Fear, disgust, laughter. Forms of grotesque in D. Wong’s novel
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu09.2024.101Abstract
In contemporary scientific paradigm, horror literature is often interpreted on the basis of disgust and/or abjection, mainly due to the influential works by J. Kristeva and N. Carroll, inspired by M. Douglas. However, phenomenological approach as well as cognitive studies clearly show the fundamental difference between fear and disgust. The three theorists’ common understanding of disgust as a categorical anomaly has much in common with a wider concept of grotesque. Drawing on the works by M. M. Bakhtin, A. Kolnai and S. Asma it is possible to demonstrate how grotesque images can induce not only disgust, but fear and laughter as well as more ambiguous reaction, for grotesque images are, in full accord with Bakhtin’s carnivalesque poetics, deeply ambivalent. To illustrate the point, the article draws on works by David Wong (pen-name of J. Pargin), the postmodern horror writer well-known for his propensity for mixing horrible and comic in bold proportion. Wong freely uses the poetics of grotesque realism, yet does not shy to demonstrate that in some cases no amount of denigration can utterly vanquish horror, and that a cosmically grotesque body can remain sublime despite every possible accent on its lowest anatomical aspects. Examination of various unfinished and becoming bodies in Wong’s novel demonstrates that grotesque is a versatile tool for rather different ends, from farcical comedy to existential dread and diverse transitory forms. Thus we may conclude that grotesque hybridity suffuses horror not only on thematic and structural levels, but on pragmatic as well, pertaining to the sphere of emotional responses.
Keywords:
horror, grotesque, disgust and abjection
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Литература
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Кристева 2013 — Kristeva J. Powers of Horror: An Essay on Disgust. A. Kostikova (transl. from French). St Petersburg: Aleteiia Publ., 2013. (In Russian)
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Asma 2014 — Asma S. T. Monsters on the Brain: An Evolutionary Epistemology of Horror. Social Research. 2014, 84 (4): 941–968.
Briggs 2002 — Briggs K. The fairies in tradition and literature. London; New York: Routledge, 2002.
Carroll 1990 — Carroll N. The Philosophy of Horror, or Paradoxes of Heart. New York: Routledge, 1990.
Clasen 2018 — Clasen M. The Evolution of Cosmic Horror: A Neo-Lovecraftian Poetics. In: New Directions in Supernatural Horror Literature. H. P. Lovecraft and His Influence. Moreland S. (ed.). [S. l.]: Springer International Publishing; Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. P. 43–60.
Davey 2011 — Davey G. C. L. Disgust: the disease-avoidance emotion and its dysfunctions. Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences. 2011, 366 (1583): 3453–3465.
Enright 2018 — Enright L. Horror “After Theory”. In: The Palgrave Handbook to Horror Literature. [S. l.]: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. P. 499–510.
Horner, Zlosnik 2005 — Horner A, Zlosnik S. Gothic and the Comic Turn. [S. l.]: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.
Horner, Zlosnik 2012 — Horner A., Zlosnik S. Comic Gothic. In: A New Companion to the Gothic. [S. l.]: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012. P. 321–334.
Khair 2018 — Khair T. Postcolonial Horror. In: The Palgrave Handbook to Horror Literature. [S. l.]: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. P. 433–440.
Kim 2011 — Kim D. Y. The Horror of Mimesis. Oxford Art Journal. 2011, 34 (3): 335–353.
Kolnai 2003 — Kolnai A. On Disgust. Chicago; La Salle: Open Court, 2003.
Korsmeyer 2008 — Korsmeyer C. Fear and Disgust: the Sublime and the Sublate. Revue Internationale de Philosophie. 2008, 62, 246 (4): 367–379.
Loh 2011 — Loh M. H. Introduction: Early Modern Horror. Oxford Art Journal. 2011, 34 (3): 321–333.
Lovecraft 2008 — Lovecraft H. P. Supernatural Horror in Literature. In: Lovecraft H. P. The fiction. Complete and unabridged. New York: Barnes & Noble, 2008. P. 1041–1098.
Miles 2012 — Miles R. Ann Radcliffe and Matthew Lewis. In: A New Companion to the Gothic. [S. l.]: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012. P. 93–109.
Moreland 2018 — Moreland S. The Birth of Cosmic Horror from the S(ub)lime of Lucretius. In: New Directions in Supernatural Horror Literature. H. P. Lovecraft and His Influence. Moreland S. (ed.). [S. l.]: Springer International Publishing, Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. P. 13–42.
Newell 2020 — Newell J. A Century of Weird Fiction: 1832–1937. Disgust, Metaphysics and the Aesthetics of Cosmic Horror. [S. l.]: University of Wales Press, 2020.
Punter 1996a — Punter D. The Literature of Terror. A History of Gothic Fictions from 1765 to the Present Day. Vol. 1. The Gothic Tradition. [S. l.]: Routledge, 1996.
Punter 1996b — Punter D. The Literature of Terror. A History of Gothic Fictions from 1765 to the Present Day. Vol. 2. The Modern Gothic. [S. l.]: Routledge, 1996.
Purkiss 2000 — Purkiss D. Troublesome Things: A History of Fairies and Fairy Stories. London: Allen Lane; [S. l.]: Penguin Press, 2000.
Rosen 2020 — Rosen M. Introduction: On the Diseases of the Head. In: Diseases of the Head. Essays on the Horror of Speculative Philosophy. [S. l.]: Punctum Books, 2020. P. 13–42.
Silver 1999 — Silver C. Strange and Secret Peoples: Fairies and Victorian Consciousness. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
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