The Palgrave Handbook to Horror Literature

This handbook examines the use of horror in storytelling, from oral traditions through folklore and fairy tales to contemporary horror fiction. Divided into sections that explore the origins and evolution of horror fiction, the recurrent themes that can be seen in horror, and ways of understanding horror through literary and cultural theory, the text analyses why horror is so compelling, and how we should interpret its presence in literature. Chapters explore historical horror aspects including ancient mythology, medieval writing, drama, chapbooks, the Gothic novel, and literary Modernism and trace themes such as vampires, children and animals in horror, deep dark forests, labyrinths, disability, and imperialism. Considering horror via postmodern theory, evolutionary psychology, postcolonial theory, and New Materialism, this handbook investigates issues of gender and sexuality, race, censorship and morality, environmental studies, and literary versus popular fiction.

Auteur

Kevin Corstorphine is Lecturer in American Studies at the University of Hull, UK. His work focuses on Gothic Studies, haunted space and place, the Ecogothic, and the study of popular fiction.

Laura R. Kremmel is Assistant Professor of English at the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology, USA. Her work focuses on Gothic Studies, British Romanticism, Medical Humanities/History, Disability Studies, and Horror Film.

Contenu

1. Introduction

Kevin Corstorphine

Part I: The Origins and Evolution of Literary Horror

2. Bhaynaka (Horror and the Horrific) in Indian Aesthetics

Dhananjay Singh

3. Horror in the Medieval North: The Troll

Ármann Jakobsson

4. The Horror Genre and Aspects of Native American Indian Literature

Joy Porter

5. Vampires, Shape-Shifters, and Sinister Light: Mistranslating Australian Aboriginal Horror in Theory and Literary Practice Naomi Simone Borwein

6. Men, Women, and Landscape in American Horror Fiction Dara Downey

7. Blood Flows Freely: The Horror of Classic Fairy Tales Lorna Piatti-Farnell

8. Turning Dark Pages and Transacting with the Inner Self: Adolescents' Perspectives of Reading Horror Texts

Phil Fitzsimmons

9. Horror and Damnation in Medieval Literature Andrew J. Power

10. The Jacobean Theater of Horror

Tony Perrello

11. A mass of unnatural and repulsive horrors: Staging Horror in Nineteenth-Century English Theatre

Sarah A. Winter

12. Horror in Gothic Chapbooks Franz J. Potter

13. We stare and tremble: Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Horror Novels

Natalie Neill

14. The Horror! The Horror!: Tracing Horror in Modernism from Conrad to Eliot Matthias Stephan

15. Global Horror: Pale Horse, Pale Rider David Punter

Part II: Themes of Literary Horror

16. Vampires: Reflections in a Dark Mirror

Wendy Fall

17. Zombie Fictions

Anya Heise-von der Lippe

18. You don't think I'm like any other boy. That's why you're afraid: Haunted / Haunting Children from The Turn of the Screw to Tales of Terror

Chloé Germaine Buckley

19. Discussing Dolls: Horror and the Human Double Sandra Mills

20. They Have Risen Once: They May Rise Again: Animals in Horror Literature Bernice M. Murphy

21. Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Woods?: Deep Dark Forests and Literary Horror Elizabeth Parker

22. Disability and Horror

Alan Gregory

23. Monstrous Machines and Devilish Devices Gwyneth Peaty

24. And Send her Well-Dos'd to the Grave: Literary Medical Horror

Laura R. Kremmel

25. Imperial Horror and Terrorism

Johan Höglund

26. Postmodern Literary Labyrinths: Spaces of Horror Reimagined

Katharine Cox

Part III: Approaches to Literary Horror

27. Evolutionary Study of Horror Literature Mathias Clasen

28. Transgressive Horror and Politics: The Splatterpunks and Extreme Horror

Aalya Ahmad

29. Boundary Crossing and Cultural Creation: Transgressive Horror and Politics of the 1990s Coco d'Hont

30. Maggot Maladies: Origins of Horror as a Culturally Proscribed Entertainment

Sarah Cleary

31. The Mother of All Horrors: Medea's Infanticide in African American Literature

Christina Dokou

32. Horror, Race, and Reality

Ordner W. Taylor, III

33. Po...