The Cambridge Companion to the Modern Gothic

by Jerrold E. Hogle (Editor)

This Companion explores the many ways in which the Gothic has dispersed in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and in particular how it has come to offer a focus for the tensions inherent in modernity. Fourteen essays by world-class experts show how the Gothic in numerous forms - including literature, film, television, and cyberspace - helps audiences both to distance themselves from and to deal with some of the key underlying problems of modern life. Topics discussed include the norms and shifting boundaries of sex and gender, the explosion of different forms of media and technology, the mixture of cultures across the western world, the problem of identity for the modern individual, what people continue to see as evil, and the very nature of modernity. Also including a chronology and guide to further reading, this volume offers a comprehensive account of the importance of Gothic to modern life and thought.

Genres: Gothic, Nonfiction, Horror, Literary Criticism, Reference

290 pages, Paperback

Published December 8, 2014

Reviews

[Katherine Addison · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of essays offering an overview of "modern Gothic," which seems mostly to be code for "horror I want to have taken seriously." It seems to be a VERY LARGE umbrella and lots of things can keep out of the rain under it. Lots of vampires. The essays vary in quality from "interesting and useful" to "why are you telling me this?" It did remind me that I like reading literary criticism about horror, and I went through the bibliography with a finetoothed comb.

I would have liked more discussion of how the modern Gothic is linked---or not linked---to eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Gothic.

[Sina]

a little silly, especially in the later half ngl

[Phillip · Rating 4 out of 5]

I only read some of the essays, the ones that were most relevant to my research subject. This is an edited collection, and it's in the nature of edited collections that there is a range of different writing styles, complexities, and focuses, but all of the essays I read were pretty clear and understandable.

Basically, this collection looks at various aspects of the Gothic as it has developed in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, including things like the advent of film, changes in gender and sexuality norms, late capitalism and challenges to capitalism, and the international spread of interest in the Gothic.

[Matt Sautman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This work provides an excellent survey of the innumerable forms the Gothic has taken as a mode during recent years. This collection principally focuses on literature, film, and television, though there is some gesture towards music and video games as well. I strongly recommend this to anyone wanting to understand how the Gothic manifests beyond the Victorian era novels that Gothic studies of literature hyperfocus on.

[Sloane Chambers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Started as a source for an essay and ended up reading the whole thing. Neat stuff!