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Gothic Voids: Nineteenth-Century Reader Experience And Participation, Garrett Chapman Jeter

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Characterization of nineteenth-century literary Gothic is usually confined to affective response. This project argues that literary Gothic works constitute an intellectual, empirical endeavor. Because authors of literary Gothic intentionally left voids in their narratives, they invited their readers to participate in making narrative through speculation and conjecture about missing information. The practice of Gothic reading makes the reader an active partaker in filling those voids with rational conclusions. Reading is not just textual encounter. Rather, it incorporates making meaning of one’s surroundings. In their experiences, literary works’ characters “read” their environments: people, objects, events, etc. Chapter 1 characterizes Gothic reading …