Monstrous desire : Frankenstein and the queer Gothic

Rigby, Mair. 2006. Monstrous desire : Frankenstein and the queer Gothic. PhD Thesis, Cardiff University.

PDF - Accepted Post-Print Version Download (6MB)

Abstract

Focussing upon Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and John Polidori's The Vampyre, this study explores the extent to which Gothic fiction and queer theory can be posited as mutually illuminating fields of academic inquiry. There is certainly much scope for developing the exciting perspectives made possible by the work of theorists such as Michel Foucault, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick and Judith Butler in relation to Gothic fiction. But, in my view, it is no less important to consider how Gothic texts can be utilised to discuss queer scholarship and illustrate queer reading practices. Romantic Gothic texts produced during the early nineteenth century are well placed to engage with the discursive practices through which modern western ideas about sex, gender, sexuality and desire have materialised. I have therefore structured the chapters in this study around some of the pressure points in modern sexual discourse. In relation to critical and cultural issues surrounding the family, marriage, same-sex desire, sexual rhetoric and the author, the questions raised by these texts can be shown to complement questions which have been raised by queer scholarship. I propose that the genre still has much to reveal about the way we have come to think, speak and fantasise about the field of the sexual. I will also attempt to highlight areas where Gothic fiction could be developed as a site of queer critical pedagogy because these texts could provide accessible and enjoyable routes via which to introduce students to queer theory and reading practices. Overall, this study is intended to contribute productively to queer studies, Gothic studies and the emergent fields of Queer Gothic and Queer Romantic inquiry.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Status:	Unpublished
Schools:	English, Communication and Philosophy
Subjects:	P Language and Literature > PR English literature
ISBN:	9781303205064
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	30 March 2016
Last Modified:	28 Jun 2019 02:23
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/56070

Actions (repository staff only)

Edit Item