Gothic Pathologies: The Text, the Body and the Law

by D. Punter

Overview

An entirely new look at the Gothic from the eighteenth century to the present day relates the concerns of Gothic to the law.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780333658024
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan UK
Publication date:	08/16/1998
Edition description:	1998
Pages:	251
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x (d)

About the Author

David Punter is Professor of English at the University of Stirling.

Table of Contents

Gothic Origins: The Haunting of the Text The Gothic and the Law: Limits of the Permissible Laws which Bind the Body: The Case of the Monster Re-enactments of the Primal Scene: The Example of Zastrozzi Regimes of Terror: From Robespierre to Conrad Identification and Gender: The Law of Ligeia A Descent into the Body: Wuthering Heights Psycho pathology: Contamination and the House of Gothic Laws of Recollection and Reconstruction: Stephen King The Body Sublime: Liu Suola's King of Singers Gothic After/Words: Abuse and the Body Beyond the Law

Editorial Reviews

Drawing on psychoanalysis, deconstruction, and other approaches, Punter (English, U. of Stirling, Scotland) proposes a new theory of the relations between writing and loss. In each chapter he looks at a different corpus of Gothic literature from the 18th century to the present, among them classics such as Frankenstein andWuthering Heights, modern authors including Stephen King and Robert Bloch, and postmodern writing by William Gibson and Don DeLillo. He also compares Chinese fictions that have affinities with the European Gothic tradition. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Booknews

'This book maintains David Punter's well-earned stature as a major teacher of us all about the most basic drives in Gothic writing, ones that he reveals with new intensity and power in this provocative and complex study.' - Gothic Studies

'A rich work of critical bricolage...Punter's intensely political engagement.' - Steven Bruhm, Romanticism On the Net

From the Publisher