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Abstract
Through an in-depth analysis of Robinson's poem 'The Haunted Beach', this article seeks to identify some of the textual strategies which contribute to eliciting notions of terror and sublimity in the pages of Gothic fiction. The initial premise is that the patterns of Gothic narrative are a modification of those found in folktales, and that the tools of folk narrative research are therefore relevant to the study of Gothic texts. Applying to Robinson's poem Vladimir Propp's model for the study of fairytales clarifies several incidents, roles and motifs in the text, while deviations from the fairytale model are shown to be equally significant. Thus, for instance, the poem's Miltonic strain can be accounted for in terms of a telling modification of the standard version of the hero's journey; or again, the 'destinal' meaning Robinson's text conveys is shown to be a direct consequence of its manipulation of traditional narrative form. The analysis yields a set of 'rules' that arguably enter into the composition of all Gothic narrative and shape what may be called a 'grammar' of Gothic. A rationale for these rules is found in the concept of liminality, which allows us to unify an otherwise heterogeneous set of conventions.[PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]