Terror e horror na construção dos espaços no conto The Vampyre (1819), de John William Polidori

Abstract

Published in 1819, John William Polidori's tale The Vampyre is one of the first vampire fictions in English literature. In this sense, this study aims to analyze how the construction of Gothic spaces in Polidori's tale arouses terror and contributes to the shock of horror in the narrative. As a pioneering narrative, investigating how spaces are constructed to arouse such feelings proves to be important both to understand the work itself and to study and understand other works in which terror and horror are articulated through spatiality. The analysis is based on qualitative bibliographic research that explores concepts related to literary Gothic: such as terror, horror, and physical and psychological spaces as locus terribilis. Therefore, we use here authors who are references in Gothic studies, such as Fred Botting (1996) and Aparecido Rossi (2009); authors who differentiate terror from horror, such as Anne Radcliffe (1826) and Paula Pope Ramos (2024); as well as authors who theorize about spatiality, such as Carlos Reis and Ana Lopes (1988) and Susan Yi Sencindiver (2010). In light of the analysis, it is concluded that the spaces of the narrative, such as the dark forest and the protagonist's disturbed mind, do not function merely as backgrounds, but as crucial entities or malevolent psychic fragments that structure the narrative discursively and morally. The terrible and potentially horrible spaces of the story appear as a soul tormented by perverse desires and primeval fears through which those who identify with it wander, recognizing its horrors and responding to its stimuli.