Shakespearean Gothic (Gothic Literary Studies) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0708320937 ISBN 13: 9780708320938

Publisher: University of Wales Press, 2010

Synopsis

As evidenced by the vampires, werewolves, and other frights overrunning the best-seller lists, the Gothic remains immensely popular. This collection of essays traces the roots of the Gothic to an unexpected source: eighteenth-century interpretations of Shakespeare. Through close attention to literary, cultural, and historical detail, the contributors demonstrate that even as Shakespeare was being established as the supreme British writer, he was also being cited as justification for early Gothic writers’ abandonment of literary decorum and their interest in the supernatural.

About this title

About the Author:

Christy Desmet is associate professor of English at the University of Georgia. Anne Williams is professor of English at the University of Georgia.

Review:

“As one in a new series of books on the Gothic, this is an important volume for anyone interested in Shakespeare, in late eighteenth-century fiction and theatre, or in the intellectual history of English literature. The essays are divided into three groups that move progressively from the ways in which Gothic writers such as Walpole, Radcliffe and Ireland used Shakespeare as means of empowerment for their own agendas, through the adaptation of Shakespeare’s works in Gothic writing, and finally to readings that find Gothic elements in Shakespeare. . . . For Shakespeareans, this book will open new perspectives on well-known plays. . . . All of the essays in this volume are strong and add important voices to the discussion of Shakespeare’s reception in the eighteenth century and later.”

(Georgianna Ziegler, Folger Shakespeare Library)

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Wales Press
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0708320937
• ISBN 13: 9780708320938
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 192
• Editor: Desmet Christy, Williams Anne