The Fantastic and European Gothic
History, Literature and the French Revolution
9780708325735
Distributed for University of Wales Press
The Fantastic and European Gothic
History, Literature and the French Revolution
This fascinating study examines the rise of fantastic and frénétique literature in Europe during the nineteenth century, introducing readers to lesser-known writers like Paul Féval and Charles Nodier, whose vampires, ghouls, and doppelgängers were every bit as convincing as those of the more famous Bram Stoker and Ann Radcliffe, but whose political motivations were far more serious. Matthew Gibson demonstrates how these writers used the conventions of the Gothic to attack both the French Revolution and the rise of materialism and positivism during the Enlightenment. At the same time, Gibson challenges current understandings of the fantastic and the literature of terror as promulgated by critics like Tzvetan Todorov, David Punter, and Fred Botting.
272 pages | 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 | © 2013
Literature and Literary Criticism: General Criticism and Critical Theory

Reviews
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. Fantasy and Counter-Revolution in the Theory and Fiction of Charles Nodier
2. History and Politics in the Fantastic Fiction of Hoffmann, and his Reception in France
3. The Double Life of the Artist in the Récits fantastiques of Théophile Gautier, and the Rejection of Bourgeois Life under the July Monarchy
4. ‘A Life in Death a Death in Life’: The Legitimist Novels of Paul Féval and the Catastrophe of the Second Empire
5. Paul Féval’s Le Chevalier Ténèbre and Le Faun’s ‘The Room in the Dragon Volant’: the Failures of the Bourbon Restoration
6. Robert Louis Stevenson’s ‘Olalla’, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and the Refutation of Utilitarian Morality
Conclusion
Notes
Short Chronology of Relevant Events
Bibliography
Index
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