	128	(1)
Washington Irving (1783--1859)	129	(1)
G. P. R. James (1799--1860)	130	(1)
Henry James (1843--1916)	131	(1)
M. R. James (1862--1936)	132	(2)
Stephen King (1947--)	134	(1)
Rudyard Kipling (1865--1936)	135	(1)
Francis Lathom (1777--1832)	136	(1)
J. Sheridan Le Fanu (1814--1873)	137	(1)
Sophia Lee (1750--1824)	138	(2)
Vernon Lee (1856--1935)	140	(1)
M. G. Lewis (1775--1818)	141	(1)
David Lindsay (1878--1945)	142	(1)
H. P. Lovecraft (1890--1937)	143	(1)
George MacDonald (1824--1905)	144	(2)
Arthur Machen (1863--1947)	146	(1)
James Macpherson (1736--1796)	147	(1)
Richard Matheson (1926--)	148	(1)
Charles Robert Maturin (1780--1824)	149	(1)
Herman Melville (1819--1891)	150	(2)
Joyce Carol Oates (1938--)	152	(1)
Margaret Oliphant (1828--1897)	153	(1)
Mervyn Peake (1911--1968)	154	(1)
Edgar Allan Poe (1809--1849)	155	(2)
John Polidori (1795--1821)	157	(1)
Ann Radcliffe (1764--1823)	158	(1)
Clara Reeve (1729--1807)	159	(1)
G. W. M. Reynolds (1814--1879)	160	(2)
Anne Rice (1941--)	162	(1)
Walter Scott (1771--1832)	163	(1)
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797--1851)	164	(1)
Charlotte Smith (1740--1806)	165	(1)
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850--1894)	166	(1)
Bram Stoker (1847--1912)	167	(2)
Horace Walpole (1717--1797)	169	(1)
H. G. Wells (1866--1946)	170	(1)
Edith Wharton (1862--1937)	171	(1)
Oscar Wilde (1854--1900)	172	(3)
Key Works	175	(82)
The Castle of Otranto (1764)	177	(4)
Horace Walpole
Vathek (1786)	181	(4)
William Beckford
The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794)	185	(5)
Ann Radcliffe
Caleb Williams (1794)	190	(4)
William Godwin
The Monk (1796)	194	(4)
M. G. Lewis
Frankenstein (1818, revised 1831)	198	(5)
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Melmoth the Wanderer (1820)	203	(5)
Charles Robert Maturin
The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824)	208	(4)
James Hogg
Wuthering Heights (1847)	212	(5)
Emily Bronte
The Woman in White (1860)	217	(5)
Wilkie Collins
Uncle Silas (1864)	222	(4)
J. Sheridan Le Fanu
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886)	226	(4)
Robert Louis Stevenson
Dracula (1897)	230	(5)
Bram Stoker
The Turn of the Screw (1898)	235	(5)
Henry James
Psycho (1959)	240	(4)
Robert Bloch
Interview with the Vampire (1976)	244	(4)
Anne Rice
The Shining (1977)	248	(5)
Stephen King
American Psycho (1991)	253	(4)
Bret Easton Ellis
Themes and Topics	257	(41)
The Haunted Castle	259	(4)
The Monster	263	(5)
The Vampire	268	(5)
Persecution and Paranoia	273	(5)
Female Gothic	278	(5)
The Uncanny	283	(5)
The History of Abuse	288	(5)
Hallucination and the Narcotic	293	(5)
Guide to Further Reading	298	(7)
Index	305