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Author Biography

Rayna Rosenova, PhD, is a lecturer in English literature at the Department of English and American Studies, Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski (Bulgaria). Her research interests include the long eighteenth century, women’s writing, Romantic poetry, and Gothic literature.

Abstract

Drawing on recent enquiries into how affect theory could enhance our understanding of eighteenth-century fiction, this article offers a reading of Eliza Parsons’s Gothic novel The Mysterious Warning (1796) to examine how affective resonances in the text are used to codify relations of power. It therefore argues that the power dynamics between the characters are enacted through encounters with human agents and material objects, such as letters and haunting (dis)embodied voices. The article further suggests that affective intensities in the novel, articulated through the language of sensibility typical of mid- and late eighteenth-century writing, generate an ensuing imbalance of power, registered through a suspension of agency and loss of control, on the one hand, and, on the other, a sense of empowerment. Interactions with material and immaterial, non-human and human entities thus prove instrumental in shifts of agency and authority, underscoring the significance of the body’s capacity to be used as a conduit for psychological, social, and political meanings.

Keywords

Gothic, novel, sensibility, affect, power, Eliza Parsons

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