The Poetics and Politics of the American Gothic : Gender and Slavery in Nineteenth-Century American Literature

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Version: Author's accepted manuscript
Serval ID
serval:BIB_CDC54765E223
Type
Book:A book with an explicit publisher.
Collection
Publications
Institution
Title
The Poetics and Politics of the American Gothic : Gender and Slavery in Nineteenth-Century American Literature
Author(s)
Soltysik Monnet A.
Publisher
Ashgate
ISBN
9781409400561
Publication state
Published
Issued date
05/2010
Language
english
Number of pages
174
Abstract
Taking as its point of departure recent insights about the performative¦nature of genre, The Poetics and Politics of the American Gothic¦challenges the critical tendency to accept at face value that gothic¦literature is mainly about fear. Instead, Agnieszka Soltysik Monnet¦argues that the American Gothic, and gothic literature in general,¦is also about judgment: how to judge and what happens when¦judgment is confronted with situations that defy its limits.¦Poe, Hawthorne, Melville, Gilman, and James all shared a concern¦with the political and ideological debates of their time, but tended¦to approach these debates indirectly. Thus, Monnet suggests, while¦slavery and race are not the explicit subject matter of antebellum¦works by Poe and Hawthorne, they nevertheless permeate it through¦suggestive analogies and tacit references. Similarly, Melville, Gilman,¦and James use the gothic to explore the categories of gender and¦sexuality that were being renegotiated during the latter half of the¦century. Focusing on The Fall of the House of Usher, The Marble¦Faun, Pierre, The Turn of the Screw, and The Yellow Wallpaper,¦Monnet brings to bear minor texts by the same authors that further¦enrich her innovative readings of these canonical works. At the same¦time, her study persuasively argues that the Gothic's endurance¦and ubiquity are in large part related to its being uniquely adapted¦to rehearse questions about judgment and justice that continue to¦fascinate and disturb.
Keywords
American literature, American Gothic, gothic, nineteenth-century literature, Poe, Hawthorne, Melville, Gilman, James, ethical criticism, political criticism, genre criticism
Create date
29/04/2010 21:25
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20/08/2019 15:48
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