The dark thread : from tragical histories to gothic tales. Edited by John d. Lyons. (The early modern exchange.) Newark: University of Delaware press, 2019. 272 pp. [Book review]

Abstract

This rich and wide-ranging collection of fourteen essays interrogates the widely held belief that gothic literature is a counter-reaction to Enlightenment rationalism, and investigates an ambitious alternative hypothesis. In the introduction and first chapter, volume editor John D. Lyons eloquently posits that the antecedents of the gothic go back to the tragic narratives of early modernity, and that, following Schillerian idealism’s redefinition of tragedy c. 1800, a number of rejected, long-standing tragic features were diverted into the gothic. The titular dark thread thus leads us through an extensive chronological, transnational, and intertextual voyage, which actively challenges generic boundaries. [excerpt]