Gothic Theory Research Articles

A Critical Exploration of Fear and Loathing in Selected Romantic Fiction

Gothic is a twisting lens, an amplifying mirror; however, the pictures it shows to us have authenticity, and cannot be grasped in ordinary forms. At the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries, this genre was the only truthful alternative for psychology and the historical sciences, the only method to reach and understand those fierce territories where penetration of knowledge was restricted or late. Romantic writers broadened the range of gothic positively whilst providing a greater understanding of the connections between terror and other aspects, violence, spectatorship, the body, imagination, and cultural politics of emotions. Including Graveyard Poetry, the subtle and the sublime, and sentimentalism, the origin of the Gothic goes parallel to the origins of the novel. Furthermore, the research also unveils that my selected writers, by using the elements of fear and loathing have manifested people’s double standards, who want to rule the world by not giving space to other creatures; nonetheless, want to use other creatures for their benefit and ease. Keeping in a trial the scholarship on gothic theory given by David Punter and Aristotle’s view of tragedy this qualitative study critically examines the selected Romantic texts to trace the elements of fear and loathing bringing horror for some and tragedy for others.

Tainted love: Gothic imaging of nurses in popular culture.

To discuss representations of nursing in popular culture using the Contemporary Gothic theory. Nursing is stereotypically known as a caring profession. Caring in both the natural and professional perspectives is inextricably attached to love and love, we are told, is universal. In popular culture, however, there are numerous examples of nurses being portrayed in ways where love-its expression and its practice-has been transgressed or tainted. Exploring this dark side of nursing, even if fictitious, is significant because it illuminates social and cultural tensions. Discussion paper. CINAHL, Scopus and Humanities International Databases were searched for terms related to nursing, love, abject and the gothic, published between 1990-2016. Four popular culture texts which ranged in genre and gothic elements were selected for analysis. The types of transgressive love these nurses express to patients ranges from the obsessive and the pornographic, to the monstrous. We suggest this positioning illuminates a hidden reality that nursing work is at once intimate and personal but also hidden, profane, repellent, horrifying and feared. Nursing's allure for storytellers may rest in its association with the abject. How nurses find redemption, satisfaction and meaning in these locations is relevant for how we can imbue our lives and work with greater humanity. The Contemporary Gothic is a useful tool in exposing and exploring ambiguous, challenging and taboo aspects of nursing in society. Such and analysis helps to explain phenomena-including nursing itself-which exists in the shadow of dominant and often stereotyped discourses.

“The Spirits Talk to Us”: Regionalism, Poverty, and Romance in Mexican American Gothic Fiction

This essay examines Mary Castillo's 2012 Lost in the Light and Alisa Valdes's 2013 The Temptation ofDemetrio VigiL both Mexican American gothic romances. The characters of both novels traverse parts of what are usually called the West, but which Americo Paredes called Greater Mexico, a term that I adapt to show the often-suppressed presence of Mexican Americans throughout the region. In these novels each heroine's close relationship with her ghostly protagonist--one a poor Mexican American liquor smuggler in the 1920s, the other a poor cholo gangbanger from the near present--reveals specificities and differences between regional experiences, especially those of working-class and poor Mexican Americans. Through the lens of gothic theory and critical regionalism, I consider the ways that specific Mexican American cultures are evoked through the plot elements of a popular genre like the gothic romance. I argue that the striking prevalence of scenes of Mexican American regional and ethnic poverty in what would seem to be beach read popular novels suggests that in the Mexican American gothic, the sense of anxiety and abjection requires uneasy scenes of Mexican American destitution and violence, scenes which function as the true heart of gothic fear and uncertainty for their heroines. African-American authors' appropriation and revision of Gothic conventions shows that the gothic is not a transhistorical, static category but a dynamic mode that undergoes historical change.... --Teresa Goddu, Gothic America: Narrative, History, and Nation In gothic temporality the past does not dissolve itself smoothly as the present takes its place. Instead, traces of the past remain active, rebounding upon, clawing back, interrupting, exposing, and even mocking the actions and intentions of today....Gothic meets regionalism when pathological or corrupt historical residues are located, not in a rotten patrilineage or a family secret, but rather in a community mentality.... --Jennifer Lawn, Scarfies, Dunedin Gothic, and the Spirit of Capitalism We're Orihuelas and Mexicans. The spirits talk to us.' --Mary Castillo, Lost in the Light At the beginning of Mary Castillo's 2012 modern gothic romance Lost in the Light, present-day, working-class, Mexican American1 police detective Dori Orihuela is at a low ebb in her life. Wounded in a shootout, on leave pending an investigation, suffering from mild PTSD, not sure she can afford her tumble-down Carpenter Gothic home, she is hyperalert and vulnerable. To make things worse, the handsome Mexican American contractor on her house turns out to be Gavin, her ex-boyfriend, who broke up with her because he believes she cheated on him. In this state, on one particularly bad day a stranger suddenly appears, first outside, then in the parlor of her house, as if by magic. The man, we will discover, is in fact a revenant, a ghost tied to a specific place: he is Vicente Sorolla, a poor Mexican American from the barrio who, for a time, made good during the Prohibition in the violent, unstable liquor smuggling business on the California-Mexico border. His betrayal and death in Dori's house (he doesn't know what happened to his body or to his love, Ana Vasquez, after he died) ties him ineluctably to the house itself. Dori is forced to watch as Vicente relives his last day and his graphic beating death by Anglo deputies in her parlor: Two red-faced men stood over Vince, laughing as he fought for breath. His jacket was half ripped off, dirtied with boot prints. A pool of blood oozed off the rug and onto the wood floor. His fingers were so broken and mangled, they were more pulp than skin and bone. No one's going to miss one more grease bag Mexican, the two men joked. Dori saw the deputy stars on their belts. One had a bloody chain wrapped around his fist.... Through the swollen folds of skin [Dori] made out his eyes, staring straight into hers. Do you see me? he wheezed. His cold, bloodied hand squeezed her foot. …

Micro-Architecture as the 'Idea' of Gothic Theory and Style

Micro-Architecture as the 'Idea' of Gothic Theory and Style

Erratum: "Ars Sine Scientia Nihil Est" Gothic Theory of Architecture at the Cathedral of Milan

Erratum: "Ars Sine Scientia Nihil Est" Gothic Theory of Architecture at the Cathedral of Milan

"Ars Sine Scientia Nihil Est" Gothic Theory of Architecture at the Cathedral of Milan

"Ars Sine Scientia Nihil Est" Gothic Theory of Architecture at the Cathedral of Milan

“ARS Sine Scientia Nihil EST”. Gothic Theory of Architecture at the Cathedral of Milan

The opinion of Viollet-le-Duc, summarized in these words, typifies an approach to the interpretation of Gothic architecture which has held great appeal for the modern student. The evident harmony o...