Gothic travel through haunted landscapes : climates of fear / by Lucie Armitt and Scott Brewster.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Armitt, Lucie, 1962- author.

Brewster, Scott (Reader in English literature), author.

Series:

Anthem studies in gothic literature (Anthem Press)

Anthem studies in Gothic literature

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

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

Gothic fiction (Literary genre).

Landscapes in literature.

Travel in literature.

Weather in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (ix, 184 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Place of Publication:

London : Anthem Press, 2023.

Summary:

This book argues that the process and experience of travel in Gothic literature provides a unique and transformative perspective on the relationship between fear and recurring cultural preoccupations from the late eighteenth century to the present, ranging from concerns about climate change or the presence of the unseen to the negotiation of cultural difference and the apprehension produced by various modes of modern transport and unknown/unknowable terrain. The book follows travellers who take many fictional forms - tourists, commuters, walkers, explorers, as well as the 'armchair tourist' or reader - as they encounter fascinating, strange and often disconcerting weathers, climates, landscapes and topographies. Gothic travel epitomises the wonder, excitement, suspicion or incomprehension that arises from journeys through familiar and unfamiliar terrain. While exposure to the wild, elemental or primitive could produce the elevation of the sublime in early Gothic, increasingly the experience of travel raised unsettling questions about people, places and environments that lay beyond established frames of knowledge. Gothic travellers are haunted, never alone, and the experience of journeying through these landscapes provokes fears that may shadow them even after they have returned to 'home' ground. The book reveals the persistent ways in which Gothic narratives of travel confront fears about the environment, surveillance, (im)migration and the foreign. These abiding concerns speak loudly to the present time, however, when the encroachments on our immediate surroundings - from climate change, digital communication and geopolitical dislocation - seem at once remote and intimate, invisible yet urgent. Thus the book also asks whether recent portrayals of Gothic journeys now pose different questions to the reader.

Contents:

Cover

Half-Title

Series

Title

Copyright

Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction - Establishing Gothic Footfall

Travel Versus Tourism

Frissons and Chills

Climates of Fear

1 Climate and the Elemental Gothic

The Polar Uncanny

Creeping Coastlines

2 Stopping Points and (Final Un-)Resting Places

Wetland Burial

Upland Burial

Earthworks and Spectral Turbulence

3 At the Edge: Gothic Extremities in Britain and Ireland

Irish Bogs and Ruins

The Welsh Borders

The Scottish Highlands and Islands

4 Walking Abroad: Ghosts and Landscape

The Beaten Track

Late Rambles

Dead Men's Footsteps

Conclusion

Works Cited

Index.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 19 Apr 2024).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Print version: Armitt, Lucie Gothic Travel through Haunted Landscapes

ISBN:

9781839980220

1839980222

9781839980237

1839980230

OCLC:

1511484599