Open AccessThe Political Gothic of Dystopian Romance. Joseph Shield Nicholson’s ”Thoth” (1888)
Author(s) -
Justyna Galant
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
lubelskie materiały neofilologiczne/lublin studies in modern languages and literature
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2450-4580
pISSN - 0137-4699
DOI - 10.17951/lsmll.2019.43.2.41-49
Subject(s) - dystopia , romance , art , politics , literature , motif (music) , art history , aesthetics , law , political science
The text of Thoth. A Romance , a late nineteenth-century dystopia by Joseph Shield Nicholson, is here analysed as a generic amalgam characterised by conspicuous repetitiousness and the motif of multiplication of a circular pattern on the levels of plot, setting, imagery and characterisation. A meeting of the Gothic and the dystopian in the text results in an expansion of the former convention, politicization of the Gothic and blending of the psychoanalytic with the dystopian.