The Fantastic and European Gothic

Download or read book The Fantastic and European Gothic written by Matthew Gibson and published by University of Wales Press. This book was released on 2013-02-15 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the rise of Fantastic literature on the continent in the nineteenth century, the development of a European Gothic and the influence which this exerted on British writers. By examining writers like Nodier, Hoffmann, Gautier, Féval and Stevenson, the book argues firstly how their writings subvert entirely the view of the Fantastic accepted by Todorov, Punter and others, to show that it is the reversal of a pre-Enlightenment, spiritual world-view which causes terror in these works, and further demonstrates that Gothic novels frequently use allusion and anachronism to portray a cyclical view of history opposed to that of Scott.