Gothic And The Comic Turn

Although Gothic writing is now seen as significant for an understanding of modernity, it is still largely characterized as a literature of fear and anxiety.Gothic and the Comic Turn argues that, partly through its desire to be taken seriously, Gothic criticism has neglected the comic doppelganger that has always inhabited the Gothic mode and which in certain texts emerges as dominant. Tracing an historical trajectory from the late Romantic period through to the present day, this book examines how varieties of comic parody and appropriation have interrogated the complexities of modern subjectivity.

Avril Horner is Professor of English Literature at Kingston University, London. Sue Zlosnik is Head of the Department of English at Manchester Metropolitan University.