Terror, Literature, History: Michel Foucault and Ann Radcliffe Cover Image

Terror, Literature, History: Michel Foucault and Ann Radcliffe
Terror, Literature, History: Michel Foucault and Ann Radcliffe

Author(s): Josef Fulka
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, History of ideas, Comparative Study of Literature, Sociology of Culture, Philosophy of History, British Literature
Published by: Univerzita Karlova v Praze - Filozofická fakulta, Vydavatelství
Keywords: Michel Foucault; Gothic fiction; literary modernity; French philosophy

Summary/Abstract: The object of the present study is a particular literary reference that repeatedly appears in Michel Foucault’s work — a reference to the work of Ann Radcliffe. We present a close study of the passages where Foucault, in one way or another, deals with Ann Radcliffe’s novels (or novels that he believed to be written by Radcliffe), and attempt to show that Foucault’s interest in the “literature of terror” is not at all accidental. For Foucault, Gothic fiction is a literary “embodiment” of the historical transition from classicism to modernity.

  • Issue Year: XXXIV/2024
  • Issue No: 70
  • Page Range: 117-134
  • Page Count: 18
  • Language: English
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