Gothic death 1740–1914: A literary history - Softcover

Smith, Andrew

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1526131919 ISBN 13: 9781526131911

Publisher: Manchester University Press, 2018

Synopsis

Gothic death 1740-1914 explores the representations of death and dying in Gothic narratives published between the mid-eighteenth century and the beginning of the First World War. It investigates how eighteenth century Graveyard Poetry and the tradition of the elegy produced a version of death that underpinned ideas about empathy and models of textual composition. Later accounts of melancholy, as in the work of Ann Radcliffe and Mary Shelley, emphasise the literary construction of death. The shift from writing death to interpreting the signs of death is explored in relation to the work of Poe, Emily Brontë and George Eliot. A chapter on Dickens examines the significance of graves and capital punishment during the period. A chapter on Haggard, Stoker and Wilde explores conjunctions between love and death and a final chapter on Machen and Stoker explores how scientific ideas of the period help to contextualise a specifically fin de siècle model of death.

About this title

About the Author:

Andrew Smith is Reader in Nineteenth-Century Literature at the University of Sheffield

About this edition

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 1526131919
• ISBN 13: 9781526131911
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224