DOCSLIB.ORG

The Figure of the Gothic Author in Nineteenth-Century America E

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Figure of the Gothic Author in Nineteenth-Century America E The Figure of the Gothic Author in Nineteenth-Century America E. Bulford Welch A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Sheffield 2019 2 The Figure of the Gothic Author in Nineteenth-Century America Ellen Bulford Welch A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Faculty of Arts and Humanities School of English November 2019 3 4 Acknowledgements This work was supported by the Arts & Humanities Research Council (grant number AH/L503848/1) through the White Rose College of the Arts & Humanities. My first thanks must go to Professor Andrew Smith for all of his guidance and support throughout the project. I could not have asked for a more positive, generous or dedicated supervisor. Many thanks also to Dr Duco van Oostrum for practical advice on the PhD and to Dr Amber Regis and Dr Jonathan Ellis for feedback during the confirmation review. I am also grateful to the team at WRoCAH for practical support during the PhD process. Thank you to Sarah Bulford, Ian Welch, Rita and John Bulford, Richard and Joyce Welch, Roger and Chris Welch and John and Suzanne Taylor for all of their encouragement and support. A big thank you must also go to John Taylor for invaluable assistance in the proofreading department. A final thank you to Jonathan Taylor, without whose companionship, empathy and keen wit this process would have been an infinitely more Gothic prospect. 5 Abstract This study comprises an investigation into the figure of the Gothic author in nineteenth- century America. Overall, it demonstrates that the persistent critical attribution of Gothic identities to practitioners of the Gothic genre — what I term the Gothicisation of the Gothic author — exerted a profound impact upon the perception and practice of Gothic authorship. Tracing this trend back to the biographical approach to literary criticism which dominated nineteenth-century literary discussion, I argue that a method of textual exegesis which read the content of an author's work as an index of their character posed a particular threat to the public reputations of practitioners of the Gothic. Conflated with their troubled protagonists, diagnosed with dysfunctional psychological traits and aligned, both metaphorically and literally, with Gothic character types, this discourse created a cultural climate in which Gothic authorship had to be strategically negotiated. As I illustrate, this was primarily achieved through the adoption of evasive writing strategies that were designed to distance the author from their chosen mode of writing. Whilst this thesis places the gothicised discourse surrounding Gothic authorship in a transatlantic context, it is especially concerned with the unique ramifications that it held for notions of American national identity during the nineteenth century. Following the American Revolution, when the process of nation-building became tightly bound up with the creation of a successful and authentically American national literary canon, the figure of the American author assumed a nationally representative status. This was instantly problematised, I argue, by the Gothic's prominence within America's emerging literary tradition. As well as examining the ways in which authors navigated the negative personal connotations attached to Gothic authorship, therefore, this study also interrogates the rhetorical strategies that American critics used to de-gothicise the Gothic works of authors whose writing was deemed to be of significant national value. 6 Table of Contents Acknowledgements 5 Abstract 6 Table of Contents 7 Declaration of Originality 8 Note on Texts 9 Introduction 11 Chapter 1: The Gothic Author as Gothic Subject in Nineteenth-Century Criticism 31 Chapter 2: American Literary Nationalism and the De-Gothicisation of Nathaniel Hawthorne 75 Chapter 3: American Periodicals, the Culture of Sensationalism and the Strategic Construction of Gothic Texts 127 Chapter 4: A Gothic Alter-Ego: Louisa May Alcott and her Hidden Career 175 Conclusion 221 Bibliography 233 7 Declaration of Originality I, the author, confirm that the Thesis is my own work. I am aware of the University’s Guidance on the Use of Unfair Means (www.sheffield.ac.uk/ssid/unfair-means). This work has not been previously been presented for an award at this, or any other, university. 8 Note on texts Original spelling and punctuation have been retained throughout for quotations. 9 10 Introduction Gothicising the Gothic Author On the 1 January 1848 the satirical American periodical, The John-Donkey, printed a parodic 'How To' guide for writers 'desirous of achieving immortality' as Gothic authors.1 Facetiously glossing the nineteenth-century Gothic as the 'Common-place High-pressure Highfaluting' style (a direct descendent of 'the Romantic High-pressure Highfaluting' mode inaugurated during the 1790s by the hugely popular, yet contentious novels of 'Mrs. Radcliffe' and 'Monk LEWIS'), this guide advises the genre's contemporary aspirants to adopt the following practices: When you sit down to write, tangle your hair carefully, loosen your neckerchief, and rumple your shirt-collar. Upset all the chairs, overturn all earthen utensils, and kick the bed-clothes around your attic. [...] Follow these rules, and every one will think you an author of great genius, or a bedlamite — and the distinction between the two is very slight. In either case they will think you inspired. If you can talk in your preface about some clique — some secret cabal, whose members are busily engaged in putting you down — so much the better. Declare you will not be put down, or you will not stay ‘put.’ Assume the defensive.2 According to this manual, Gothic authorship is bound up with the espousal of recognisably Gothic lifestyles or behaviours. At best, rumoured to be associated with the enigmatic and exclusive underworld of secret societies, practitioners of the genre are expected to exhibit a kind of dark glamour. At worst, they are painted as seedy, undignified or pathetic underdogs, fundamentally unsuited to the demands of everyday life. Imagined in a permanently 'defensive' posture, they are associated with such basic personal “failings” as domestic disorder, poor personal hygiene and sartorial mishap. This portrait also makes the psychological connection between Gothic authorship and emotional dysfunction or insanity, with Gothic works demonstrating a fine line between literary 'genius' and the ravings of a 'bedlamite’. Simultaneously a figure of lurid fascination and pity, the Gothic author is represented as anathema to normality. They are creatures of melodrama and excess, flamboyantly or compulsively manifesting the extremes of their chosen mode of writing. Whilst clearly tongue-in-cheek (as well as promoting the cynical adoption of eccentric literary personas as a commercially beneficial self-fashioning strategy), this set of 1 'Hints to Novelists', The John-Donkey, 1 January 1848, p. 11 (p. 11). 2 'Hints to Novelists', p. 11. 11 instructions is illustrative of one of the most pervasive critical discourses surrounding Gothic authorship in the nineteenth century: the assumption, almost invariably pejorative, that writers who produced Gothic fictions were Gothic figures in their own right. Within this discourse, the world of the Gothic author was one in which the boundaries between fact and fabrication were always blurred. The fictional Gothic narratives consumed by readers were perceived merely to be a reflection or extension of the Gothic narratives that their creators inhabited in actuality. This study argues that the persistent critical alignment of Gothic fictions with Gothic realities — what I term the Gothicisation of the Gothic author — exerted a profound impact upon the perception and practice of Gothic authorship in nineteenth-century America. I argue that the ubiquity of biographical readings of Gothic texts, which conceptualised them as the product of everything from low-level melancholia to sinister pathologies and demonic possession, created a literary climate in which Gothic authorship had to be strategically negotiated. On a personal level, individual writers often resorted to evasive writing practices, such as anonymous authorship, or the adoption of metafictional Gothic subgenres designed to erect a deflective barrier between the content of their fiction and their own character. On a wider scale, the conceptualisation of Gothic authors as Gothic subjects frequently shaped the construction of their early reception histories. More often than not, this led to the publication of character portraits which cast shadowy question marks over their reputations, many of which have inflected their on-going cultural legacies and critical treatment up until the present day. Rufus Griswold's infamous obituary of Edgar Allan Poe is a case in point.3 Under certain conditions, however, it prompted contemporary essayists, reviewers and biographers to justify, reinterpret, or entirely elide the Gothic elements in an author's corpus. These critical acts of redemption or realignment were often influenced by the literary nationalist appropriation of specific authorial careers, most notably Nathaniel Hawthorne's. When the gothicised discourse surrounding Gothic authorship became entangled with questions of national cultural identity, especially in connection with a specific writer's emergent canonicity, patriotism demanded that the troubling personal implications attached to the Gothicism
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Hermaphrodite Edited by Renée Bergland and Gary Williams
    Philosophies of Sex Etching of Julia Ward Howe. By permission of The Boston Athenaeum hilosophies of Sex PCritical Essays on The Hermaphrodite EDITED BY RENÉE BERGLAND and GARY WILLIAMS THE OHIO State UNIVERSITY PRESS • COLUMBUS Copyright © 2012 by The Ohio State University. All rights reserved. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Philosophies of sex : critical essays on The hermaphrodite / Edited by Renée Bergland and Gary Williams. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8142-1189-2 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 0-8142-1189-5 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8142-9290-7 (cd-rom) 1. Howe, Julia Ward, 1819–1910. Hermaphrodite. I. Bergland, Renée L., 1963– II. Williams, Gary, 1947 May 6– PS2018.P47 2012 818'.409—dc23 2011053530 Cover design by Laurence J. Nozik Type set in Adobe Minion Pro and Scala Printed by Thomson-Shore, Inc. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American Na- tional Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials. ANSI Z39.48–1992. 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 CONTENTS Acknowledgments vii Introduction GARY Williams and RENÉE Bergland 1 Foreword Meeting the Hermaphrodite MARY H. Grant 15 Chapter One Indeterminate Sex and Text: The Manuscript Status of The Hermaphrodite KAREN SÁnchez-Eppler 23 Chapter Two From Self-Erasure to Self-Possession: The Development of Julia Ward Howe’s Feminist Consciousness Marianne Noble 47 Chapter Three “Rather Both Than Neither”: The Polarity of Gender in Howe’s Hermaphrodite Laura Saltz 72 Chapter Four “Never the Half of Another”: Figuring and Foreclosing Marriage in The Hermaphrodite BetsY Klimasmith 93 vi • Contents Chapter Five Howe’s Hermaphrodite and Alcott’s “Mephistopheles”: Unpublished Cross-Gender Thinking JOYCE W.
    [Show full text]
  • HORACE WALPOLE and the NEW TASTE for GOTHIC by RONALD
    HORACE WALPOLE AND THE NEW TASTE FOR GOTHIC by RONALD BARRY HATCH B.A., University of British Columbia, 1963 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in the Department of ENGLISH We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA September, 1964 In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that per• mission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the Head of my Department or by his representatives. It is understood that copying or publi• cation of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission- Department of The University of British Columbia, Vancouver 8, Canada ii ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to examine Horace Walpole's contribution to the reawakening taste for Gothic in the eighteenth century and to relate his curiously ephemeral art forms to the broad historical development of the Gothic. No attempt has been made, except in an incidental way, to treat the initial flourishing of Gothic architecture; that the reader has at least a passing acquaintance with the architecture of the Middle Ages is assumed. Instead, the emphasis has been placed upon the Gothic survival of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; as Gothic architecture was virtually eclipsed during this period, many readers may feel that this emphasis is unwarranted.
    [Show full text]
  • The Gothic Novel and the Lingering Appeal of Romance
    The Gothic Novel and the Lingering Appeal of Romance While the origins of most literary genres are lost, either in scholarly controversy or the dark backward and abysm of time, those of the Gothic novel present an admirable clarity. Beneath the papier-mâché machicolations of Strawberry Hill, the antiquarian and aesthete Horace Walpole, inspired by a nightmare involving ‘a giant hand in armour,’ created at white heat the tale published Christmas 1764 as The Castle of Otranto. Not one but two genres were thus begun. The one established first was the historical romance, which derived from elements in both Otranto and an earlier romance by Thomas Leland, Longsword, Earl of Salisbury (1762). This form was pioneered by William Hutchinson's The Hermitage (1772), and developed by Clara Reeve (in The Champion of Virtue, 1777, retitled 1778 The Old English Baron) and Sophia Lee in The Recess (1783B85); it reached something like canonical status with the medieval romances of Walter Scott. The second, the Gothic tale of supernatural terror, was slower to erupt. The Otranto seed has time to travel to Germany and bear fruit there in the Räuber- und Ritter-romane before being reengrafted onto its native English soil. It was not until the last decade of the eighteenth century that the Gothic became a major force in English fiction, so much so that tales set in Italian castles and Spanish monasteries began to crowd out those set in London houses and Hampshire mansions. The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), by Ann Radcliffe, and The Monk (1796), by Matthew G. Lewis, spawned numberless imitators in a craze whose original impetus carried it into the next century.
    [Show full text]
  • Louisa May Alcott - Realistic Child
    133 Louisa May Alcott - Realistic Child of the Concord Renaissance Karen Ann Takizawa ルイザ ・メイ ・オルコット― コンコー ド・ルネッサンスの現実主義的落し子 カ レ ン ・ア ン ・滝 沢 1994年 、 清 泉 女 学 院 短 期 大 学 の ドラ マ セ ミナ ー の 学 生 達 が ル イ ザ ・メ イ ・オ ル コ ッ トの 代表作7若 草物語」を脚色し、上演することなった。 このことが、彼女の作品 と時代 につ い て 調 べ 、 マ サ チ ュ ー セ ッ ツ 州 コ ン コ ー ド(当 時 の 超 絶 主 義 の 中 心 地)に あ る 彼 女 の 故 郷 へ文学巡礼の旅 をするきっかけ となった。ルイザ ・メイ ・オルコッ トは、今は少女小説の 作 家 で あ る と思 わ れ て い る が 、 純 文 学 を 書 く作 家 で も あ り、 ま た 収 入 を 得 る た め の 作 品 も 書いた現実主義的作家でもあった。 Introduction In 1994, the students in my Drama Seminar at Seisen Jogakuin College chose to write and perform a play based on Louisa May Alcott's most famous work, Little Women. This project led to an investigation into her life and times and a literary pilgrimage to her former home in Concord, Massachusetts, both of which will be discussed in this report. The Place of Louisa May Alcott in American Literature Louisa May Alcott lived for much of her life in Concord, Massachusetts, where her father, Bronson Alcott, was active as one of the leaders of the nineteenth century Transcendentalist movement. Among his friends were three of the major American writers of the day, Ralph Waldo Emerson, author of Nature, Henry David Thoreau, 134 Bu!.
    [Show full text]
  • Gothic Modernism: Revising and Representing the Narratives of History and Romance
    University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 5-2012 Gothic Modernism: Revising and Representing the Narratives of History and Romance Taryn Louise Norman [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss Part of the American Literature Commons, Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, Literature in English, British Isles Commons, and the Literature in English, North America Commons Recommended Citation Norman, Taryn Louise, "Gothic Modernism: Revising and Representing the Narratives of History and Romance. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2012. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/1331 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Taryn Louise Norman entitled "Gothic Modernism: Revising and Representing the Narratives of History and Romance." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in English. Lisi Schoenbach, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Mary Papke, Amy Billone, Carolyn Hodges Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) Gothic Modernism: Revising and Representing the Narratives of History and Romance A Dissertation Presented for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree The University of Tennessee Taryn Louise Norman May 2012 Copyright © 2012 Taryn Louise Norman All rights reserved.
    [Show full text]
  • The Intellectual Functions of Gothic Fiction
    University of New Hampshire University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository Doctoral Dissertations Student Scholarship Spring 1977 FEARFUL QUESTIONS, FEARFUL ANSWERS: THE INTELLECTUAL FUNCTIONS OF GOTHIC FICTION PAUL LEWIS Follow this and additional works at: https://scholars.unh.edu/dissertation Recommended Citation LEWIS, PAUL, "FEARFUL QUESTIONS, FEARFUL ANSWERS: THE INTELLECTUAL FUNCTIONS OF GOTHIC FICTION" (1977). Doctoral Dissertations. 1160. https://scholars.unh.edu/dissertation/1160 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Scholarship at University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INFORMATION TO USERS This material was produced from a microfilm copy of the original document. While the most advanced technological means to photograph and reproduce this document have been used, the quality is heavily dependent upon the quality of the original submitted. The following explanation of techniques is provided to help you understand markings or patterns which may appear on this reproduction. 1.The sign or “target" for pages apparently lacking from the document photographed is "Missing Page(s)". If it was possible to obtain the missing page(s) or section, they are spliced into the film along with adjacent pages. This may have necessitated cutting thru an image and duplicating adjacent pages to insure you complete continuity. 2. When an image on the film is obliterated with a large round black mark, it is an indication that the photographer suspected that the copy may have moved during exposure and thus cause a blurred image.
    [Show full text]
  • Human Monsters: Examining the Relationship Between the Posthuman Gothic and Gender in American Gothic Fiction Alexandra Rivera
    Claremont Colleges Scholarship @ Claremont Scripps Senior Theses Scripps Student Scholarship 2019 Human Monsters: Examining the Relationship Between the Posthuman Gothic and Gender in American Gothic Fiction Alexandra Rivera Recommended Citation Rivera, Alexandra, "Human Monsters: Examining the Relationship Between the Posthuman Gothic and Gender in American Gothic Fiction" (2019). Scripps Senior Theses. 1358. https://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/1358 This Open Access Senior Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Scripps Student Scholarship at Scholarship @ Claremont. It has been accepted for inclusion in Scripps Senior Theses by an authorized administrator of Scholarship @ Claremont. For more information, please contact [email protected]. HUMAN MONSTERS: EXAMINING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE POSTHUMAN GOTHIC AND GENDER IN AMERICAN GOTHIC FICTION by ALEXANDRA RIVERA SUBMITTED TO SCRIPPS COLLEGE IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF ARTS PROFESSOR KOENIGS PROFESSOR MANSOURI APRIL 26, 2019 Acknowledgements I would like to thank my thesis readers, Professor Koenigs and Professor Mansouri, for working with me on developing this topic and helping strengthen my ideas. Thank you Professor Koenigs for always pushing me to take my writing further and to really dig deep into the subject of study. I am also deeply grateful for my parents, Ken and Maria Rivera, and their love and encouragement during the thesis process. I would also like to thank my friends and loved ones, especially Willow Winter, for supporting and believing in me. Finally, I have to thank my cats Grayson and Gracie for boosting my morale and helping me power through the late nights of writing.
    [Show full text]
  • MASARYK UNIVERSITY BRNO American Gothic Fiction: Vampire
    MASARYK UNIVERSITY BRNO FACULTY OF EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE American Gothic Fiction: Vampire Romances Final thesis Brno 2012 Supervisor: Author: PhDr. Irena Přibylová, Ph.D. Mgr. Jitka Čápová Declaration I hereby declare that I have written this final thesis myself and that all the sources I have used are listed in the bibliography section. Hradec Králové 13 August 2012 …………………………………………… Mgr. Jitka Čápová Acknowledgements: I would like to thank to PhDr. Irena Přibylová, Ph.D. for her time, patience and valuable advice. I would also like to thank to my family for their support. Table of Contents 1. Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 1 2. Theory ................................................................................................................................................. 2 2.1 Gothic ................................................................................................................................................ 3 2.2 Romance ............................................................................................................................................ 5 2.3 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 9 3. Analysis ............................................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • David Martin Shaw for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy University Of
    Y3XTERNAL AND REAL, BUT NôT SZTPERNA-": TEE TERROR OF THE SOUL IN BROCKDEN BROWN AND POE David Martin Shaw A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of English University of Toronto @ David Martin Shaw 1999 National Library Bibliothèque nationale I*(of Canada du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographie Services services bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395. nie Wellington Ottawa ON K1A ON4 OttawaON K1A ON4 Canada Canada The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive permettant à la National Library of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or sell reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of ths thesis in microform, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfiche/film, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts fkom it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. "Externai and real, but not supernatural": The Terror of the Sou1 in Brockden Brown and Poe. Ph.D. Thesis, 1999. David Martin Shaw Graduate Department of English, ~niversityof Toronto Abstract William Hazlitt noted in 1829 that the works of Charles Brockden Brown "were a banquet of horrors," arguing that the lack of European Gothic settings in the New World produced a different vein in the history of the tale of terror, as "the genius of America is essentially mechanical and modern.
    [Show full text]
  • Chasing the Social Gothic in Antebellum Fiction
    Ghent University Faculty of Arts and Philosophy Chasing the Social Gothic in Antebellum Fiction The Social in the Gothic Short Fiction of Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, and Nathaniel Hawthorne Paper submitted in partial Supervisor: fulfilment of the requirements Prof. Dr. Gert Buelens for the degree of “Master in de Taal- en Letterkunde - afstudeerricthing: Engels” by Jan- Bart Claus 2015-2016 Claus 2 De auteur en de promotor(en) geven de toelating deze studie als geheel voor consultatie beschikbaar te stellen voor persoonlijk gebruik. Elk ander gebruik valt onder de beperkingen van het auteursrecht, in het bijzonder met betrekking tot de verplichting de bron uitdrukkelijk te vermelden bij het aanhalen van gegevens uit deze studie. Het auteursrecht betreffende de gegevens vermeld in deze studie berust bij de promotor(en). Het auteursrecht beperkt zich tot de wijze waarop de auteur de problematiek van het onderwerp heeft benaderd en neergeschreven. De auteur respecteert daarbij het oorspronkelijke auteursrecht van de individueel geciteerde studies en eventueel bijhorende documentatie, zoals tabellen en figuren. De auteur en de promotor(en) zijn niet verantwoordelijk voor de behandelingen en eventuele doseringen die in deze studie geciteerd en beschreven zijn. Claus 3 Table of Contents 1. Foreword ............................................................................................................................. 4 2. The Antebellum Period and American Gothic Literature ................................................... 5 2.1
    [Show full text]
  • The Gothic Tradition in HP Lovecraft
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Repositorio Documental de la Universidad de Valladolid FACULTAD de FILOSOFÍA Y LETRAS DEPARTAMENTO de FILOLOGÍA INGLESA Grado en Estudios Ingleses TRABAJO DE FIN DE GRADO The Gothic Tradition in H.P. Lovecraft: An Analysis of “The Call of Cthulhu” Olivia Fernández Ozores Tutora: Marta Gutiérrez Rodríguez 2015-2016 VºBº: ABSTRACT Gothic Literature awakened in the eighteenth century. It first appeared in Great Britain as a rebellion against the Neoclassical period, which no longer satisfied the needs of the readers nor the wants of the different writers. The Gothic style arrived to the American continent in the last part of the eighteenth century. It was first rejected due to American pragmatism; however, writers soon began to adjust the Gothic literary characteristics to their own cultural features. One of the most recognized American Gothic authors from the twentieth century was Howard Phillips Lovecraft. His work “The Call of Cthulhu” is a clear exponent of the American Gothic trend. The purpose of this essay is to elaborate a detailed study of the previously mentioned Lovecraft’s short story and provide a thorough analysis of the main characteristics by which it is considered a key work of American Gothic literature. Keywords: Gothic, American literature, literature of terror, H.P. Lovecraft, “The Call of Cthulhu”, horror. La literatura gótica emerge en el siglo dieciocho. Aparece por primera vez en Gran Bretaña como reacción contra los ideales del período Neoclásico que ya no satisfacían ni las necesidades de los lectores ni los requerimientos de los escritores.
    [Show full text]
  • Vampire Figures in Anglo-American Literature And
    Jihočeská univerzita v Českých Budějovicích Pedagogická fakulta Katedra anglistiky Diplomová práce Vampire Figures in Anglo-American Literature and Their Metamorphosis from Freaks to Heroes Charakteristika a příčiny posunu vnímání postav upírů v Anglo-americké literatuře, tj. literární přeměna negativní zrůdy v hrdinskou postavu vypracovala: Alžběta Němcová vedoucí práce: Mgr. Linda Kocmichová České Budějovice 2014 Prohlašuji, že svoji diplomovou práci jsem vypracovala samostatně pouze s použitím pramenů a literatury uvedených v seznamu citované literatury. Prohlašuji, že v souladu s § 47b zákona č. 111/1998 Sb. v platném znění souhlasím se zveřejněním své diplomové práce, a to v nezkrácené podobě elektronickou cestou ve veřejně přístupné části databáze STAG provozované Jihočeskou univerzitou v Českých Budějovicích na jejích internetových stránkách, a to se zachováním mého autorského práva k odevzdanému textu této kvalifikační práce. Souhlasím dále s tím, aby toutéž elektronickou cestou byly v souladu s uvedeným ustanovením zákona č. 111/1998 Sb. zveřejněny posudky školitele a oponentů práce i záznam o průběhu a výsledku obhajoby kvalifikační práce. Rovněž souhlasím s porovnáním textu mé kvalifikační práce s databází kvalifikačních prací Theses.cz provozovanou Národním registrem vysokoškolských kvalifikačních prací a systémem na odhalování plagiátů. V Českých Budějovicích dne 24. 6. 2014 Alžběta Němcová Acknowledgements I would hereby like to thank to my diploma thesis supervisor, Mgr. Linda Kocmichová, for her valuable advice, patience and supervision regarding the compilation of this diploma thesis. Poděkování Chtěla bych poděkovat vedoucí mé diplomové práce, Mgr. Lindě Kocmichové, za její cenné rady, trpělivost a pomoc při psaní této diplomové práce. Abstract The aim of this work is to outline the development of a vampire portrayal in Anglo- American Literature.
    [Show full text]