Rediscovering Horror – From Graveyard Poetry to Popular Culture

• Main Author: Emilia Musap
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: University of Zadar 2016-12-01
• Series: [sic]
• Online Access: http://www.sic-journal.org/ArticleView.aspx?aid=423

Horror: A Literary History, edited by Xavier Aldana Reyes, is divided into seven chapters which function as separate essays that can be read without having specific knowledge about the horror genre. If read systematically, the book presents an anthological review which establishes the continuity of the genre from 1764 to the early twenty-first century. Even though it privileges theory over textual analysis, the book can be used to elucidate numerous cultural productions and developments that have influenced the simultaneous evolution and devolution of horror by offering a precise insight into the continual interaction of social and literary spheres. Horror: A Literary History is valuable precisely because it questions the devalorizing stances towards the horror genre by acknowledging the importance of various writers who have contributed to the evolution of American and British literature but have often been marginalized because of their tendencies to transgress into the horror genre.