Horror fiction
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Horror is a
Prevalent elements include
History
Before 1000
The horror genre has ancient origins, with roots in folklore and religious traditions focusing on death, the afterlife, evil, the demonic and the principle of the thing embodied in the person.
Pliny the Younger (61 to c. 113) tells the tale of Athenodorus Cananites, who bought a haunted house in Athens. Athenodorus was cautious since the house seemed inexpensive. While writing a book on philosophy, he was visited by a ghostly figure bound in chains. The figure disappeared in the courtyard; the following day, the magistrates dug in the courtyard and found an unmarked grave.[8]
Elements of the horror genre also occur in
After 1000
The Witch of Berkeley by William of Malmesbury has been viewed as an early horror story.[11] Werewolf stories were popular in medieval French literature. One of Marie de France's twelve lais is a werewolf story titled "Bisclavret".
The Countess Yolande commissioned a werewolf story titled "Guillaume de Palerme". Anonymous writers penned two werewolf stories, "Biclarel" and "Melion".
Much horror fiction derives from the cruellest personages of the 15th century.
18th century
The 18th century saw the gradual development of
19th century
The
20th century
A proliferation of cheap periodicals around the turn of the century led to a boom in horror writing. For example,
Influential horror writers of the early 20th century made inroads in these mediums. Particularly, the venerated horror author
The
Early cinema was inspired by many aspects of horror literature, and started a strong tradition of
The modern zombie tale dealing with the motif of the living dead harks back to works including H. P. Lovecraft's stories "Cool Air" (1925), "In The Vault" (1926), and "The Outsider" (1926), and Dennis Wheatley's "Strange Conflict" (1941). Richard Matheson's novel I Am Legend (1954) influenced an entire genre of apocalyptic zombie fiction emblematized by the films of George A. Romero.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the enormous commercial success of three books - Rosemary's Baby (1967) by Ira Levin, The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty, and The Other by Thomas Tryon - encouraged publishers to begin releasing numerous other horror novels, thus creating a "horror boom".[26][27]
One of the best-known late-20th century horror writers is Stephen King, known for Carrie, The Shining, It, Misery, and several dozen other novels and about 200 short stories.[28][29][30] Beginning in the 1970s, King's stories have attracted a large audience, for which he was awarded by the U.S. National Book Foundation in 2003.[31] Other popular horror authors of the period included Anne Rice, Brian Lumley, Graham Masterton, James Herbert, Dean Koontz, Richard Laymon, Clive Barker,[32] Ramsey Campbell,[33] and Peter Straub.
21st century
Best-selling book series of contemporary times exist in genres related to horror fiction, such as the
Characteristics
One defining trait of the horror genre is that it provokes an emotional, psychological, or physical response within readers that causes them to react with fear. One of H. P. Lovecraft's most famous quotes about the genre is that: "The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown."[36] the first sentence from his seminal essay, "Supernatural Horror in Literature". Science fiction historian Darrell Schweitzer has stated, "In the simplest sense, a horror story is one that scares us" and "the true horror story requires a sense of evil, not in necessarily in a theological sense; but the menaces must be truly menacing, life-destroying, and antithetical to happiness."[37]
In her essay "Elements of Aversion", Elizabeth Barrette articulates the need by some for horror tales in a modern world:
The old "fight or flight" reaction of our evolutionary heritage once played a major role in the life of every human. Our ancestors lived and died by it. Then someone invented the fascinating game of civilization, and things began to calm down. Development pushed wilderness back from settled lands. War, crime, and other forms of social violence came with civilization and humans started preying on each other, but by and large daily life calmed down. We began to feel restless, to feel something missing: the excitement of living on the edge, the tension between hunter and hunted. So we told each other stories through the long, dark nights. when the fires burned low, we did our best to scare the daylights out of each other. The rush of adrenaline feels good. Our hearts pound, our breath quickens, and we can imagine ourselves on the edge. Yet we also appreciate the insightful aspects of horror. Sometimes a story intends to shock and disgust, but the best horror intends to rattle our cages and shake us out of our complacency. It makes us think, forces us to confront ideas we might rather ignore, and challenges preconceptions of all kinds. Horror reminds us that the world is not always as safe as it seems, which exercises our mental muscles and reminds us to keep a little healthy caution close at hand.[38]
In a sense similar to the reason a person seeks out the controlled thrill of a roller coaster, readers in the modern era seek out feelings of horror and terror to feel a sense of excitement. However, Barrette adds that horror fiction is one of the few mediums where readers seek out a form of art that forces themselves to confront ideas and images they "might rather ignore to challenge preconceptions of all kinds."
One can see the confrontation of ideas that readers and characters would "rather ignore" throughout literature in famous moments such as Hamlet's musings about the skull of Yorick, its implications of the mortality of humanity, and the gruesome end that bodies inevitably come to. In horror fiction, the confrontation with the gruesome is often a metaphor for the problems facing the current generation of the author.
There are many theories as to why people enjoy being scared. For example, "people who like horror films are more likely to score highly for openness to experience, a personality trait linked to intellect and imagination."[39]
It is a now commonly accepted view that the horror elements of Dracula's portrayal of vampirism are metaphors for sexuality in a repressed Victorian era.[40] But this is merely one of many interpretations of the metaphor of Dracula. Jack Halberstam postulates many of these in his essay Technologies of Monstrosity: Bram Stoker's Dracula. He writes:
[The] image of dusty and unused gold, coins from many nations and old unworn jewels, immediately connects Dracula to the old money of a corrupt class, to a kind of piracy of nations and to the worst excesses of the aristocracy.[41]
Halberstram articulates a view of Dracula as manifesting the growing perception of the
Noël Carroll's Philosophy of Horror postulates that a modern piece of horror fiction's "monster", villain, or a more inclusive menace must exhibit the following two traits:
- A menace that is threatening — either physically, psychologically, socially, morally, spiritually, or some combination of the aforementioned.
- A menace that is impure — that violates the generally accepted schemes of cultural categorization. "We consider impure that which is categorically contradictory".[43]
Scholarship and criticism
In addition to those essays and articles shown above, scholarship on horror fiction is almost as old as horror fiction itself. In 1826, the gothic novelist Ann Radcliffe published an essay distinguishing two elements of horror fiction, "terror" and "horror." Whereas terror is a feeling of dread that takes place before an event happens, horror is a feeling of revulsion or disgust after an event has happened.[44] Radcliffe describes terror as that which "expands the soul and awakens the faculties to a high degree of life," whereas horror is described as that which "freezes and nearly annihilates them."
Modern scholarship on horror fiction draws upon a range of sources. In their historical studies of the gothic novel, both Devendra Varma[45] and S. L. Varnado[46] make reference to the theologian Rudolf Otto, whose concept of the "numinous" was originally used to describe religious experience.
A recent survey reports how often horror media is consumed:
To assess frequency of horror consumption, we asked respondents the following question: "In the past year, about how often have you used horror media (for example, horror literature, film, and video games) for entertainment?" 11.3% said "Never," 7.5% "Once," 28.9% "Several times," 14.1% "Once a month," 20.8% "Several times a month," 7.3% "Once a week," and 10.2% "Several times a week." Evidently, then, most respondents (81.3%) claimed to use horror media several times a year or more often. Unsurprisingly, there is a strong correlation between liking and frequency of use (r=.79, p<.0001).[47]
Awards and associations
Achievements in horror fiction are recognized by numerous awards. The
Alternative terms
Some writers of fiction normally classified as "horror" tend to dislike the term, considering it too lurid. They instead use the terms dark fantasy or Gothic fantasy for supernatural horror,[51] or "psychological thriller" for non-supernatural horror.[52]
See also
- Related genres
- History of horror films
- Horror convention
- Horror film
- Horror podcast
- LGBT themes in horror fiction
- List of ghost films
- List of horror fiction writers
- List of horror podcasts
- List of horror television programs
References
- ISBN 0-415-90145-6.
Art-horror requires evaluation both in terms of threat and disgust. ... some emotional states are the cognitive-evaluative sort. And, of course, I would hold that art-horror is one of these. ... The audience's psychological state, therefore, diverges from the psychological state of characters in respect of belief, but converges on that of characters with respect to the way in which the properties of said monsters are emotively assessed.
- ISBN 0-14-006799-X.
- ^ Jackson, Rosemary (1981). Fantasy: The Literature of Subversion. London: Methuen. pp. 53–5, 68–9.
- ^ "Even Ancient Greeks and Romans Enjoyed Good Scary Stories, Professor Says". phys.org. Archived from the original on 13 October 2020. Retrieved 2 September 2020.
- ^ Though the sub-title of Frankenstein references the titan Prometheus, none of the ancient myths about Prometheus is itself a horror tale.
- ^ * Edward P. Coleridge, 1891, prose: full text Archived 12 April 2006 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ * John Dryden, 1683: full text Archived 12 June 2018 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Pliny the Younger (1909–14). "LXXXIII. To Sura". In Charles W. Eliot. Letters, by Pliny the Younger; translated by William Melmoth; revised by F. C. T. Bosanquet. The Harvard Classics. 9. New York: P.F. Collier & Son.
- ^
ISBN 9780691145839. Retrieved 9 April 2021.
Taken together with the rapture and tribulation themes in evangelical apocalyptic horror movies, this zombie connection testifies to the variety of ways that Revelation feeds into deep, largely repressed correspondences between religion and horror in contemporary culture.
- ^
Pippin, Tina (1992). Death and Desire: The Rhetoric of Gender in the Apocalypse of John. Wipf and Stock Publishers (published 2021). p. 105. ISBN 9781725294189. Retrieved 9 April 2021.
If these books were arranged in a bookstore, one would find all the women writers under 'science fiction.' The Apocalyse, on the other hand, would be found under 'horror literature.'
- ISBN 978-1-84384-576-8. Archivedfrom the original on 1 June 2023. Retrieved 1 June 2023.
- ^ Raymond T. McNally and Radu R. Florescu (1972). "In Search of Dracula." Houghton Milton. Pages 8–9.
- ^ Kiernan, Dr. Jas. G. "Sexual Perversion, and the Whitechapel Murders." The Medical Standard: IV.5. G. P. Engelhard and Company: Chicago.
- ^ in Ungaria suis cum regibus compendia data, Typis Academicis Soc. Jesu per Fridericum Gall. Anno MCCCXXIX. Mense Sepembri Die 8. p 188-193, quoted by Farin
- ^ a b c d "The Castle of Otranto: The creepy tale that launched gothic fiction" Archived 3 July 2019 at the Wayback Machine. BBC. Retrieved 15 July 2017
- ^ Richard Davenport-Hines (1998). Gothic: 1500 Years of Excess, Horror, Evil and Ruin. London: Fourth Estate.
- ^ Christopher Frayling (1996). Nightmare: The Birth of Horror. London: BBC Books.
- ISBN 1558622063(pp. 480–1).
- ISBN 978-0-8160-4578-5(pp. 223–224).
- ISBN 0-313-21221-X(pp. 727–736).
- ISBN 0-313-21221-X
- ^ "Medieval Studies and the Ghost Stories of M. R. James By Patrick J. Murphy". www.psupress.org. Archived from the original on 17 March 2020. Retrieved 17 March 2020.
- ISBN 978-0-8108-6887-8. Retrieved 29 October 2015.
- Collins, Max Allan (28 February 2013). "11 Most Controversial Comic Books" Archived 18 December 2018 at the Wayback Machine. HuffPost. Retrieved 5 February 2019.
- ^ Hansen, Kelli (1 October 2012). "Banned Books Week: Comics and Controversy" Archived 7 February 2019 at the Wayback Machine. University of Missouri. Retrieved 5 February 2019.
- ISBN 9781137532800(p.119)
- ISBN 0246132140(p.103-5)
- Complex. Retrieved 5 February 2019.
- ^ Jackson, Dan (18 February 2016). "A Beginner's Guide to Stephen King Books" Archived 7 February 2019 at the Wayback Machine. Thrillist. Retrieved 5 February 2019.
- ISBN 9780684312507. (pp. 525-540).
- ^ Hillel Italie (18 September 2003). "Stephen King receives honorary National Book Award". Ellensburg Daily Record. Archived from the original on 16 April 2021. Retrieved 12 September 2010.
Stephen King, brand-name writer, master of the horror story and e-book pioneer, has received an unexpected literary honor: a National Book Award for lifetime achievement.
- ^ K.A. Laity "Clive Barker" in Richard Bleiler, ed. Supernatural Fiction Writers: Contemporary Fantasy and Horror. New York: Thomson/Gale, 2003.
ISBN 9780684312507(pp. 61–70).
- ISBN 9780684312507(pp. 177–188.)
- ^ from the original on 1 May 2019. Retrieved 1 May 2019.
- ISSN 1468-2958.
- ^ "Golden Proverbs". Archived from the original on 16 May 2013. Retrieved 15 December 2012.
- ISBN 9781880448601(p. 64, 67).
- ^ "Elements of Aversion". Archived from the original on 28 February 2013. Retrieved 2 November 2012.
- S2CID 126647318.
- JSTOR 3346355.
- ^ "Technologies of Monstrosity" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 May 2013. Retrieved 2 November 2012.
- ^ "Lecture Notes for Dracula". Archived from the original on 25 October 2012. Retrieved 2 November 2012.
- ^ "Horror Stories". Dating Ghosts. Archived from the original on 6 January 2019. Retrieved 6 January 2019.
- ^ Mrs Radcliffe, "On the Supernatural in Poetry Archived 8 January 2023 at the Wayback Machine", The New Monthly Magazine 7 (1826): 145–52.
- ^ Devendra Varma, The Gothic Flame (New York: Russell & Russell, 1966.
- ^ S. L. Varnado, "The Idea of the Numinous in Gothic Literature," in The Gothic Imagination, ed. G.R. Thompson (Pullman: Washington State University Press, 1974).
- S2CID 149872472.
- ^ "The Bram Stoker Awards". Horror Writers Association. Archived from the original on 10 March 2007. Retrieved 13 April 2010.
- ^ "IHG Award Recipients 1994–2006". HorrorAward.org. Archived from the original on 22 April 2009. Retrieved 30 October 2014.
- ^ "IHG Award Recipients 2007". HorrorAward.org. Archived from the original on 2 May 2015. Retrieved 30 October 2014.
- ISBN 0-8108-6829-6.
- ISBN 0809519070(p. 200).
Further reading
- ISBN 978-0824043476.
- ISBN 978-0786432738.
- Brian Docherty, American Horror Fiction: From Brockden Brown to Stephen King. New York: St. Martin's, 1990. ISBN 978-0333461297.
- Errickson, Will; Hendrix, Grady (2017). Paperbacks from Hell: The Twisted History of '70s and '80s Horror Fiction. Philadelphia: Quirk Books. OCLC 1003294393.
- ISBN 0786705523.
- ISBN 978-0896960763.
- H. P. Lovecraft, Supernatural Horror in Literature, 1927, rev. 1934, collected in Dagon and Other Macabre Tales. Arkham House, 1965.
- ISBN 978-0859652117.
- Andrea Sauchelli "Horror and Mood" Archived 17 May 2021 at the Wayback Machine, American Philosophical Quarterly, 51:1 (2014), pp. 39–50.
- Gina Wisker, Horror Fiction: An Introduction. New York: Continuum, 2005. ISBN 978-0826415615.
External links
- Horror fiction at Curlie