Gothic Writing, 1750-1820: A Genealogy

Gothic writing has enjoyed a revival in recent years and many lesser-known titles have been republished. Traditional approaches analysed the Gothic in terms of escapist fantasy or as an unconscious reaction against the Enlightenment. In this provocative and timely study Robert Miles challenges this view and argues that the could read Gothic texts as self-conscious interventions. Drawing extensively on the ideas of Michel Foucault he situates Gothic writing within the discursive tensions of the period and by looking not just at novels, but Gothic poems and dramas he effectively takes the Gothic from the periphery of 'popular fiction', replacing it at the centre or debate about Romanticism.