Tatyana N. Krasavchenko, DSc in Philology, Principal Researcher, Institute of Scientific Information for Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Nakhimovsky Avenue, 51/21, 117418, Moscow, Russia. ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5479-7957
The research, carried out in the Institute of Scientific Information for Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences, has been financially supported by Russian Science Foundation (project No. 23-28-01727 “At the origins of contemporary horror genre: topos of horror in gothic fiction”). https://rscf.ru/project/23-28-01727 The works of Daphne Du Maurier, one of the most famous British writers of the 20 th century, is interpreted here in line with “NeoGothic”, a complex aesthetic and philosophical phenomenon in literature (and wider – in culture) of the 20–21 st centuries. The “close reading” of a short story The Birds (1952), which is not yet evaluated on its own merits, makes clear that it is a thriller and by the laws of the genre it evokes feelings of anxiety, tension, fear, but its main goal is not just to entertain the reader and give him adrenaline rush. The story has deep meanings and fits organically into modernist aesthetic and philosophical context. Du Maurier presented here her “model of the world”, based on the primordial relationship between man and nature. The writer shows how fragile the civilization is before the powerful force of nature, how a man is at the same time carefree, steadfast and courageous and how tragic is his lot in this world. Film adaptation (1963) of the story by the “king of horror” Alfred Hitchcock, indicates that it contributed to the fame of Du Maurier, but damaged her literary reputation.
British literature; modernism; “Neo-Gothic”; thriller; screen version; Alfred Hitchcock; the problem of literary reputation.
10.05.2024
06.06.2024
Krasavchenko, T.N. “Modernist ‘Neo-Gothic’: Daphne Du Maurier and Her Apocalyptic ‘Ecological’ Thriller The Birds”. Literaturovedcheskii zhurnal, no. 3(65), 2024, pp. 138–155. (In Russ.)
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