Revue faire n°33

During the 19th century, a new literary genre was born in England. The gothic novel takes up themes that will feed the imagination of modern western cultural productions. Evil spirits, despicable bodies, exacerbated emotions and a deranged nature become the protagonists of extra-rational representations. Within this new trend, a sub-genre develops in which hostile vegetation kills and devours men with creepers and tentacular roots, poisonous perfumes and thorny jaws. The literary taste for horror led to a new “pleasure of the eye” deployed by illustrators on the boards and covers of books. The invasion of images in the 19th century is thus also that of the invasion by a hybrid nature less pacified and regulated than the history of ornament suggests.