The Brontës as Gothic Writers

“The Afflicted Imagination”

Author(s) James Thomas Quinnell

Language: English

Genre(s): Literary Criticism

Series: Gothic Literary Studies

  • April 2025 · 272 pages ·216x138mm

  • · Hardback - 9781837722525
  • · eBook - pdf - 9781837722532
  • · eBook - epub - 9781837722549

About The Book

This book is the first extended study of the importance of Gothic for an appreciation of the Brontës’ writing. It resituates Gothic from the mode that gives the pleasing sensation of terror to being the source of the Brontës’ deepest preoccupations – it is the mode they use to register anxieties and fears. This monograph, through a consideration of Gothic states and places, explores the Brontës’ creative work with the genre. The author argues that to read the Brontës as Gothic poets and novelists is also to read them as post-Romantics, as they respond to the Gothic imaginations of such Romantic poets as Wordsworth, Coleridge and Shelley. Gothic in the Brontës, then, is not merely a collection of tropes or even an aesthetic, but a way in which they read the world. 

Contents

Introduction: “The Afflicted Imagination”
Sadness
Childhood
Ghosts
Irishness
The North
Conclusion: “A Surprising Softness”

About the Author(s)

Author(s): James Thomas Quinnell

James Quinnell is an independent scholar, and Head of English at Farnborough Hill School in Hampshire.

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