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Neophilologus (2014) 98:689704
DOI 10.1007/s11061-014-9389-1
Manuel Aguirre
Published online: 28 March 2014 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014
Abstract Through an in-depth analysis of Robinsons 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 ction. The initial premise is that the patterns of Gothic narrative are a modication of those found in folktales, and that the tools of folk narrative research are therefore relevant to the study of Gothic texts. Applying to Robinsons poem Vladimir Propps model for the study of fairytales claries several incidents, roles and motifs in the text, while deviations from the fairytale model are shown to be equally signicant. Thus, for instance, the poems Miltonic strain can be accounted for in terms of a telling modication of the standard version of the heros journey; or again, the destinal meaning Robinsons 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.
Keywords Folk narrative Gothic Liminality Narrative morphology
The Sublime Thresholds
In the Morning Post was a poem of fascinating metre by Mary Robinson;twas on Wednesday, Feb. 26, and entitled the Haunted Beach. I was so struck with it that I sent to her to desire that [it] might be pre-served in the Anthology. [] It falls off sadly to the last, wants tale and interest; but the images are new and very distinctthat silvery carpet is so just that it is
M. Aguirre (&)
Department of English Studies, Faculty of Humanities, Universidad Autnoma de Madrid, Campus de Cantoblanco, 28049 Madrid, Spaine-mail: [email protected]
Mary Robinsons The Haunted Beach and the Grammar of Gothic
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unfortunate it should seem so bad, for it is really good; but the metre, ay! that woman has an ear.(S. T. Coleridges letter to R. Southey, February 28, 1800)
Natural objects affect us, wrote Edmund Burke in his A Philosophical Enquiry...