The disturbing unreal

Beyond generic definitions, despite a theoretical basis, we probe the nature and status of the disturbing unreal, as well as its reception, the history of sensibilities and major examples, such as the work of the supernatural in James, the baroque aesthetics in William Beckford or the poetics of impotence in De Quincey: it is an exploration of the modalities of the representation of the unrepresentable both on the side of excess (baroque and fanatasmagoria) or lack (the missing text). The source of dispossession was the Gothic foundation of the usurpation and loss before the emergence of 'neo-Gothic'. From Freudian reading to structuralism, the desire to define the nature of the unreal has come up against a phenomenon of strangeness impermeable to explanation. The modern discourse of alienation is posited, and the link established through the centuries to illuminate the coherent function of the disturbing unreal. The book is at the crossroads of English literature of the romantic century, its future, the history of aesthetic choices and theoretical options.