The Failure of Gothic: Problems of Disjunction in an Eighteenth-century Literary FormThe English Gothic novel has recently attracted renewed attention by modern critics who have argued its importance as a mirror of late 18th-century discomfort with the political, psychological, and sexual climate of the times. Elizabeth Napier's work challenges these views, suggesting that the instability of the form may be more successfully addressed through a study of generic structure and its relationship to the designs of the fictional works that preceded it. The first full-length study of narrative conventions in the Gothic, The Failure of Gothic examines the disjunctive form of much Gothic fiction, and its repeated, troubling failure to deal conclusively with both the ethical and the formal issues it raises. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Techniques of Closure and Restraint | 9 |
Techniques of Destabilization and Excess | 44 |
Copyright | |
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Common terms and phrases
aesthetic Ambrosio Ann Radcliffe Antonia appear Athlin and Dunbayne beauty becomes Castle of Otranto Castle of Wolfenbach Castles of Athlin character Clara Reeve comic complex conventional critics death delineating disjunctive dramatic dream effect Ellena Emily Emily's emotional emphasis exaggerated fear feeling genre ghosts Gilpin Gothic fiction Gothic novels Gothic romance Gothic Story Gothic writers heroines Hippolita Horace Walpole human Ibid imagination interest Isabella Italian lady later Lewis's London Madame du Deffand Manfred Manfred's Manfroné Matilda Maturin melancholy Melmoth the Wanderer Monk moral murder Mysteries of Udolpho narrative novelists Old English Baron passage passions picturesque plot PMLA preface psychological Radcliffe's reader remarks repeatedly repr response Review Rosalina scene Schedoni Scott seems sense sensibility sentimental sexual Sicilian Romance St Aubert Strawberry Hill sublime suggests supernatural tale tendency terror Terrorist Novel Theodore tion tone Valancourt veil villains violent virtue Vivaldi vols W. S. Lewis Walpole's writes wrote Zastrozzi