9781786837547
Distributed for University of Wales Press
Gothic Utterance
Voice, Speech and Death in the American Gothic
In-depth analysis of the American Gothic and the utterances of marginalized voices.
The Gothic has always been interested in strange utterances and unsettling voices, from half-heard ghostly murmurings to the terrible cries of the monstrous nonhuman. Gothic Utterance offers the first book-length study of the role such voices play in the Gothic tradition, exploring their prominence and importance in the literature produced in America between the Revolutionary War and the close of the nineteenth century. This book argues that the American Gothic foregrounds the overpowering effect and meaning of the voices of those on the margins of society, as well as the ethical charge of our encounter with such voices.
The Gothic has always been interested in strange utterances and unsettling voices, from half-heard ghostly murmurings to the terrible cries of the monstrous nonhuman. Gothic Utterance offers the first book-length study of the role such voices play in the Gothic tradition, exploring their prominence and importance in the literature produced in America between the Revolutionary War and the close of the nineteenth century. This book argues that the American Gothic foregrounds the overpowering effect and meaning of the voices of those on the margins of society, as well as the ethical charge of our encounter with such voices.
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Table of Contents
Introduction: American Biloquism
Part I: Gothic Utterance and Selfhood
1.Deadly Locution and Delphic Shrieks: Haunted Significance and the Self
2.Cries and Whispers: Spectral Voice, Community and Gothic Consciousness
Part II: Voices, Soundscapes, Histories
3.Howls and Echoes: Frontier Gothic and the Voice of the Wilderness
4. (Dis)embodied Utterance and the Peripatetic Voice: Hearing the Haunted Plantation
5.Squawking Soldiers and the Babbling Corpse: War-torn Words and Civil War Gothic
Conclusion: Quoth the Gothic
Part I: Gothic Utterance and Selfhood
1.Deadly Locution and Delphic Shrieks: Haunted Significance and the Self
2.Cries and Whispers: Spectral Voice, Community and Gothic Consciousness
Part II: Voices, Soundscapes, Histories
3.Howls and Echoes: Frontier Gothic and the Voice of the Wilderness
4. (Dis)embodied Utterance and the Peripatetic Voice: Hearing the Haunted Plantation
5.Squawking Soldiers and the Babbling Corpse: War-torn Words and Civil War Gothic
Conclusion: Quoth the Gothic