‘A Very Hell of Horrors’? The Haitian Revolution and the Early Transatlantic Haitian Gothic.

This article explores the Gothicisation of the Haitian Revolution in the transatlantic discourse during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. As it argues, the Gothic mode has to be understood as a reaction to the profound challenges that the Haitian Revolution posed to a transatlantic...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Publicado en:Slavery & Abolition Vol. 37; no. 1; pp. 183 - 206
Autor principal: Hoermann, Raphael
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Taylor & Francis Ltd Mar2016
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Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
Descripción
Sumario:This article explores the Gothicisation of the Haitian Revolution in the transatlantic discourse during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. As it argues, the Gothic mode has to be understood as a reaction to the profound challenges that the Haitian Revolution posed to a transatlantic world built on the slave economy. Pro-slavery and pro-colonialist authors demonised this successful slave revolution and one of the first anti-colonial revolutions in modern history by resorting frequently to the ‘hegemonic Haitian Gothic'. By contrast, early Haitian leaders and some Black Atlantic radicals appropriated this mode, turning it into the ideologically contrary ‘radical Haitian Gothic'.