Mazes of the Serpent: An Anatomy of Horror Narrative

Roger B. Salomon

Cornell University Press, Jul 5, 2018 - Literary Criticism - 200 pages

In a compact, readable, and accessible book, Roger B. Salomon explores the nature of horror in literature and in life. Rather than minimizing horror by narrowly associating it with psychological drives, persecution, or extremism, he approaches horror through the medium of narrative as a significant and enduring physical and metaphysical reality.

Salomon focuses on fictions of horror, including eighteenth-century Gothic and nineteenth-century ghost stories. He does not, however, isolate literary examples from more general human issues, including religious belief. Mazes of the Serpent takes up examples of horror from historical and personal narratives—including battle memoirs and Holocaust testimonies—as Salomon identifies certain common themes and qualities that cross the boundary between fiction and actual human experience.

Contents

• Horror Explained Away: 1
• 1 Alternate Worlds: 7
• 2 Ghosts and Other Monsters: 28
• The Style of Literary Horror: 71
• Horror Narrative as Parody: 112
• 5 Horror and the Absence of Redemption: 145
• Works Cited: 165
• Index: 171

About the author

Roger B. Salomon is Oviatt Professor of English, Emeritus, at Case Western Reserve University. He is the author of Twain and the Image of History and Desperate Storytelling: Post-Romantic Elaborations of the Mock-Heroic Mode.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Mazes of the Serpent: An Anatomy of Horror Narrative
• Author: Roger B. Salomon
• Publisher: Cornell University Press, 2018
• ISBN: 1501718479, 9781501718472
• Length: 200 pages
• Subjects: Literary Criticism / General; Literary Criticism / Gothic & Romance; Literary Criticism / Horror & Supernatural