Peripheral Fear

This is a pioneering work published here for the first time in its complete form. At a time when Gothic studies still concentrated on traditional European and American Gothic, the author laid the foundations for the exploration of how Gothic conventions were transported and transformed in places remote from Europe. Through a detailed reading of 19th- and 20th-century examples of Canadian and Australian Gothic fiction, this work demonstrates the transformative potential of a once much-maligned mode in what were arguably neglected national literatures.

Autorentext

The Author: Gerry Turcotte is the Executive Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences at the University of Notre Dame, Australia. He is the author and editor of 14 books including the novel Flying in Silence which was shortlisted for The Age Book of the Year in 2001 and Border Crossings: Words & Images.

Zusammenfassung
«Turcotte takes us on a meticulously-researched ride through the Gothic in all its New World literary incarnations, giving us a powerful argument for its continuing 'counter-discursive' potential.» (Ken Gelder, Professor of English, University of Melbourne)

Inhalt

Contents: Old World Gothic: Background and Sources - Theorizing Colonial Gothic - Gothic Influences to the First Novels - Three Nineteenth-Century Gothic Novels: Wacousta, His Natural Life and A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder - «Convicts to Australia - Bastards to Canada»: The Metaphysical Gothic of Patrick White and Robertson Davies - «Speaking the Formula of Abjection»: Hybrids and Gothic Discourses in Louis Nowra's Novels - The Gothic and Sexuality: Marian Engel's Bear and Elizabeth Jolley's The Well - «A Shocking Bad Book To Be Sure, Sir»: The Gothic as Counter-Discursive Strategy in Margaret Atwood's and Kate Grenville's Fiction.