• Gothic literature
• hubris
• knowledge
• science

Supervisors: Professor Chris Baldick and Professor Lucia Boldrini.

My dissertation aims to explore the archetypical figure of the ambitious doctor who falls victim of his own Wissensdurst and hubris. His projects deliberately involve trespassing boundaries, yearning for a supreme knowledge which may lead to madness. Myth, religion and global literature have always condemned these overzealous dreamers as sinners, warning about the fatal risk of such aspirations.
Taking the myths of Icarus, Pandora, Prometheus and Faust as starting points, I primarily focus on four British and American doctors: Frankenstein, Moreau, Jekyll and Valdemar. Re-elaborated through a gothic narrative, these works are certainly more than just horror stories. They deal with deep passions, philosophical questions, and ethical anxieties. Emerged as a reaction to Enlightenment values and rationality, order and social progress, gothic fiction deals with irrationality, excess and transgression, frequently involving madness, the supernatural and the macabre. It exposes the fears and foibles of mainstream society, unlikely juxtapositions and uncanny coincidences. In my research, I also examine several emerging aspects: segregation and otherness; manipulation of Nature; time reversion, both in ontogenetic and phylogenetic terms; creators, creatures and their controversial relationship.