Queering Gothic in the Romantic Age: The Penetrating Eye [Hardcover]

This book argues that Gothic writing of the Romantic period is queer. Using a variety of texts, it argues that contemporary queer theory can help us to read the obliqueness and invisibility of same-sex desire in a culture of vigilance. Fincher shows how the Gothic's ambivalent gender politics destabilize heteronormative narratives.Acknowledgements Introduction Reading the Gaze: A Culture of Vigilance Guessing the Mould: Or, The Castle of Otranto ? Vathek and the Monstrous Queer Camping in the Monastery: The Monk Caleb Williams and the Queer Sublime Penetrating Eye(s): Lara . The Giaour , The Vampyre Conclusion Bibliography Index

'Queering Gothic in the Romantic Age makes a significant scholarly contribution to romanticism, the Gothic, and Queer Theory. Fincher's thought-provoking analysis of male-authored Gothic texts provides an important starting point for a reassessment of how reading queerly can illuminate the Gothic tradition.' - Professor Andrew Smith, University of Glamorgan, Wales, UK

'Fincher's study is imaginative, bold and historically well-grounded overall...in terms of its insightful new contextualisations of early male Gothic texts, this work is worth reading. It makes a timeley and thoughtful contribution to Gothic, Romantic and Queer studies.' - Sue Chaplin, British Association for Romantic Studes Bulletin and Review

'...a fruitful and suggestive study of recurring motifs of secrecy, the gaze, shame, and their links to same-sex desire and homophobia.' - Sharon Ruston, Times Literary Supplement

'If Gothic Studies restore the body to Romanticism's usual focus on the mind, Fincher's work foregrounds just how messy, indeterminable and queer the bodies of Romantic men really are; this study braids gay and lesbian history with queer theory to penetrate the Gothic in new and innovative ways.' - Routledge ABES June 2011