Title: The shape of fear
First published: 1998
Description: Susan J. Navarette examines the ways in which scientific and cultural concerns of late nineteenth-century England are coded in the horror literature of the period. By contextualizing the structural, stylistic, and thematic systems developed by writers seeking to reenact textually the entropic forces they perceived in the natural world, Navarette reconstructs the late Victorian mentalite.

She analyzes aesthetic responses to trends in contemporary science and explores horror writers' use of scientific methodologies to support their perception that a long-awaited period of cultural decline had begun.

In her analysis of the classics Turn of the Screw and Heart of Darkness, Navarette shows how James and Conrad made artistic use of earlier "scientific" readings of the body. She also considers works by lesser-known authors Walter de la Mare, Vernon Lee, and Arthur Machen, who produced fin de siecle stories that took the form of "hybrid literary monstrosities."
Subjects: Body, Human, in literature, Decadence (Literary movement), Degeneration in literature, English Horror tales, English fiction, Fear in literature, History, History and criticism, Horror tales, English, Literature and science, Human body in literature
Places: England, Great Britain
People: Henry James (1843-1916), Joseph Conrad (1857-1924)
Time periods: 19th century
LC classification: PR878.T3 N38 1998