The Palgrave Handbook to Horror Literature

Description

This handbook examines the use of horror in storytelling, from oral traditions through folklore and fairy tales to contemporary horror fiction. Divided into sections that explore the origins and evolution of horror fiction, the recurrent themes that can be seen in horror, and ways of understanding horror through literary and cultural theory, the text analyses why horror is so compelling, and how we should interpret its presence in literature. Chapters explore historical horror aspects including ancient mythology, medieval writing, drama, chapbooks, the Gothic novel, and literary Modernism and trace themes such as vampires, children and animals in horror, deep dark forests, labyrinths, disability, and imperialism. Considering horror via postmodern theory, evolutionary psychology, postcolonial theory, and New Materialism, this handbook investigates issues of gender and sexuality, race, censorship and morality, environmental studies, and literary versus popular fiction. Front Matter ....Pages i-xx Introduction (Kevin Corstorphine)....Pages 1-17 Front Matter ....Pages 19-19 Bhayānaka (Horror and the Horrific) in Indian Aesthetics (Dhananjay Singh)....Pages 21-31 Horror in the Medieval North: The Troll (Ármann Jakobsson)....Pages 33-43 The Horror Genre and Aspects of Native American Indian Literature (Joy Porter)....Pages 45-60 Vampires, Shape-Shifters, and Sinister Light: Mistranslating Australian Aboriginal Horror in Theory and Literary Practice (Naomi Simone Borwein)....Pages 61-75 Men, Women, and Landscape in American Horror Fiction (Dara Downey)....Pages 77-89 Blood Flows Freely: The Horror of Classic Fairy Tales (Lorna Piatti-Farnell)....Pages 91-100 Turning Dark Pages and Transacting with the Inner Self: Adolescents’ Perspectives of Reading Horror Texts (Phil Fitzsimmons)....Pages 101-112 Horror and Damnation in Medieval Literature (Andrew J. Power)....Pages 113-126 The Jacobean Theater of Horror (Tony Perrello)....Pages 127-138 “A Mass of Unnatural and Repulsive Horrors”: Staging Horror in Nineteenth-Century English Theater (Sarah A. Winter)....Pages 139-154 Horror in Gothic Chapbooks (Franz J. Potter)....Pages 155-163 “We Stare and Tremble”: Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Horror Novels (Natalie Neill)....Pages 165-179 “The Horror! The Horror!”: Tracing Horror in Modernism from Conrad to Eliot (Matthias Stephan)....Pages 181-190 Global Horror: Pale Horse, Pale Rider (David Punter)....Pages 191-201 Front Matter ....Pages 203-203 Vampires: Reflections in a Dark Mirror (Wendy Fall)....Pages 205-217 Zombie Fictions (Anya Heise-von der Lippe)....Pages 219-231 “You Don’t Think I’m Like Any Other Boy. That’s Why You’re Afraid”: Haunted/Haunting Children from The Turn of the Screw to Tales of Terror (Chloé Germaine Buckley)....Pages 233-247 Discussing Dolls: Horror and the Human Double (Sandra Mills)....Pages 249-255 “They Have Risen Once: They May Rise Again”: Animals in Horror Literature (Bernice M. Murphy)....Pages 257-273 Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Woods?: Deep Dark Forests and Literary Horror (Elizabeth Parker)....Pages 275-290 Disability and Horror (Alan Gregory)....Pages 291-299 Monstrous Machines and Devilish Devices (Gwyneth Peaty)....Pages 301-312 “And Send Her Well-Dos’d to the Grave”: Literary Medical Horror (Laura R. Kremmel)....Pages 313-326 Imperial Horror and Terrorism (Johan Höglund)....Pages 327-337 Postmodern Literary Labyrinths: Spaces of Horror Reimagined (Katharine Cox)....Pages 339-352 Front Matter ....Pages 353-353 Evolutionary Study of Horror Literature (Mathias Clasen)....Pages 355-363 Transgressive Horror and Politics: The Splatterpunks and Extreme Horror (Aalya Ahmad)....Pages 365-376 Boundary Crossing and Cultural Creation: Transgressive Horror and Politics of the 1990s (Coco d’Hont)....Pages 377-389 “Maggot Maladies”: Origins of Horror as a Culturally Proscribed Entertainment (Sarah Cleary)....Pages 391-406 The Mother of All Horrors: Medea’s Infanticide in African American Literature (Christina Dokou)....Pages 407-421 Horror, Race, and Reality (Ordner W. Taylor III)....Pages 423-432 Postcolonial Horror (Tabish Khair)....Pages 433-439 Conceptualizing Varieties of Space in Horror Fiction (Andrew Hock Soon Ng)....Pages 441-456 Toward an Acoustics of Literary Horror (Matt Foley)....Pages 457-468 Hesitation Marks: The Fantastic and the Satirical in Postmodern Horror (Laura Findlay)....Pages 469-482 “It’s Alive!” New Materialism and Literary Horror (Susan Yi Sencindiver)....Pages 483-497 Horror “After Theory” (Lyle Enright)....Pages 499-509 Back Matter ....Pages 511-534