Gothic Memory and the Contested Past: Framing Terror

Abstract

The most dominant feature of the Gothic as it manifests itself beyond literature and trans-modally is its capacity for managing the unspeakable; in particular when that which is unspeakable is an inaccessible and repressed past trauma. This feature develops from a long history of writing the unspeakable through the Gothic mode. It is notable, for example, that the Gothic is frequently adopted as a metaphorical structure and also as a dominant aesthetic in much writing that concerns itself with pushing the limits of the communicable, and also that it is often an important feature of writing that challenges notions of history as fixed or stable. In Gothic romances of the late eighteenth century, repressed historical issues dramatically returned to haunt and terrify the narrative present, and served as a strong warning in a new age of historiography about the necessity of commemorating and authenticating the past.