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The Gothic moment in literary history arose in the age of the Enlightenment, and the Gothic fascination with the unknown reflects the Enlightenment's response to the limits of reason. Traditionally, the emblem of the unknown that lurks in the Gothic is the supernatural, the monstrous, and the inhuman. Often overlooked is the observation that Gothic texts are also haunted by figures that represent the mystery of sexuality.This collection of essays sharpens that observation and asserts that Gothic anxieties about sexuality are likewise rooted in fear of the unknown, represented by sexual practices and desires that either lie hidden or deviate from cultural norms. The first three sections refer to popular as well as marginalized Gothic texts to portray the three prototypes of sexual "deviance": the female sexual Other in "The Fatal Woman"; the male sexual Other in "The Satanic Male"; and the homosexual Other in "Homosexual Horror." The fourth section covers literary works that celebrate sexual difference and question the idea that the sexually "deviant" is socially Other.
Ruth Bienstock Anolik teaches at Villanova University and writes extensively on the Gothic mode. Her articles have been published in Modern Language Studies, Studies in Jewish Literature,, and other journals and collections.
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction. Sexual Horror: Fears of the Sexual Other PART I. THE FATAL WOMAN1. Life-in-Death: The Monstrous Female and the Gothic Labyrinth in Aliens and “Ligeia” 2. Morbid Mothers: Gothic Heredity in Florence Marryat’s The Blood of the Vampire 3. The Unbearable Hybridity of Female Sexuality: Racial Ambiguity and the Gothic in Rider Haggard’s She 4. Frankenstein’s Other: The Monstrous Feminine in Maryse Condé’s Célanire cou-coupé PART II. THE SATANIC MALE5. “There Was a Man”: Dangerous Husbands and Fathers in The Winter’s Tale, A Sicilian Romance and Linden Hills 6. Sexual or Supernatural: Threats in Radcliffe’s The Italian 7. Investigating the Third Story: “Bluebeard” and “Cinderella” in Jane Eyre 8. Monstrous Men: Violence and Masculinity in Robert Browning’s The Ring and the Book 9. “I Am God”: The Domineering Patriarch in Shirley Jackson’s Gothic Fiction PART III. HOMOSEXUAL HORROR10. Other Love: Le Fanu’s Carmilla as Lesbian Gothic 11. Preying on the Pervert: The Uses of Homosexual Panic in Bram Stoker’s Dracula 12. Horror and Homosexuality in Christopher Isherwood’s Mr. Norris Changes Trains 13. Invasion of the Husband Snatchers: Masculine Crisis and the Lavender Menace in I Married a Monster from Outer Space PART IV. VIVE LA DIFFÉRENCE: CELEBRATING THE SEXUAL OTHER14. The Lesbian Vampire: Transgressive Sexuality 15. Another “Gendered Other”? The Female Monster-Hero 16. Imagineer: Clive Barker’s Queering of the Conservative Bent of Horror Literature Contributors Index
“a compelling and highly readable analysis...provocative in the best sense of the word”—John-Paul Checkett, Scarlet; “quite readable”—Critical Mass.
