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Art of Darkness "Art of Darkness" is an ambitious attempt to describe the principles governing Gothic literature. Ranging across five centuries of fiction, drama, and verseOCoincluding tales as diverse as Horace Walpole''s "The Castle of Otranto," Shelley''s "Frankenstein," Coleridge''s "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," and Freud''s "The Mysteries of Enlightenment"OCoAnne Williams proposes three new premises: that Gothic is poetic, not novelistic, in nature; that there are two parallel Gothic traditions, Male and Female; and that the Gothic and the Romantic represent a single literary tradition. Building on the psychoanalytic and feminist theory of Julia Kristeva, Williams argues that Gothic conventions such as the haunted castle and the family curse signify the fall of the patriarchal family; Gothic is therefore poetic in Kristeva''s sense because it reveals those others most often identified with the female. Williams identifies distinct Male and Female Gothic traditions: In the Male plot, the protagonist faces a cruel, violent, and supernatural world, without hope of salvation. The Female plot, by contrast, asserts the power of the mind to comprehend a world which, though mysterious, is ultimately sensible. By showing how Coleridge and Keats used both Male and Female Gothic, Williams challenges accepted notions about gender and authorship among the Romantics. Lucidly and gracefully written, "Art of Darkness" alters our understanding of the Gothic tradition, of Romanticism, and of the relations between gender and genre in literary history."
The Biology of Horror : Gothic Literature and Film Unearthing the fearful flesh and sinful skins at the heart of gothic horror, Jack Morgan rends the genre’s biological core from its oft-discussed psychological elements and argues for a more transhistorical conception of the gothic, one negatively related to comedy. The Biology of Horror: Gothic Literature and Film dissects popular examples from the gothic literary and cinematic canon, exposing the inverted comic paradigm within each text. Morgan’s study begins with an extensive treatment of comedy as theoretically conceived by Suzanne Langer, C. L. Barber, and Mikhail Bakhtin. Then, Morgan analyzes the physical and mythological nature of horror in inverted comic terms, identifying a biologically grounded mythos of horror. Motifs such as sinister loci, languishment, masquerade, and subversion of sensual perception are contextualized here as embedded in an organic reality, resonating with biological motives and consequences. Morgan also devotes a chapter to the migration of the gothic tradition into American horror, emphasizing the body as horror’s essential place in American gothic. The bulk of Morgan’s study is applied to popular gothic literature and films ranging from high gothic classics like Matthew Lewis’s The Monk, Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho, Charles Maturin’s Melmoth the Wanderer, and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, to later literary works such as Poe’s macabre tales, Melville’s "Benito Cereno,” J.S. Le Fanu’s Uncle Silas, H.P. Lovecraft’s "The Shadow over Innsmouth,” Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hillhouse, Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot, and Clive Barker’s The Damnation Game. Considered films include Nosferatu, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Friday the 13th, Halloween, Night of the Living Dead, Angel Heart, The Stand, and The Shining. Morgan concludes his physical examination of the Gothic reality with a consideration born of Julia Kristeva’s theoretical rubric which addresses horror’s existential and cultural significance, its lasting fascination, and its uncanny positive--and often therapeutic--direction in literature and film.
A Companion to American Gothic A Companion to American Gothic features a collection of original essays that explore America's gothic literary tradition.  The largest collection of essays in the field of American Gothic Contributions from a wide variety of scholars from around the world  The most complete coverage of theory, major authors, popular culture and non-print media available  
Dark Directions: Romero, Craven, Carpenter and the Modern Horror Film A Nightmare on Elm Street. Halloween. Night of the Living Dead. These films have been indelibly stamped on moviegoers' psyches and are now considered seminal works of horror. Guiding readers along the twisted paths between audience, auteur, and cultural history, author Kendall R. Phillips reveals the macabre visions of these films' directors in Dark Directions: Romero, Craven, Carpenter, and the Modern Horror Film. Phillips begins by analyzing the works of George Romero, focusing on how the body is used cinematically to reflect the duality between society and chaos, concluding that the unconstrained bodies of the Living Dead films act as a critical intervention into social norms. Phillips then explores the shadowy worlds of director Wes Craven. In his study of the films The Serpent and the Rainbow, Deadly Friend, Swamp Thing, Red Eye, and Shocker, Phillips reveals Craven's vision of technology as inherently dangerous in its ability to cross the gossamer thresholds of the gothic. Finally, the volume traverses the desolate frontiers of iconic director John Carpenter. Through an exploration of such works as Halloween, The Fog, and In the Mouth of Madness, Phillips delves into the director's representations of boundaries--and the haunting consequences for those who cross them. The first volume ever to address these three artists together, Dark Directions is a spine-tingling and thought-provoking study of the horror genre. In analyzing the individual works of Romero, Craven, and Carpenter, Phillips illuminates some of the darkest minds in horror cinema.
The Fantastic Great starting point for students seeking an introduction to the theme and the critical discussions surrounding it. Tales of magic, the supernatural, and the uncanny have been around as long as people have been telling stories. From Odyssey's adventures to the extraordinary history of the Buend#65533;a family of One Hundred Years of Solitude, stories of the fantastic have thrilled, mystified, and terrorised readers for centuries. Edited by Claire Whitehead, Senior Lecturer in the Russian Department at the University of St Andrews in the United Kingdom and author of several articles on the fantastic in the works of major European and world authors, this volume in the Critical Insights series presents a variety of new essays on the perennial theme. For readers who are studying it for the first time, a four essays survey the critical conversation regarding the theme, explore its cultural and historical contexts, and offer close and comparative readings of key texts in the genre. Readers seeking a deeper understanding of the theme can then move on to other essays that explore it in depth through a variety of critical approaches. Works discussed include ""Rip Van Winkle,"" ""The Tell-Tale Heart,"" The Little Stranger, Wuthering Heights, My Cousin Rachel, and Lady Audley's Secret, as well as the works and common themes of such authors as Marie NDiaye, Italo Calvino, J.R.R. Tolkien, Richard Metheson, Franz Kafka, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, E.T.A. Hoffman, Shirley Jackson and Steven King. Contributors include Lucie Armitt, Daniela De Pau, Dimitra Fimi, Eugenio Bolongaro, and Peter Cogman. Rounding out the volume are a list of literary works not mentioned in the book that concern the theme of the fantastic and as well as a bibliography of critical sources for readers seeking to study this timeless theme in greater depth.
From Dickens to Dracula : Gothic, economics, and Victorian fiction Ranging from the panoramic novels of Dickens to the horror of Dracula, Gail Turley Houston examines the ways in which the language and imagery of economics, commerce and banking are transformed in Victorian Gothic fiction, and traces literary and uncanny elements in economic writings of the period. Houston shows how banking crises were often linked with ghosts or inexplicable non-human forces and financial panic was figured through Gothic or supernatural means. In Little Dorrit and Villette characters are literally haunted by money, while the unnameable intimations of Dracula and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde are represented alongside realist economic concerns. Houston pays particular attention to the term'panic'as it moved between its double uses as a banking term and a defining emotion in sensational and Gothic fiction. This stimulating interdisciplinary book reveals that the worlds of Victorian economics and Gothic fiction, seemingly separate, actually complemented and enriched each other.
Gothic-Postmodernism : Voicing the Terrors of Postmodernity Being the first to outline the literary genre, Gothic-postmodernism, this book articulates the psychological and philosophical implications of terror in postmodernist literature, analogous to the terror of the Gothic novel, uncovering the significance of postmodern recurrences of the Gothic, and identifying new historical and philosophical aspects of the genre.
Gothic Literature New edition of bestselling introductory text outlining the history and ways of reading Gothic literatureThis revised edition includes:* A new chapter on Contemporary Gothic which explores the Gothic of the early twentieth century and looks at new critical developments* An updated Bibliography of critical sources and a revised ChronologyThe book opens with a Chronology and an Introduction to the principal texts and key critical terms, followed by five chapters: The Gothic Heyday 1760-1820; Gothic 1820-1865; Gothic Proximities 1865-1900; Twentieth Century; and Contemporary Gothic. The discussion examines how the Gothic has developed in different national contexts and in different forms, including novels, novellas, poems, films, radio and television. Each chapter concludes with a close reading of a specific text - Frankenstein, Jane Eyre, Dracula, The Silence of the Lambs and The Historian - to illustrate ways in which contextual discussion informs critical analysis. The book ends with a Conclusion out
Gothic Machine : Textualities, Pre-cinematic Media and Film in Popular Visual Culture, 1670-1910 This book provides new insights into how Gothic Horror as a whole started, with the genesis of the Frankenstein films, and encourages the reader to think of the relations betweem such books and films as one vibrant set of energies.
Horror Readers' Advisory : The Librarian's Guide to Vampires, Killer Tomatoes, and Haunted Houses It's a dark and scary world. Fans are rabid. Blood, guts, and gore are the norm. Welcome to the horror genre. Horror classics have been scaring people for years. Nowadays, who doesn't know about Stephen King, Anne Rice, and Dean Koontz? Profiled in a special section, the'Big Three'have turned horror into best-sellers. For all the horror fans that haunt your library, this is the must-have guide. Readers'advisors and reference librarians will appreciate the key tools provided to expand upon this genre, including listings of top books, authors, and award winners within eleven horror subgenres-like mummies, biomedical, monsters, and splatterpunk. Clear descriptions of characteristics within subgenres are provided throughout. To further help you engage new readers, expert horror mavens Spratford and Clausen draw a savvy connection between film and horror as a potent reminder that the scariest movies have been adapted from novels. Their classic and contemporary recommendations like Rebecca, The Shining, and Rosemary's Baby reinforce activities between readers'advisors and library programming and open up the (cellar) door for further patron involvement. Readers'advisors and reference librarians will also learn: The art of the readers'advisory interview for horror Strategies to develop, and tools to market, the horror collection Tactics for introducing non-horror readers to the genre Where to go for more details and resources Horror may be an acquired taste, but under the guidance of two passionate aficionados, any librarian can master the basics to add horror into readers'advisory services.
Limits of Horror : Technology, Bodies, Gothic Horror isn't what it used to be. Nor are its Gothic avatars. The meaning of monsters, vampires and ghosts has changed significantly over the last two hundred years, as have the mechanisms (from fiction to fantasmagoria, film and video games) through which they are produced and consumed. Limits of Horror, moving from gothic to cybergothic, through technological modernity and across a range of literary, cinematic and popular cultural texts, critically examines these changes and the questions they pose for understanding contemporary culture and subjectivity. Re-examining key concepts such as the uncanny, the sublime, terror, shock and abjection in terms of their bodily and technological implications, this book advances current critical and theoretical debates on Gothic horror to propose a new theory of cultural production based on an extensive discussion of Freud’s idea of the death drive. Limits of Horror will appeal to students and academics in Literature, Film, Media and Cultural Studies and Cultural Theory.
Screening the Gothic Screening the Gothic offers a radical new way of understanding the relationship between film and the Gothic as it surveys a wide range of films, many of which have received scant critical attention. Its central claim is that, paradoxically, those texts whose affiliations with the Gothic were the clearest became the least Gothic when filmed. Thus, Hopkins surprises readers by revealing Gothic elements in films such as Sense and Sensibility and Mansfield Park, as well as exploring more obviously Gothic films like The Mummy and The Fellowship of the Ring. Written in an accessible and engaging manner, Screening the Gothic will be of interest to film lovers as well as students and scholars.
Southern Gothic Literature: The Road beyond Zombies of the New South American Southern Gothic Literature presents one of the few book-length surveys of the genre available today, in a diverse collection of representative texts from a group of international critics. In addition to exemplary novels from established writers
Supernatural Literature This work provides thorough coverage of the literature of the supernatural across the canon, covering such works as Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.
Undead Souths : The Gothic and Beyond in Southern Literature and Culture Depictions of the undead in the American South are not limited to our modern versions, such as the vampires in True Blood and the zombies in The Walking Dead. As Undead Souths reveals, physical emanations of southern undeadness are legion, but undeadness also appears in symbolic, psychological, and cultural forms, including the social death endured by enslaved people, the Cult of the Lost Cause that resurrected the fallen heroes of the Confederacy as secular saints, and mourning rites revived by Native Americans forcibly removed from the American Southeast. To capture the manifold forms of southern haunting and horror, Undead Souths explores a variety of media and historical periods, establishes cultural crossings between the South and other regions within and outside of the U.S., and employs diverse theoretical and critical approaches. The result is an engaging and inclusive collection that chronicles the enduring connection between southern culture and the refusal of the dead to stay dead.
Vampire God : The Allure of the Undead in Western Culture Examines the enormous popular appeal of vampires from early Greek and Slavic folklore to present-day popular culture.
Welsh Gothic Welsh Gothic introduces readers to the array of Welsh Gothic literature published from 1780 to the present day. Calling on postcolonial and psychoanalytic theory, Jane Aaron argues that many of the fears encoded in Welsh Gothic writing are specific to the history of the Welsh and reveal much about the varying ways in which the Welsh people have been perceived and have viewed themselves throughout history. The first part of the book explores Welsh Gothic writing from its beginnings in the last decades of the eighteenth century to 1997. The second part focuses on the figures specific to the Welsh Gothic genre who have entered literature from folklore and local superstition, such as the sin-eater, hellhounds, dark druids, and Welsh witches.

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The Art of Horror Amazingly, there has never been a book quite like The Art of Horror a celebration of frightful images, compiled and presented by some of the genre's most respected names. While acknowledging the beginnings of horror-related art in legends and folk tales, the focus of the book is on how the genre has presented itself to the world since the creations of Bram Stoker and Mary Shelley first became part of the public consciousness in the 19th century. It's all here: from early engravings via dust jackets, book illustrations, pulp magazines, movie posters, comic books, and paintings to today's artists working entirely in the digital realm. Editor Stephen Jones and his stellar team of contributors have sourced visuals from archives and private collections (including their own) worldwide, ensuring an unprecedented selection that is accessible to those discovering the genre, while also including many images that will be rare and unfamiliar to even the most committed fan. From the shockingly lurid to the hauntingly beautiful including images of vampires, werewolves, zombies, ghosts, demons, serial killers, alien invaders, and more every aspect of the genre is represented in ten themed chapters. Quotes from artists/illustrators, and a selection from writers and filmmakers, are featured throughout.
A Companion to the Gothic This Companion is a standard reference work for scholars and students of the Gothic from its origins to the present day. Providing stimulating insights into Gothic writing, its history and genealogy, it offers coverage of criticism of the Gothic and of the various theoretical approaches it has inspired and spawned.
A Dark Night's Dreaming A Dark Night's Dreaming opens by defining the shape of horror fiction today, illuminating the genre's narrative themes, psychological and social contexts, and historical development. The core of the volume focuses on the lives and major works of the six who have dramatically shaped the genre: William Peter Blatty, Thomas Harris, Stephen King, Anne Rice, Peter Straub, and Whitley Strieber. A final chapter analyzes the complex relationship between horror fiction and its adaptation to film. Looking beyond the tormented maidens, madmen, monsters, and other archetypes of the genre, these critics differentiate contemporary Gothic fiction from that of earlier generations while demonstrating that horror remains one of the most important and consistent strains connecting the diverse elements of the American literary tradition. They comment on the genre's enormous popularity and undeniable influence in American society and scrutinize its changing representations of women, monsters, and gore. The volume concludes with,an extensive bibliography of primary and secondary works.
A Geography of Victorian Gothic Fiction This is the first major full-length study of Victorian Gothic fiction. Combining original readings of familiar texts with a rich store of historical sources, A Geography of Victorian Gothic Fiction is an historicist survey of nineteenth-century Gothic writing - from Dickens to Stoker, WilkieCollins to Conan Doyle, through European travelogues, sexological textbooks, ecclesiastic histories and pamphlets on the perils of self-abuse. Critics have thus far tended to concentrate on specific angles of Gothic writing (gender or race), or the belief that the Gothic 'returned' at the so-calledfin de siecle. Robert Mighall, by contrast, demonstrates how the Gothic mode was active throughout the Victorian period, and provides historical explanations for its development from late eighteenth century, through the 'Urban Gothic' fictions of the mid-Victorian period, the 'Suburban Gothic' ofthe Sensation vogue, through to the somatic horrors of Stevenson, Machen, Stoker, and Doyle at the century's close. Mighall challenges the psychological approach to Gothic fiction which currently prevails, demonstrating the importance of geographical, historical, and discursive factors that havebeen largely neglected by critics, and employing a variety of original sources to demonstrate the contexts of Gothic fiction and explain its development in the Victorian period.
Gothicka The Gothic, Romanticism's gritty older sibling, has flourished in myriad permutations since the eighteenth century. In "Gothicka, " Victoria Nelson identifies the revolutionary turn it has taken in the twenty-first. Today's Gothic has fashioned its monsters into heroes and its devils into angels. It is actively reviving supernaturalism in popular culture, not as an evil dimension divorced from ordinary human existence but as part of our daily lives. To explain this millennial shift away from the traditionally dark Protestant post-Enlightenment Gothic, Nelson studies the complex arena of contemporary Gothic subgenres that take the form of novels, films, and graphic novels. She considers the work of Dan Brown and Stephenie Meyer, graphic novelists Mike Mignola and Garth Ennis, Christian writer William P. Young (author of "The Shack"), and filmmaker Guillermo del Toro. She considers twentieth-century Gothic masters H. P. Lovecraft, Anne Rice, and Stephen King in light of both their immediate ancestors in the eighteenth century and the original Gothic-the late medieval period from which Horace Walpole and his successors drew their inspiration. Fictions such as the "Twilight" and "Left Behind" series do more than follow the conventions of the classic Gothic novel. They are radically reviving and reinventing the transcendental worldview that informed the West's premodern era. As Jesus becomes mortal in "The Da Vinci Code" and the child Ofelia becomes a goddess in "Pan's Labyrinth, " Nelson argues that this unprecedented mainstreaming of a spiritually driven supernaturalism is a harbinger of what a post-Christian religion in America might look like.
Literature of the Occult Essays trace the history and major themes of Gothic literature and examine works by Poe, Lovecraft, Stoker, Castaneda, and others
Tracking the Man-Beasts : Sasquatch, vampires, zombies, and more "Join veteran paranormal investigator Joe Nickell on an investigative expedition of the historical, geographical, and cultural reaches of various 'manimals' and other humanoid entities ..."