Bestia nie z tego świata? Znieczłowieczenie i od‑zwierzęcenie na przykładzie dwóch opowieści późnowiktoriańskich: Zielona herbata i Pies Baskerville’ów
A Beast from Another World? The Abhuman and the Ab‑animal in Two Late‑Victorian Tales: Green Tea and The Hound of the Baskervilles

Author(s): Jacek Mydla
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego
Keywords: Gothic fiction; terror and horror; mystery; Sheridan Le Fanu; the abhuman; the ab-animal
Summary/Abstract: The article treats of the animal as a literary motif characteristic of late‑Victorian English Gothic fiction. In this period animal‑like entities are used as sources of terrors, replacing in this function the traditional early‑Gothic spectres and ghosts, real or imaginary. Close analysis has been given to two novellas which represent the mystery and terror genre: “Green Tea” by Sheridan Le Fanu and The Hound of the Baskervilles by sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The focus rests on modes of demonization (“gothicisation”) of the animal; the broader cultural and philosophical context has been taken into account as well, due to the special prominence of the distinction between the human and the animal. In addition to the idea of abhumanness as it functions in recent literary criticism, the article proposes the complementary notion of ab‑animality.

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