Spanish Gothic

"Aldana Reyes's new book will become the go-to text on Spanish Gothic. The historical sweep of his work brings forth new insights on the reach of the Gothic beyond the Anglophone and reveals Spanish culture as steeped in a tradition that is as familiar worldwide as it is peculiarly its own." (Prof Ann Davies, Chair in Spanish and Latin American Studies at Stirling University, UK, and author of Contemporary Spanish Gothic (2016)) "Worthwhile literary criticism aspires to three not always compatible goals: originality, erudition and clarity. Aldana Reyes achieves all three in his ambitious, rewarding Spanish Gothic, an impressively researched book that maps unexplored common ground for scholars of Gothic and Hispanic Studies alike." (Christopher B. Weimer, Professor of Spanish at Oklahoma State University, USA) "Spanish Gothic is a fine pioneering study and an appealing invitation to include 'Gothic' in the theoretical vocabulary about the fantastic produced and consumed in Spain. Aldana Reyes shows that Spanish writers and filmmakers firmly belong in transnational, transmedia Gothic while providing Spanish Gothic with a distinct identity." (Dr Sara Martin Alegre, Senior Lecturer in English Literature at Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Spain)

With illustrative case studies, Aldana Reyes demonstrates how the Gothic mode has been a permanent yet ever-shifting fixture of the literary and cinematic landscape of Spain since the late-eighteenth century.This book presents the first English introduction to the broad history of the Gothic mode in Spain. It focuses on key literary periods, such as Romanticism, the fin-de-siècle, spiritualist writings of the early-twentieth century, and the cinematic and literary booms of the 1970s and 2000s. With illustrative case studies, Aldana Reyes demonstrates how the Gothic mode has been a permanent yet ever-shifting fixture of the literary and cinematic landscape of Spain since the late-eighteenth century. He proposes that writers and filmmakers alike welcomed the Gothic as a liberating and transgressive artistic language.