The Supernatural and English FictionThis book is the first ever to describe and discuss all the principal English writers who have handled the subject of the supernatural. Among those included in Glen Cavaliero's absorbing study are James Hogg, Sheridan Le Fanu, Henry James, Rudyard Kipling, Walter de la Mare, M. R. James, John Cowper Powys, William Golding, Iris Murdoch, and Muriel Spark. As well as analysing the senses in which the supernatural may be understood, he relates them to different kinds of fiction, such as the Gothic novel, the occultist romance, the ghost story, novels of paranormal psychology, nature mysticism, and late twentieth-century uses of allegory and fable. He examines the impact of supernaturalist themes upon naturalistic writers, and discusses the relevance of the supernatural to the question of the truthfulness of fiction, and to contemporary literary theory and its ideological accompaniments. |
Contents
THE JOKER IN THE PACK | 1 |
AN ICONOGRAPHY OF FEAR | 23 |
WATCHERS ON THE THRESHOLD | 57 |
Copyright | |
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Common terms and phrases
absolute Agnes Grey Arthur Machen aspects awareness becomes belief Blackwood century characters Christian concept concerned consciousness contemporary dark dead death demonic described dimension Dracula dream E. M. Forster effect elements embodied English evil experience fantasy Fanu fictive genre ghost stories Glastonbury Romance Gothic H. P. Lovecraft haunted hermetic horror human imaginative Iris Murdoch James James's John Cowper Powys kind Kipling Kipling's landscape less literary lives M. R. James magic manifestations material materialistic Melmoth Melmoth the Wanderer metaphysical moral Murdoch mysterium mystery narrative narrator naturalistic nature nineteenth-century novelists numinous occult paranormal particular philosophy physical portrays Powys's present preternatural preternaturalist prose provides psychic readers reality religious response satire sense social spiritual strange suggests super supernatural supernaturalist supernaturalist fiction supernaturalist novel supernaturalist themes tale of terror theological things tion tradition transcendence truth twentieth-century vision visionary voices Williams woman Wuthering Heights