Synopses & Reviews
From Anne Rice's best-selling novels to our recurrent interest in vampires and the occult, the Gothic has an unyielding hold on our imagination. But what exactly does "Gothic" mean? How does it differ from "terror" or "horror," and where do its parameters lie? Through a wide and eclectic range of brief essays written by leading scholars,
The Handbook to Gothic Literature provides a virtual encyclopedia of things Gothic. From the Demonic to the Uncanny, the Bronte sisters to Melville, this volume plots the characteristics of Gothic's vastly different schools and manifestations, offering a comprehensive guide of Gothic writing and culture.
Among the many topics and literary figures discussed are: American Gothic, Ambrose Bierce, the Bronte Sisters, Angela Carter, the Demonic, Female Gothic, the Frenetique School, Ghost Stories, Gothic Film, the Graveyard School, Horror, Imagination, Washington Irving, Henry James, H.P. Lovecraft, Madness, Herman Melville, Monstrosity, Occultism, Orientalism, Post-Colonial Gothic, Anne Radcliffe, Anne Rice, Romanticism, Sado-Masochism, Mary and P. B. Shelley, Bram Stoker, the Sublime, the Uncanny, Vampires, Werewolves, Oscar Wilde, and Zerrissenheit.
Synopsis
Pleasure, wrote Oscar Wilde, is the only thing worth having a theory about. In Pleasure in the Eighteenth Century, Roy Porter and Marie Mulvey Roberts question the idea of pleasure as unmediated, natural experience. To what extent was pleasure stage-managed to make it socially, morally, and politically acceptable?
Taking its cue from Michel Foucault, this volume represents a stunning example of the pleasures of analysis, a place where discourse about pleasure is a pleasure in its own right. From cross-dressing to feasting, music to charity work, the essays in this volume probe the foundations of eighteenth-century society while entertaining the reader vicariously with their tales of vanished delights.
About the Author
Roy Porter is Professor of the Social History of Medicine at the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, and author of a number of books including London: A Social History.
Marie Mulvey Roberts is Senior Lecturer in Literary Studies at the University of West England and author of British Poets and Secret Societies and Gothic Immortals.