Reading Gothic fiction : a Bakhtinian approach
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Reading Gothic fiction : a Bakhtinian approach
Clarendon Press , Oxford University Press, 1994
Available at 33 libraries
Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. [285]-302) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
This is the first full-length study of Gothic to be written from the perspective of Bakhtinian theory.
Dr Howard uses Bakhtin's concepts of heteroglossia and dialogism in specific historical analyses of key works of the genre. Her discussions of Ann Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho, Matthew Lewis's The Monk, Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey, and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein demonstrate that the discursive ambiguity of these novels is not inherently subversive, but that the political force of particular discourses is contingent upon their interaction with other
discourses in the reading process. This position enables the author to intervene in feminist discussions of Gothic, which have claimed it as a specifically female genre. Dr Howard suggests a way in which feminists can appropriate Bakhtin to make politically effective readings, while acknowledging that these readings do not exhaust the
novels' possibilities of meaning and reception.
Drawing on the most up-to-date debates in literary theory, this is a sophisticated and scholarly analysis of a genre that has consistently challenged literary criticism.
Table of Contents
- Theories of the Gothic
- women and the Gothic
- Gothic sublimity - Ann Radcliffe's "The Mysteries of Udolpho"
- Gothic parody - Jane Austen's "Northanger Abbey" and Eaton Stannard Barrett's "The Heroine"
- anti-clerical Gothic - Matthew Lewis's "The Monk"
- pseudo-scientific Gothic - Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein: Or the Modern Prometheus".
by "Nielsen BookData"