Gothic fiction and the invention of terrorism : the politics and aesthetics of fear in the age of the reign of terror / Joseph Crawford.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Crawford, Joseph, 1982-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Gothic fiction (Literary genre), English--History and criticism.

Gothic fiction (Literary genre), English.

English literature--18th century--History and criticism.

English literature.

Fear in literature.

Other (Philosophy) in literature.

Physical Description:

xiv, 217 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

London ; New York : Bloomsbury Academic, 2013.

Summary:

"This book examines the connections between the growth of'terror fiction' - the genre now known as 'Gothic' - in the late eighteenth century, and the simultaneous appearance of the conceptual origins of'terrorism' as a category of political action. In the 1790s, Crawford argues, four inter-connected bodies of writing arose in Britain: the historical mythology of the French Revolution, the political rhetoric of 'terrorism', the genre ofpolitical conspiracy theory, and the literary genre of Gothic fiction, known atthe time as 'terrorist novel writing'. All four bodies of writing drew heavily upon one another, in order to articulate their shared sense of the radical and monstrous otherness of the extremes of human evil, a sense which was quite newto the eighteenth century, but has remained central to the ways in which wehave thought and written about evil and violence ever since"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction

1. Terror Before Terrorism

2. The Reign of Terror

3. The Secret Masters Walk Amongst Us

4. Popular Gothic

5. The Gothic Legacy

Epilogue: The Wars on Terror.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 199-210) and index.

ISBN:

9781472505286

147250528X

OCLC:

849209259

Publisher Number:

60001836177