Abstract
Eighteenth-century graveyard poetry has recently gained increasing attention as an important precursor to gothic fiction. Although critical consensus suggests that graveyard poetry’s objectives of religious and moral reform are distinguished from the gothic pursuit of pleasurable frisson, a case can be made for reading graveyard poetry as an example of—rather than merely antecedent to—gothic literature. Accordingly, this chapter presents a reading of Robert Blair’s The Grave (1743) as an example of gothic horror, exposing an elaborate set of aesthetics and literary techniques that anticipates late-century critical definitions of horror, and novels such as Matthew Lewis’ The Monk (1796).
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | The Palgrave Handbook of Gothic Origins |
Editors | Clive Bloom |
Place of Publication | Switzerland |
Publisher | Palgrave Macmillan |
Chapter | 12 |
Pages | 245-262 |
Number of pages | 18 |
ISBN (Electronic) | 9783030845629 |
ISBN (Print) | 9783030845612 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Dec 2021 |
Keywords
- Gothic
- Graveyard poetry
- horror
- eighteenth-century literature
- Robert Blair