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Synopsis
The emergence of the fantastic tale in the late 18th and early 19th centuries reflects a growing fascination with the supernatural and the occult as the site for literary innovation. Taking Jacques Cazotte's "The Devil in Love" as a starting point, this work examines the genre's early development in the fantastic tales of the German Romantics Ludwig Tieck, Achim von Arnim, and E.T.A. Hoffmann; the subsequent French rediscovery of the genre in works by Theophile Gautier and Prosper Merimee; and Edgar Allan Poe's contributions to the literary form. The literary innovation of the fantastic tale contributed to the production of a mode of subjectivity intrinsic to the history of sexuality. It arose at a moment in the history of communication when similarity and perfect openness were no longer considered the unquestioned basis of friendship or love, when the other's potentially dark secrets became seductive and fascinating.
