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This book is an attempt to apply Hubert Zapf s theory, literature as cultural ecology to gothic literature. The motivation of this study was to explore the transformations of gothic literature throughout the 20th century in the light of a classic literary theory, instead of the postmodern debates of cultural studies, albeit the ever-up-to-dateness of gothic literature as a perpetual criticism of culture. The gothic attributes are identified as gothic syndrome, in that they emerge as a cluster of miscellaneous syndromes in the novels. In Ian McEwan s The Comfort of Strangers, the gothic syndrome is displayed by the topography of Venice and the prospective results of a repressive perception of classicism, whereas in Peter Ackroyd s Hawksmoor it is achieved through the shifts in time and language, along with the challenge of dark anxieties. Stephen King s Misery reveals the phenomenon in problematizing the literary market in the face of a malevolent Magna Mater figure and the uncanny experience of a writer. In Chuck Palahniuk s Diary, the gothic syndrome is provided through the demonstration of how the grotesque works within the frame of gothic literature.
About the author
Funda Civelekölu currently teaches at Ege University, Department of English Language and Literature. She completed her Ph.D at the same university in 2008. She has given talks and published articles on contemporary gothic literature and literature as cultural ecology. She was at Augsburg University as a DAAD-Visiting Scholar in 2010.
