The Forest and the Ecogothic: The Deep Dark Woods in the Popular Imagination

Palgrave Gothic

by Elizabeth Parker

This book offers the first full length study on the pervasive archetype of The Gothic Forest in Western culture. The idea of the forest as deep, dark, and dangerous has an extensive history and continues to resonate throughout contemporary popular culture. The Forest and the EcoGothic examines both why we fear the forest and how exactly these fears manifest in our stories. It draws on and furthers the nascent field of the ecoGothic, which seeks to explore the intersections between ecocriticism and Gothic studies. In the age of the Anthropocene, this work importantly interrogates our relationship to and understandings of the more-than-human world. This work introduces the trope of the Gothic forest, as well as important critical contexts for its discussion, and examines the three main ways in which this trope manifests: as a living, animated threat; as a traditional habitat for monsters; and as a dangerous site for human settlement. This book will appeal to students and scholars with interests in horror and the Gothic, ecohorror and the ecoGothic, environmentalism, ecocriticism, and popular culture more broadly. The accessibility of the subject of 'The Deep Dark Woods', coupled with increasingly mainstream interests in interactions between humanity and nature, means this work will also be of keen interest to the general public.

Genres: Nonfiction, Gothic, Literary Criticism, Academia, Literature, Ecology

308 pages, Hardcover

Published April 21, 2020

Reviews

[meri ⁠.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡ · Rating 4 out of 5]

aunque ha sido una lectura muy parcial para mi tfm me ha gustado un montón !! plantea ideas muy interesantes sobre la dicotomía place/space, es decir, el "sitio" como lugar concreto, conocido y familiar que nos transmite seguridad y el "espacio" como algo más ambiguo y abierto, normalmente en el exterior y que nos produce miedo o rechazo, como es el caso del bosque. independientemente del emplazamiento geográfico, el bosque es una idea universal dentro del imaginario colectivo que, por lo general, solo se comprende dentro del binomio bueno/malo: el bosque de cuento como lugar amable e idílico que nos hace reconectar con la naturaleza o el bosque de pesadilla, en el que te pierdes, caminas en círculos y, casi siempre, hay algo que parece observarte entre los árboles.

súper interesante también lo que plantea sobre la irracionalidad del miedo y la necesidad que tenemos las personas de inventarnos monstruos que habiten entre las sombras, de cómo en el mundo post-Ilustración seguimos temiendo al lobo de caperucita o a la bruja de hansel y gretel siempre que nos damos un voltio por el monte. muy chulo !! <3

[PRJ Greenwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the "go to" books for Gothic insights into forest ecologies. Heavily researched and cross-referenced, this is an academic work that's invaluable to anyone that makes the EcoGothic a serious study. The printed work and film gets equal treatment here. Unlike most works on the Gothic, this one concentrates on latter day works, rather than re-treading history like so many others do.

A couple of minor things though - ticks are arachnids not insects, and it's Anya Taylor-Joy not Anna.