The present paper aims to discuss Joseph Le Fanu’s “The Murdered Cousin” as representative of what Nordius refers to as the “Colonial Gothic”. My hypothesis is that Le Fanu’s short story is not merely a simple exercise in aesthetics; instead, it is a conscious effort on the part of the author to depict and conceptualize the English-Irish struggle. In fact, it was this pioneering spark that led to the inception of an altogether new genre. I hope to demonstrate that weaved within Le Fanu’s text, are
When thinking of gothic literature, the first thought is a black, gloomy and petrifying story. Gothic literature is just that. Gothic literature is a genre with romance and horror twisted together to bring out the unreal. This type of literature has become very popular here in United States and around the world. With many people enjoying this type of genre, gothic literature has continued to expand and be well liked for over 2 centuries now (Saunders 1). Although one particular author created this
sense in identifying a literary work as belonging to a specific genre. However, uncommunicated intuitive knowledge does little to either define relatively new or fledgling genres, or distinguish break- away genres, such as exploration and science fiction from the similar or closely related "parent" genres of travel and adventure, and fantasy, respectively. The better defined a genre, the less likely a reader will be to mistake one genre for another and the more likely a selection
Gothic Elements in Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights” The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the most prominent Gothic Elements found in Emily Brontë’s novel Wuthering Heights. Due to the fact that the number of these elements and the significance and timelessness of the novel itself by far surmount the limitations of this assignment I shall focus mainly on two major components of Wuthering Heights that could be explored in the light of being Gothic. Those are the novel’s setting (both exterior
Phantasmagoric kind of fiction, whatever one may think of it, is not without merit: 'twas the inevitable result of revolutionary shocks throughout Europe thus to compose works of interest, one had to call on the aid of Hell itself, and to find things familiar in the world of make believe.." Marquis (Donatien Alphonse) de Sade, "Reflections on the Novel.", 1800. Gothic literature has been an area of critical contention since Horace Walpole's seminal Gothic novel, The Castle