• Haunted Ice, Fearful Sounds, and the Arctic Sublime: Exploring Nineteenth-Century Polar Gothic Space

    Author(s):
    Katherine Bowers (see profile)
    Date:
    2017
    Subject(s):
    Gothic literature, Arts, Gothic, Fiction, Nineteenth century, Comparative literature
    Item Type:
    Article
    Tag(s):
    Arctic, Antarctica, Jules Verne, Frankenstein, polar exploration, Gothic, Nineteenth-century fiction, 19th-century comparative literature
    Permanent URL:
    http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/M6T00K
    Abstract:
    This article considers a unified polar Gothic as a way of examining texts set in Arctic and Antarctic space. Through analysis of Coleridge's' The Rime of the Ancient Mariner', Shelley's Frankenstein, and Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket , the author creates a framework for understanding polar Gothic, which includes liminal space, the supernatural, the Gothic sublime, ghosts and apparitions, and imperial Gothic anxieties about the degradation of 'civilisation'. Analysing Verne's scientific-adventure novel The Adventures of Captain Hatteras (1866) with this framework, the author contextualises the continued public interest in the lost Franklin expedition and reflects on nineteenth-century polar Gothic anxieties in the present day. Polar space creates an uncanny potential for seeing one's own self and examining what lies beneath the surface of one's own rational mind.
    Notes:
    This is the manuscript accepted by Gothic Studies for publication in their November 2017 special issue on "Nautical Gothic." It is not the published version, in accordance with Manchester University Press's green open access policy. To read the final, published version, click here: https://doi.org/10.7227/GS.0030
    Metadata:
    Published as:
    Journal article    
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    6 years ago
    License:
    All Rights Reserved
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