The Gothic Novel and Literary History
In Literary History, the late-eighteenth-century British Gothic novel has
frequently been passed over with scant attention, or mentioned only as an
unfortunate episode of aesthetic paucity in the formal development of the
novel. There has been another resurgence of interest in the Gothic, with an
increase in critical attention and the reissuing of out-of-print texts, and
I would like to put together a panel to examine the function of returning to
the Gothic at this point in the discipline of Literary studies. Are we
attempting to argue that these novels are really as good, and good in the
same way, as other canonical texts? Or have we set aside questions of formal
quality and judgements of taste to examine the historically specific function
of Gothic, its ideologies or discourses? These novels have for so long been
thought, by most if not all readers, to be simply bad writing, that way in
which we approach Gothics, the reasons we find for reading them, must pay
some consideration to the function of teaching and reading Literature at all.
In what way does returning Gothic novels to Literary history shape the
function and definition of Literature? I would be looking for papers which
both present ways to read and teach specific Gothic novels, and address the
function of teaching these novels instead of (or in addition to) more
canonically accepted works.
Please send abstracts before September 15 to: W.Thomas Pepper, 63 Bayberry
Rd., Cheshire CT 06410, or by email (preferred) to WTomPepper@aol.com.
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