Exploring the perverse body: The Monk and Melmoth the Wanderer

Date
2004
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Producer
Director
Performer
Choreographer
Costume Designer
Music
Videographer
Lighting Designer
Set Designer
Crew Member
Funder
Rehearsal Director
Concert Coordinator
Moderator
Panelist
Alternative Title
Department
Haverford College. Department of English
Type
Thesis
Original Format
Running Time
File Format
Place of Publication
Date Span
Copyright Date
Award
Language
eng
Note
Table of Contents
Terms of Use
Rights Holder
Access Restrictions
Open Access
Tripod URL
Identifier
Abstract
Revenge. Obsession. Desire. Death. These are but a few of the dark and forbidding foundations pervading the genre of the Gothic horror. Though they arrive in different disguises and embodiments within the text, each awful trope is explored in ghastly detail by both characters and readers of Gothic stories. In Charles Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer and Matthew "Monk" Lewis' The Monk, the body centers as the vehicle through which these disturbing issues are brought forth and examined. The body in its various roles and formations serves as a literary device of exploration, being a significant literal and figurative entity. Each novel is a fantastic and overwhelming passage into the darker elements of life, culminating in scenes of bodily destruction and devastation. My thesis explores the body, the Gothic, and the perversion of desire. Using theorists such as Michel Foucault and Elaine Scarry, I explore themes of perversion, pain, and death to deconstruct the body in words
Description
Citation
Collections