Queer Gothic Poetry

Abstract

This chapter begins with the argument that poetry has often been overlooked in studies of the Gothic, and this essay serves to map out explorations of Queer Gothic poetry that should be considered. Rather than focusing on a narrow time period, the author strives to ‘instigate a conversation to identify a new genre that is fluid, dynamic, and expansive.’ Beginning with Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s ‘Kubla Kahn’ (1797) and tracing through canonical Romantic and Victorian poets, the author posits that their forms as well as their content can be read in a queer light regardless of any overt queer themes. The actual form of these Gothic poems becomes queered. The chapter then moves into poetry that includes more overt queer themes: Sapphic desire and Sapphic ballads like Coleridge’s Christabel (1797) and Christina Rosetti’s Goblin Market (1862). Finally, the author examines sadomasochism and cannibalism within a Queer Gothic frame in Algernon Charles Swinburne’s 1866 ‘Anactoria’.