History of the Gothic: Gothic Literature 1764-1824

Carol Davison

Description

This title offers a detailed yet accessible introduction to classic British Gothic literature and the popular sub-category of the Female Gothic designed for the student reader.
Works by such classic Gothic authors as Horace Walpole, Matthew Lewis, Ann Radcliffe, William Godwin, and Mary Shelley are examined against the backdrop of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British social and political history and significant intellectual/cultural developments. Identification and interpretation of the Gothic’s variously reconfigured major motifs and conventions is provided alongside suggestions for further critical reading, a timeline of notable Gothic-related publications, and consideration of various theoretical approaches.

Sujets

• Literary Criticism
• Romance
• Gothic

Informations

• Publié par: University of Wales Press
• Date de parution: 01 juin 2009
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781783163878
• Langue: English

Extrait

GOTHIC LITERATURE 1764-1824
S ERIES P REFACE
Gothic Literary Studies is dedicated to publishing groundbreaking scholarship on Gothic in literature and film. The Gothic, which has been subjected to a variety of critical and theoretical approaches, is a form which plays an important role in our understanding of literary, intellectual and cultural histories. The series seeks to promote challenging and innovative approaches to Gothic which question any aspect of the Gothic tradition or perceived critical orthodoxy.
Volumes in the series explore how issues such as gender, religion, nation and sexuality have shaped our view of the Gothic tradition. Both academically rigorous and informed by the latest developments in critical theory, the series provides an important focus for scholastic developments in Gothic studies, literary studies, cultural studies and critical theory. The series will be of interest to students of all levels and to scholars and teachers of the Gothic and literary and cultural histories.
S ERIES E DITORS
Andrew Smith, University of Glamorgan
Benjamin F. Fisher, University of Mississippi
E DITORIAL B OARD
Kent Ljungquist, Worcester Polytechnic Institute Massachusetts
Richard Fusco, St Joseph s University, Philadelphia
David Punter, University of Bristol
Chris Baldick, University of London
Angela Wright, University of Sheffield
Jerrold E. Hogle, University of Arizona
HISTORY OF THE GOTHIC
Gothic Literature 1764-1824
Carol Margaret Davison
© Carol Margaret Davison, 2009
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any material form (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright owner except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Applications for the copyright owner s written permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to the University of Wales Press, 10 Columbus Walk, Brigantine Place, Cardiff, CF10 4UP.
www.uwp.co.uk
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-0-7083-2009-9 (hardback) 978-0-7083-2045-7 (paperback)
e-ISBN 978-1-78316-387-8
The right of Carol Margaret Davison to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 79 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Cover image: The Marsden Archive
C ONTENTS
Series Editors Foreword
Acknowledgements
Chronology
Introduction and Critical Overview
1 Gothic Enlightenment/Enlightenment Gothic
2 Anatomizing the Gothic
3 The Female Gothic
4 Revolutionary Gothic/Gothic Revolutions
5 Female Gothic Reconfigurations
6 The Gothic Romantics/Romanticizing the Gothic
7 Revitalizing the Gothic
8 Afterword - Victorian Gothic
Endnotes
Bibliography
Annotated Bibliography
S ERIES E DITORS F OREWORD
The History of the Gothic series consists of four volumes: Gothic Literature 1764-1824 , Gothic Literature 1825-1914 , Twentieth Century Gothic and American Gothic . The series provides a comprehensive introduction to the history of Gothic Literature and to a variety of critical and theoretical approaches. Volumes in the series also raise questions about how the Gothic canon has been received and seek to critically challenge, rather than simply reaffirm, commonplace perceptions of the Gothic tradition. Whilst intended as an introduction to the history of the Gothic they thus also provide a rigorous analysis of how that history has been developed and suggest ways in which it can be critically renegotiated.
The series will be of interest to students of all levels who are new to the Gothic and to scholars and teachers of the history of Gothic Literature. The series will also be of interest to students and scholars working more broadly within the areas of literary studies, cultural studies, and critical theory.
Andrew Smith, University of Glamorgan
Benjamin F. Fisher, University of Mississippi
Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Andrew Smith and Benjamin Fisher, the series editors, who issued me the challenging invitation to write this book. Their patience and encouragement has meant a great deal to me, as has that of Dafydd Jones and the University of Wales Press, during what has been a rather erratic production process. I am also thankful to the anonymous reader of my outline and the draft manuscript for invaluable commentary and corrections. I am grateful to Palgrave/Macmillan for allowing me to reprint revised sections from my book, Anti-Semitism and British Gothic Literature (2004) and to Sir Simon Marsden for allowing me, for a nominal fee, the use of his atmospheric image of Duntroon Castle in Argyll, Scotland, for this book s cover. I also owe a debt of gratitude to the Canada-US Fulbright program for supporting my stint as a Fulbright scholar at the University of Virginia from September to December 2005.While that award was for research for my next book on the Scottish Gothic, it did double duty. I am grateful to former President Ross Paul, Provost Neil Gold, Dean Cecil Houston and Karl Jirgens, Head of English, at the University of Windsor, for pulling strings to allow me to accept that award. Special thanks are due to Heather Moore Riser, Head of Public Services, and the gracious staff at the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia, which houses the world-renowned Sadleir-Black Gothic collection. That such a collection should be located in the subterranean space of an Enlightenment institution founded by Thomas Jefferson, attended by Edgar Allan Poe and visited by William Faulkner struck me as extremely appropriate given my subject matter. My attendance there would have been impossible without the assistance of my ever-gracious and beloved parents. I dedicate this book, in part, to the memory of Frederick S. Frank, who urged me to work with the Sadleir-Black collection. His lifelong dedication to the field of Gothic scholarship is a shining example to us all and he will be greatly missed. (I am doing everything in my power to ensure thesicklytaper.com lives on.) My old friends, Robert Murphy and Sylvie Roy in Richmond, were tremendously accommodating hosts while I was there, as is their way. Closer to home, I owe so much to the hundreds of students at Concordia University, McGill University, the University of Toronto and the University of Windsor, to whom I have taught a broad spectrum of Gothic courses over the past seventeen years. Without their questions, interest and feedback, this book could never have been written. I also benefited greatly from my course releases as the University of Windsor Humanities Fellow in 2006 granted by the Humanities Research Group, and am grateful for the assistance I continue to receive from the ever-friendly and efficient staff at the Leddy Library, University of Windsor. The wonderful Emily Wunder pulled rabbits out of hats to efficiently alter the notation format at the eleventh hour. During this and the indexing process Betsy Keating was, as ever, a wonderfully precise and astute editorial assistant and, more importantly, a true and dear friend. Darrin Mara McAgy was at the opposite end of that spectrum, reminding me on numerous horrible and traumatic occasions that the Gothic is firmly rooted in real life. Giving birth to a book and a baby, as a single mother with no family nearby, has been an extremely challenging experience that I would not recommend to even the most intrepid of scholars. My hideous progeny is definitely the book and although she can t yet read it, the book is for the baby.
Chronology of major works and relevant historic events
1700 John Pomfret s A Prospect of Death .
1707 Act of Union between England and Scotland.
1715 First Jacobite Rebellion ( The Fifteen ).
1717 Birth of Horace Walpole.
1722 Thomas Parnell s A Night Piece on Death .
1729 Birth of Clara Reeve.
1742 Edward Young s The Complaint, or Night Thoughts on Life, Death, and Immortality (1742-5).
1743 Robert Blair s The Grave .
1745 Second Jacobite Rebellion ( The Forty-Five ); Giovanni Battista Piranesi s Carceri d Invenzione (1745-61).
1746 James Hervey s Meditations Among the Tombs (1746-7).
1747 Thomas Warton s On the Pleasures of Melancholy .
1750 Birth of Sophia Lee; Horace Walpole commences the redesign of Strawberry Hill as part of a revival in Gothic architecture.
1751 Thomas Gray s Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard .
1753 John Bond s An Essay on the Incubus, or Night-mare .
1756 Birth of William Godwin; commencement of the Seven Years War, which involved all of the major European powers. Britain emerged as the world s dominant colonial power, while France lost its colonial power in the Americas.
1757 Edmund Burke s A Philosophical Enquiry into our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful .
1760 Death of George II; birth of William Beckford.
1761 Death of Samuel Richardson.
1762 Richard Hurd s Letters on Chivalry and Romance ; James Macpherson s Fingal ; Jean-Jacques Rousseau s The Social Contract and mile, or On Education .
1763 Peace of Paris ends the Seven Years War between France and England; James Macpherson s Temora .
1764 Horace Walpole s The Castle of Otranto (reissued in 1765 with the subtitle A Gothic Story ); birth of Ann Radcliffe; birth of Regina Maria Roche (?).
1765 Thomas Percy s Reliques of Ancient English Poetry .
1768 Horace Walpole writes The Mysterious Mother .
1770 Birth of James Hogg.
1771 Birth of Sir Walter Scott.
1772 Birth of Charlotte Dacre; birth of Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
1773 John and Anna Laetitia Aikin s On the Pleasure Derived From Objects of Terror .
1774 Accession of Louis XVI of France.
1775 Birth of Matthew Gregory Lewis; birth of Jane Austen.
1776 American