Bringing together the work of such writers as Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Arthur Conan Doyle, Eudora Welty, Thomas Hardy, William Faulkner, Isak Dinesen, and Joyce Carol Oates, The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales presents 37 sinister and unsettling tales for all lovers of ghost stories, fantasy, and horror.
'He was a man of fairly firm fibre, but there was something in this sudden, uncontrollable shriek of horror which chilled his blood and pringled in his skin. Coming in such a place and at such an hour, it brought a thousand fantastic possibilities into his head...' The Victorian fin de siècle: the era of Decadence, The Yellow Book, the New Woman, the scandalous Oscar Wilde, the Empire on which the sun never set. This heady brew was caught nowhere better than in the revival of the Gothic tale in the late Victorian age, where the undead walked and evil curses, foul murder, doomed inheritance and sexual menace played on the stretched nerves of the new mass readerships. This anthology collects together some of the most famous examples of the Gothic tale in the 1890s, with stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, Vernon Lee, Henry James and Arthur Machen, as well as some lesser known yet superbly chilling tales from the era. The introduction explores the many reasons for the Gothic revival, and how it spoke to the anxieties of the moment. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
"The Gothic Tradition is a new title in the Cambridge Contexts in Literature series. It is designed to support the needs of advanced level students of English literature. Each title in the series has the quality, content and level endorsed by the OCR examination board. However, the texts provide the background and focus suitable for any examination board at advanced level. The series explores the contextual study of texts by concentrating on key periods, topics and comparisons in literature. Each book adopts an interactive approach and provides the background for understanding the significance of literary, historical and social contexts. Students are encouraged to investigate different interpretations that may be applied to literary texts by different readers, through a variety of activities and questions, the use of study aids, such as chronologies and glossaries, and the inclusion of anthology sections to exemplify issues." http://www.loc.gov/catdir/description/cam022/2001278650.html.
This anthology explores the full range of verse published in Britain between 1785 and 1832, one of the most fertile periods for English poetry. Selections from all the major and minor poets are included, as well as examples of the many other kinds of verse which continued to be written duringthe period: political and satirical verse, 'sentimental' verse, regional and dialect verse, and verse in translation.Organizing the book by date of first publication, Jerome J. McGann calls attention to the historical and cultural contexts in which the poetry is embedded. Old familiar poems are thrown into new relationships, and traditional views of the poetry of the period challenged.
'"The curse—the curse!" I looked up in terror. In the great mirror opposite I saw myself, and right behind, another wicked, fearful self' An encounter with the supernatural in an everyday setting accentuates its strangeness; a truth used to eerie effect in Gaskell's Gothic tales. A portrait turned to the wall, a hidden manuscript, a mysterious child that lives on the freezing moors, a doppelganger formed by a woman's bitter curse: all of these things hint at male tyranny and woman as avenging angel—or devil. Gaskell was fascinated by the dualities in women's lives and the way in which fact and fiction merge. 'Disappearances', a mix of gossip, legend and fact, relates stories of mysterious vanishings, 'Lois the Witch', based on an account of the Salem witch hunts, shows how sexual desire and jealousy lead to communal hysteria and persecution, while 'The Grey Woman' explores a common Gothic theme, the way in which the ghosts of the past always return to haunt us. This edition includes an introduction, chronology, explanatory notes and an appendix giving a reader's response to 'Disappearances'.
Marxist cultural theory underlies much teaching and research in university departments of literature and has played a crucial role in the development of recent theoretical work. Feminism, New Historicism, cultural materialism, postcolonial theory, and queer theory all draw upon ideas about cultural production which can be traced to Marx, and significantly each also has a special relation with Renaissance literary studies. This book explores the past and continuing influence of Marx's ideas in work on Shakespeare. Marx's ideas about cultural production and its relation to economic production are clearly explained, together with the standard terminology and concepts such as base/superstructure, ideology, commodity fetishism, alienation, and reification. The influence of Marx's ideas on the theory and practice of Shakespeare criticism and performance is traced from the Victorian age to the present day. The continuing importance of these ideas is illustrated via new Marxist readings of King Lear, Hamlet, The Merchant of Venice, Timon of Athens, The Comedy of Errors, All's Well that Ends Well, and The Winter's Tale.
The best-selling Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms (formerly the Concise dictionary) provides clear, concise, and often witty definitions of the most troublesome literary terms from abjection to zeugma. It is an essential reference tool for students of literature in any language. It is now available in a new and expanded edition and includes increased coverage of new terms from modern critical and theoretical movements, such as feminism, and schools of American poetry, Spanish verse forms, life writing, and crime fiction. It includes extensive coverage of traditional drama, versification, rhetoric, and literary history, as well as updated and extended advice on recommended further reading and a pronunciation guide to more than 200 terms. New to this edition are recommended entry-level web links updated via the Dictionary of Literary Terms companion website.
A collection of de Sade's stories utilizing gothic conventions and questioning sexual and societal mores The notorious author of pornographic novels and a sexual pervert who spent much of his life in prison and whose name was unmentionable in civilized circles, only in recent times has the Marquis come to be seen as misunderstood—essentially a moralist, his exploration of the so-called dark side of the human psyche remains as relevant to our society as it was to his own. This collection will provide an excellent introduction to Sade’s fiction; these accessible stories range from the dramatic novellaEugenie de Franval, in which a father’s criminal passion for his daughter leads to intrigue, abduction, and murder, to comic tales such asThe Husband Who Plays Priest, concerning a lecherous monk who finds an ingenious way to combine clerical duties with secular pleasures. De Sade’s gift as a humorist are much in evidence, as is his particular delight in unusual marital situations—which invariably lead to the most diverting conclusions.