Gothic Utterance

In-depth analysis of key American writers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

This aspect of the book is valuable to readers of the period generally and to those interested specifically in American writing (fiction and nonfiction).

The book puts major and familiar American writers (e.g. Edgar Allan Poe and Harriet Beecher Stowe) into conversation with writers less familiar to a majority of readers (e.g. Victor Séjour and Phoebe Yates Pember). In this way it suggests new forms of connection between these writers, and above all argues that a share preoccupation among America’s writers of Gothic fiction can be found in their sustained attention to the important work of the voices of the dead, dying, ghostly, monstrous, nonhuman, and Othered. Further, the book demonstrates that a "Gothic utterance" appears even in work that is not otherwise a Gothic fiction, thereby suggesting the enduring and important presence of Gothic utterance to the national imagination.

The book puts this analysis in conversation with a wider nationwide preoccupation in the power and significance of the voice. America is a nation that celebrates the power of the voice; the Gothic offers a counternarrative to this, while still acknowledging the vital power of the voice itself to effect change and provide new forms of community and belonging, especially to those excluded from centres of authority and the hegemony.

Detailed readings of key American geographies, including the American frontier, the southern plantation and the Civil War battlefield.

This aspect of the book illustrates the above points in relation to geographical spaces that are fundamental to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century America, and will appeal to readers interested in the histories of these sites and spaces.

The book argues that there is much to be gained if we approach this sites with an appreciation of the unique utterances and vocalisations associated with these spaces in the literature of the period.

It suggests that these voices contest and subvert the dominant ideologies pervading these spaces (such as Anglo American superiority over the untamed American wilderness) and up-end long-standing power structures (such as that of white Americans over enslaved African Americans).

Detailed consideration of the fundamental role and theorisation of voice and utterance in Gothic fiction and American culture.

The broader implications of this book will be of value to readers of Gothic fiction or American culture in general; and of readers interested in the application of theory to literature (especially poststructuralist/deconstruction theories, notably those of Jacques Derrida and Mladen Dolar).

In particular, it offers a lens through which readers can approach a key feature of Gothic fiction (its long-standing interest in strange voices), American or otherwise. The book offers an interpretive framework for thinking about voice and utterance and how it operates on the pages of fiction – productive for readers of the Gothic of any era. Further the book argues that a Gothic "voice" can pervade work that is not otherwise Gothic, urging readers to pay attention to the particular contours, sounds, meanings, etc, of the voices inscribed across a wealth of fictional and nonfictional writings.

Gothic Utterance also offers a sustained consideration of the intersection of Gothic fiction, ethics, affect, and meaning.

Here, the book engages with recent work in the increasingly popular field of affect studies.

The book suggests that Gothic utterance is best approached both as a form of utterance characterised by overpowering affect (the noise or sound of the voice) and its obscure meaning (the significance of the words/sounds spoken). The book argues that Gothic fiction continually stages encounters with strange voices that move from shock at the affect of the Gothic voice to comprehension of its important meaning. Here, the Gothic demonstrates its ethical underpinnings, suggesting opportunities of real change in its readers (and characters) who take its vast array of ghostly voices seriously – who choose to respond meaningfully to such voices.

By Jimmy Packham