for thinking people
August 1, 2022
Another “Authors Talk” post. You can think of it as an author interview and, indeed, that is the name of the blog category. However, I prefer to see it as a friendly chat between fellow authors. Today I’m having this virtual discussion with Mikhaeyla Kopievsky, author of Tasmanian Gothic. A list of useful links to Mikhaeyla’s work can be found at the end of this post.
May 30, 2022
Unless you’ve spent the last five decades on Mars, you must know Scooby-Doo – the fearless (cough, cough) cartoon dog chasing ghosts. Believe it or not, what we could refer to as Scooby-Doo Gothic goes back more than 200 years, to Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794).
How, you might ask. What on earth could be the connection between one of the first texts of the Gothic canon and a cartoon show of the late 20th century?
The concept worth examining here – as you might have deducted from the title – is that of the supernatural explained; particularly, how it’s related to the supernatural accepted.
Briefly, there has been a long-standing tradition to divide Gothic texts into the one or the other category. We’ll take a closer look at both of them, and then I’ll explain why I think the differentiation itself is flawed.
February 21, 2022
The so-called “Southern Gothic” is a subcategory of the Gothic mode that nominally revolves around the American South – as in, the Southern US States. However, as we’ll see in this post, Southern Gothic tropes far exceed the strict topical confines of the American South. Indeed, understanding these Southern Gothic tropes can reveal hidden meaning in a vast literary space.
As is the case with the Gothic in general, the Southern Gothic, too, is difficult to pinpoint. Perhaps paradoxically, considering its (again, nominal) narrow focus, the Southern Gothic describes not a place but an experience. Though Southern Gothic tropes are generally well-defined, as we’ll soon see, their metaphorical dimensions and repercussions are far more flexible.
In simpler words: The Southern Gothic isn’t about the US South.
So, let’s take an analytic but accessible look at this intriguing subcategory of the Gothic mode. We’ll start with a basic outline of Southern Gothic tropes, and then I’ll explain what these tropes really signify. As a result, we’ll discover why the Southern Gothic framework can inform our reading of a vast number of other narratives.
