Gothic -

Fred Botting

Routledge

2005

128 páginas

4h 16m

ISBN-10: 0415092191

In this accessible and lucid introduction Fred Botting traces the sources and developments of a transgressive genre which has thrived for over two centuries. He examines the key texts, origins and writers, as well as their cultural and historical location, their critical reception and their influence. Gothic focuses on the various styles and forms of the genre and analyses the cultural significance of its prevalent figures: the ghosts, monsters, vampires, doubles and horrors that are its definitive features. Botting traces its history from its origins in the eighteenth century through to modernist and postmodernist representations. He offers a broad overview of the themes, images and effects that not only define the genre but also endure and reappear endlessly in both ‘high’ and ‘popular’ literature and culture. Gothic is an enlightening textbook which students new to the daunting subject of literary theory will find both essential reading and an invaluable foundation for further study.

Fred Botting lectures on Romanticism and literary theory at Lancaster University. He is the author of Making Monstrous: Frankenstein, Criticism, Theory and editor of Frankenstein: A New Casebook.