Welsh Gothic

Welsh Gothic
Author: Jane Aaron
Publisher: University of Wales Press
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2013-05-15
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0708326099

Welsh Gothic, the first study of its kind, introduces readers to the array of Welsh Gothic literature published from 1780 to the present day. Informed by postcolonial and psychoanalytic theory, it argues that many of the fears encoded in Welsh Gothic writing are specific to the history of Welsh people, telling us much about the changing ways in which Welsh people have historically seen themselves and been perceived by others. The first part of the book explores Welsh Gothic writing from its beginnings in the last decades of the eighteenth century to 1997. The second part focuses on figures specific to the Welsh Gothic genre who enter literature from folk lore and local superstition, such as the sin-eater, cŵn Annwn (hellhounds), dark druids and Welsh witches. Contents Prologue: ‘A Long Terror’ PART I: HAUNTED BY HISTORY 1. Cambria Gothica (1780s–1820s) 2. An Underworld of One’s Own (1830s–1900s). 3. Haunted Communities (1900s–1940s). 4. Land of the Living Dead (1940s–1997). PART II: ‘THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE CELTIC TWILIGHT’ 5. Witches, Druids and the Hounds of Annwn. 6. The Sin-eater Epilogue: Post-devolution Gothic Notes Select Bibliography Index

The Cutting Room

The Cutting Room
Author: Louise Welsh
Publisher: Canongate Books
Total Pages: 295
Release: 1999-11-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1847673937

'Unputdownable' Sunday Times 'I was hooked from page one' Guardian When Rilke, a dissolute auctioneer, comes upon a hidden collection of violent and highly disturbing photographs, he feels compelled to discover more about the deceased owner who coveted them. Soon he finds himself sucked into an underworld of crime, depravity and secret desire, fighting for his life.

The Encyclopedia of the Gothic

The Encyclopedia of the Gothic
Author: William Hughes
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 880
Release: 2015-10-06
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1119210410

The Encylopedia of the Gothic features a series of newly-commissioned essays from experts in Gothic studies that cover all aspects of the Gothic as it is currently taught and researched, along with the development of the genre and its impact on contemporary culture. Comprises over 200 newly commissioned entries written by a stellar cast of over 130 experts in the field Arranged in A-Z format across two fully cross-referenced volumes Represents the definitive reference guide to all aspects of the Gothic Provides comprehensive coverage of relevant authors, national traditions, critical developments, and notable texts that define, shape, and inform the genre Extends beyond a purely literary analysis to explore Gothic elements of film, music, drama, art, and architecture. Explores the development of the genre and its impact on contemporary culture

The Female Gothic

The Female Gothic
Author: D. Wallace
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 233
Release: 2009-11-12
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0230245455

This rich and varied collection of essays makes a timely contribution to critical debates about the Female Gothic, a popular but contested area of literary studies. The contributors revisit key Gothic themes - gender, race, the body, monstrosity, metaphor, motherhood and nationality - to open up new critical directions.

Queer Wales

Queer Wales
Author: Huw Osborne
Publisher: University of Wales Press
Total Pages: 429
Release: 2016-06-20
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 178316865X

it is a multidisciplinary collection of essays, it is the first book-length engagement with the subject of queer Wales, it covers period from the 18th century to the present, it considers literature, art history, film, television, drama, crime, motherhood, education, and a range of other questions across these categories.

Posthuman Gothic

Posthuman Gothic
Author: Anya Heise-von der Lippe
Publisher: University of Wales Press
Total Pages: 253
Release: 2017-11-01
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1786831082

Posthuman Gothic is an edited collection of thirteen chapters, and offers a structured, dialogical contribution to the discussion of the posthuman Gothic. Contributors explore the various ways in which posthuman thought intersects with Gothic textuality and mediality. The texts and media under discussion – from I am Legend to In the Flesh, and from Star Trek to The Truman Show, transgress the boundaries of genre, moving beyond the traditional scope of the Gothic. These texts, the contributors argue, destabilise ideas of the human in a number of ways. By confronting humanity and its Others, they introduce new perspectives on what we traditionally perceive as human. Drawing on key texts of both Gothic and posthumanist theory, the contributors explore such varied themes as posthuman vampire and zombie narratives, genetically modified posthumans, the posthuman in video games, film and TV, the posthuman as a return to nature, the posthuman’s relation to classic monster narratives, and posthuman biohorror and theories of prometheanism and accelerationism. In its entirety, the volume offers a first attempt at addressing the various intersections of the posthuman and the Gothic in contemporary literature and media.

Wilkie Collins, Medicine and the Gothic

Wilkie Collins, Medicine and the Gothic
Author: Laurence Talairach-Vielmas
Publisher: University of Wales Press
Total Pages: 280
Release: 2009-09-01
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1783163739

This book examines how Wilkie Collins’s interest in medical matters developed in his writing through exploration of his revisions of the late eighteenth-century Gothic novel from his first sensation novels to his last novels of the 1880s. Throughout his career, Collins made changes in the prototypical Gothic scenario. The aristocratic villains, victimized maidens and medieval castles of classic Gothic tales were reworked and adapted to thrill his Victorian readership. With the advances of neuroscience and the development of criminology as a significant backdrop to most of his novels, Collins drew upon contemporary anxieties and increasingly used the medical to propel his criminal plots. While the prototypical castles were turned into modern medical institutions, his heroines no longer feared ghosts but the scientist’s knife. This study hence underlines the way in which Collins’s Gothic revisions increasingly tackled medical questions, using the medical terrain to capitalize on the readers’ fears. It also demonstrates how Wilkie Collins’s fiction reworks Gothic themes and presents them through the prism of contemporary scientific, medical and psychological discourses, from debates revolving around mental physiology to those dealing with heredity and transmission. The book’s structure is chronological covering a selection of texts in each chapter, with a balance between discussion of the more canonical of Collins’s texts such as The Woman in White, The Moonstone and Armadale and some of his more neglected writings.

The Welsh Girl

The Welsh Girl
Author: Peter Ho Davies
Publisher: HMH
Total Pages: 345
Release: 2013-08-16
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0547524900

A WWII-era Welsh barmaid begins a secret relationship with a German POW in this “beautiful” novel by the author of A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself (Ann Patchett). Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize Set in the stunning landscape of North Wales just after D-Day, this critically acclaimed debut novel traces the intersection of disparate lives in wartime. When a prisoner-of-war camp is established near her village, seventeen-year-old barmaid Esther Evans finds herself strangely drawn to the camp and its forlorn captives. She is exploring the camp boundary when an astonishing thing occurs: A young German corporal calls out to her from behind the fence. From that moment on, the two begin an unlikely—and perilous—romance. Meanwhile, a German-Jewish interrogator travels to Wales to investigate Britain’s most notorious Nazi prisoner, Rudolf Hess. In this richly drawn and thought-provoking “tour de force,” all will come to question the meaning of love, family, loyalty, and national identity (The New Yorker). “If you loved The English Patient, there’s probably a place in your heart for The Welsh Girl.” —USA Today “Davies’s characters are marvelously nuanced.” —Los Angeles Times “Beautifully conjures a place and its people, in an extraordinary time . . . A rare gem.” —Claire Messud, author of The Woman Upstairs “This first novel by Davies, author of two highly praised short story collections, has been anticipated—and, with its wonderfully drawn characters, it has been worth the wait.” —Booklist, starred review

Writing Wales, from the Renaissance to Romanticism

Writing Wales, from the Renaissance to Romanticism
Author: Stewart Mottram
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2016-02-11
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1134788290

Writing Wales explores representations of Wales in English and Welsh literatures written across a broad sweep of history, from the union of Wales with England in 1536 to the beginnings of its industrialization at the turn of the nineteenth century. The collection offers a timely contribution to the current devolutionary energies that are transforming the study of British literatures today, and it builds on recent work on Wales in Renaissance, eighteenth-century, and Romantic literary studies. What is unique about Writing Wales is that it cuts across these period divisions to enable readers for the first time to chart the development of literary treatments of Wales across three of the most tumultuous centuries in the history of British state-formation. Writing Wales explores how these period divisions have helped shape scholarly treatments of Wales, and it asks if we should continue to reinforce such period divisions, or else reconfigure our approach to Wales' literary past. The essays collected here reflect the full 300-year time span of the volume and explore writers canonical and non-canonical alike: George Peele, Michael Drayton, Henry Vaughan, Katherine Philips, and John Dyer here feature alongside other lesser-known authors. The collection showcases the wide variety of literary representations of Wales, and it explores relationships between the perception of Wales in literature and the realities of its role on the British political stage.