Abstract
This essay considers British dramatic work which might be termed Gothic for the ways in which it opens up an aperture of the uncanny in a co-inhabited space, calling into question the conventional (and political) premises of agreed representation. Building on theoretical observations by Reynolds (on the Chthonic in theatre) and Botting (on horror and terror), I propose that The Gothic constitutes an imaginative spatialization of eruptive transgressive passion, as portal to the expression and experience of a politically disruptive temporality. Starting from what may be the first overt British theatrical identification of the Gothic, Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, it moves to considerations of plays by Whiting, Rudkin, Barnes, Barker, Butterworth, Ridley, King, Eccleshare and McDowall.
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Rabey, D.I. (2018). The Call of the Chthonic: From Titus Andronicus to X. In: Jones, K., Poore, B., Dean, R. (eds) Contemporary Gothic Drama. Palgrave Gothic. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95359-2_2
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