Contesting the Gothic : fiction, genre, and cultural conflict, 1764-1832 / James Watt.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Watt, James, author.

Series:

Cambridge studies in Romanticism ; 33.

Cambridge studies in Romanticism ; 33

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

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

English fiction.

Horror tales, English--History and criticism.

Horror tales, English.

English fiction--19th century--History and criticism.

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

Gothic fiction (Literary genre), English.

Politics and culture--Great Britain.

Politics and culture.

Literary form--History--18th century.

Literary form.

Literary form--History--19th century.

Romanticism--Great Britain.

Romanticism.

Gothic revival (Literature)--Great Britain.

Gothic revival (Literature).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (x, 205 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

James Watt's historically grounded account of Gothic fiction, first published in 1999, takes issue with received accounts of the genre as a stable and continuous tradition. Charting its vicissitudes from Walpole to Scott, Watt shows the Gothic to have been a heterogeneous body of fiction, characterized at times by antagonistic relations between various writers or works. Central to his argument about these works' writing and reception is a nuanced understanding of their political import: Walpole's attempt to forge an aristocratic identity, the loyalist affiliations of many neglected works of the 1790s, a reconsideration of the subversive reputation of The Monk, and the ways in which Radcliffean romance proved congenial to conservative critics. Watt concludes by looking ahead to the fluctuating critical status of Scott and the Gothic, and examines the process by which the Gothic came to be defined as a monolithic tradition, in a way that continues to exert a powerful hold.

Contents:

Origins : Horace Walpole and The castle of Otranto

Loyalist gothic romance

Gothic 'subversion': German literature, the Minerva Press, Matthew Lewis

The first poetess of romantic fiction: Ann Radcliffe

The field of romance: Walter Scott, the Waverley novels, the Gothic.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references (p. 186-200) and index.

ISBN:

1-107-11611-2

0-511-00518-0

1-280-15357-1

0-511-11723-X

0-511-15011-3

0-511-31001-3

0-511-48467-4

0-511-05146-8

OCLC:

50848442