The article proposes a formal approach to the study of Gothic fiction, understood historically as that genre of horror literature which ran its course between the 1760s and the 1820s. The article holds that Gothic emerged and developed halfway between folklore and literature, and employed formal strategies analogous to the ‘anti-structure’ devices that anthropologist Victor Turner detected in the liminal stage of rites of passage. It argues that a proper analysis of the genre requires a ‘thick’ description, a kind of close reading that takes into account both formal aspects and compositional conventions. Analysis shows that Gothic writers implement a number of construction strategies that can ultimately be tracked down to a set of binding ‘rules’ shaping and governing the genre. The article outlines and illustrates six such rules and argues that they provide a liminal poetics for the genre, that is, a poetics central to which stands a decisive concern with thresholds and with the ambiguities, paradoxes and dangers entailed by crossing, entering or occupying them.

中文翻译：

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哥特故事中阈值的厚重描写与诗学

这篇文章提出了一种研究哥特小说的正式方法，历史上将其理解为 1760 年代至 1820 年代之间的恐怖文学类型。这篇文章认为，哥特式在民俗和文学之间出现和发展，并采用了类似于人类学家维克多·特纳（Victor Turner）在成年礼的阈限阶段发现的“反结构”手段的形式策略。它认为，对流派的正确分析需要“详尽”的描述，一种兼顾形式方面和作曲惯例的仔细阅读。分析表明，哥特作家实施了许多构建策略，这些策略最终可以追溯到一组塑造和管理该类型的具有约束力的“规则”。