Scott, Christopher Matthew (2022) Strange Spaces: The Teleological Function of Topographies with Christian Soteriological Iconography in Algernon Blackwood’s Short Stories of Supernatural Horror between 1899 and 1914. PhD thesis, University of Sheffield.
Abstract
H. P. Lovecraft identified Algernon Blackwood as a ‘master’ of the weird (‘Supernatural Horror in Literature’ 83). Since Lovecraft’s publication, however, Blackwood had surprisingly been neglected among scholars except for a few devotees such as Peter Penzoldt, Mike Ashley, David Punter, and S. T. Joshi. Blackwood scholarship has advanced recently, but the most in-depth engagements with the breadth of Blackwood’s oeuvre remain those of the aforementioned scholars. Despite their extensive reach, Lovecraft, Penzoldt, Ashley, Punter, and Joshi collectively overlook a repeated phenomenon within Blackwood’s short stories of supernatural horror, specifically those published between 1899 and 1914. These narratives evince patterns with their particular physical settings that deploy an amalgamation of Christian soteriological iconography and Mark Fisher’s concept of the strange—and its various manifestations via the Freudian uncanny, the weird, and/or the eerie. By using teleological and theological lenses to analyse closely the operation(s) of the strange in Blackwood’s narratives set in city, garden, forest, and mountain topographies, this thesis contends that Blackwood’s short stories with these types of topographies, Christian soteriological iconography, and the strange encourage his audience to recognise these physical settings as necessary progressive soteriological destinations toward an individual’s physical and spiritual advancement from urban to rural spaces because these particular narratives with this arrangement facilitate various appeals to Christian pathos.
Addressing this overlooked area in Blackwood scholarship equips academics to recognise Blackwood’s spiritual position and his influential deployment of supernatural horror and the strange to appeal to his audience’s emotions in a way that inspires them to accept his idiosyncratic interpretations of the (other)world. As Blackwood aims to instruct his audience, this thesis contributes to the scholarly debate about whether Blackwood is didactic or not by evidencing multiple narratives whose elements align with a didactic purpose.
Metadata
Supervisors: | Smith, Andrew and Miller, John |
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Keywords: | Algernon Blackwood; supernatural horror fiction; strange; uncanny; weird; eerie; topographies; Christianity; Christian soteriology; Christian soteriological iconography; short stories; cities; gardens; forests; mountains |
Awarding institution: | University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Arts and Humanities (Sheffield) > School of English (Sheffield) |
Identification Number/EthosID: | uk.bl.ethos.863407 |
Depositing User: | Dr Christopher Matthew Scott |
Date Deposited: | 27 Sep 2022 12:21 |
Last Modified: | 01 Nov 2022 10:53 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:etheses.whiterose.ac.uk:31383 |
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