Key Terms
These texts often engage with
different ideas, events, and expectations from
the Victorian period. Sometimes these texts
will adopt familiar figures (both fictional and
real), the aesthetics, or the literatures from
the period.
What is neo-Victorian?
The name of Edward Allen Poe's gothic short story, where someone gets walled up inside a cellar.
What is "The Cask of Amontillado"
The author/s of a story about a hybrid creature that rides a rooster as a steed.
Who are the Brothers Grimm?
A reading of texts that connect the othering of monstrous or inhuman characters to the marginalization of 2SLGBTQ+ people
What is queer monstrosity?
This text contains the passage "I did not sleep well, though my bed was comfortable enough, for I had all
sorts of queer dreams. There was a dog howling all night under my window, which
may have had something to do with it; or it may have been the paprika, for I had to
drink up all the water in my carafe, and was still thirsty."
What is Dracula?
This text contains the passage "There was a man who once had known a great many new fairy tales, but he
had forgotten them, he said. The fairy tale that used to come to visit him of its own
accord no longer came and knocked at his door; and why didn't it come any more?
It's true that for a year and a day the man hadn't thought of it, hadn't really expected
it to come and knock; and it certainly wouldn't have come anyway, for outside
there was war and, inside, the misery and sorrow that war brings with it."
What is Hans Christian Andersen's "The Will-o-the-Wisps are in Town"?
SATIRE
A genre where the subjects’ faults,
flaws, characteristics, and expectations
are presented in a way that criticizes
these same issues. These issues are
often reflections of religious, political, or
social constructs, and [GENRE] is built
to point out the flaws in the larger
movements it is examining.
What is satire?
This text contains the passage
“One side of his body lifted itself, he lay at an angle in the doorway, one flank scraped on the white door and was painfully injured, leaving vile brown flecks on it, soon he was stuck fast and would not have been able to move at all by himself, the little legs along one side hung quivering in the air while those on the other side were pressed painfully against the ground. Then his father gave him a hefty shove from behind which released him from where he was held and sent him flying, and heavily bleeding, deep into his room. The door was slammed shut with the stick, then, finally, all was quiet”"
What is The Metamorphosis?
Who is Niggle?
a narration or description in which events, actions, characters, settings or objects represent specific abstractions or ideas
What is allegory?
This form of the Gothic focuses on suspense and apprehension, as well as the internal psychological states of characters.
What is the school of terror?
Following the rules is an important part of this creative process.
What is fantasy world building?
A type of story in which gothic themes manifest in the context of Empire, leading to a fear of "reverse colonization."
What is imperial gothic?
This text contains the following excerpt: "In the morning, however, as soon as it was light, I went upon deck and found all the sailors busy on one side of the vessel, apparently talking to someone in the sea. It was, in fact, a sledge, like that we had seen before, which had drifted towards us in the night on a large fragment of ice. Only one dog remained alive; but there was a human being within it whom the sailors were persuading to enter the vessel. He was not, as the other traveller seemed to be, a savage inhabitant of some undiscovered island, but a European. When I appeared on deck the master said, “Here is our captain, and he will not allow you to perish on the open sea.” "
What is Frankenstein? (Capt. Walton's letters)
In these stories, protagonists move from a
relatively normal or plain world into a more
wondrous or magical one. The audience follows
along with the protagonists, and they encounter
this strange new world together.
What is the portal fantasy?