Art of Darkness by Anne Williams
This text aims to describe the principles governing Gothic literature. Ranging across five centuries of fiction, drama and verse - including tales as diverse as Horace Walpole's "The Castle of Otranto", Shelley's "Frankenstein", Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and Freud's "The Mysteries of Enlightenment", Anne Williams proposes three new premises: that Gothic is poetic, not novelistic, in nature; that there are two parallel Gothic traditions - Male and Female; and that the Gothic and the Romantic represent a single literary tradition. Building on the psychoanalytic and feminist theory of Julia Kristeva, Williams argues that Gothic conventions, such as the haunted castle and the family curse, signify the fall of the patriarchal family; Gothic is therefore "poetic" in Kristeva's sense because it reveals those "others" most often identified with the female. Williams identifies distinct Male and Female Gothic traditions. In the Male plot, the protagonist faces a cruel, violent and supernatural world, without hope of salvation. The Female plot, by contrast, asserts the power of the mind to comprehend a world which, though mysterious, is ultimately sensible. By showing how Coleridge and Keats used both Male and Female Gothic, Williams challenges accepted notions about gender and authorship among the Romantics.
Anne Williams is currently Dean of Education at Winchester University. She has many years experience working in initial teacher education and with serving teachers and was previously Director of Initial Teacher Training at Birmingham University (1988-98).
Joanne Cliffe has a background of teaching physical education in schools and now works at the University of Birmingham where she is responsible for physical education initial teacher training and Masters physical education programmes for teachers.
Joanne Cliffe has a background of teaching physical education in schools and now works at the University of Birmingham where she is responsible for physical education initial teacher training and Masters physical education programmes for teachers.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780226899077 |
| ISBN 10 | 0226899071 |
| Title | Art of Darkness |
| Author | Anne Williams |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | University Of Chicago Press |
| Year published | 1995-04-15 |
| Number of pages | 319 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |