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1 results

  • 1.12 - Gothic and the French Revolution, 1789–1804

  • Edited by Angela Wright, University of Sheffield, Dale Townshend, Manchester Metropolitan University
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of the Gothic
    Published online:
    16 July 2020
    Print publication:
    06 August 2020, pp 262-283

  • Summary

    Centred on the period of the French Revolution (1789–1804), this chapter explains how the revolutionary decade marked a distinct change in the type of fiction available on the French literary market, with the paradoxical increase of translations from the English at a time during which England and France were at war with one another. By focusing on mostly forgotten and overlooked French translators of the English Gothic novel, the chapter shows that French translators of the English Gothic were not only men and women of a certain notoriety, but were also deeply implicated in contemporary political events. Such figures not only actively participated in the circulation of the French new national identity, but also played a significant role in the intercultural exchanges between France and England. Finally, the chapter demonstrates the participation of Gothic novels in the diffusion of republican values, and their coincidence with the sociological emergence of a new and ever-growing ‘democratic’ French readership that had experienced revolutionary events first hand.