Neo-Victorian Goblin Fruit:
Maggie Power on the Gothic Fascinations of Demon Lovers and Re-Imagining the Victorians
Keywords:
demon lovers, desire, the gothic, intertextuality, Maggie Power, mental health, poverty, the Pre-Raphaelites, romance, the RossettisAbstract
Despite authoring three consecutive neo-Victorian novels coinciding with the upsurge of the genre to literary prominence from the 1980s onwards, Maggie Power remains a critically neglected writer. Mirroring important themes explored by her much better known contemporaries in the genre, such as Margaret Atwood, A.S. Byatt and Sarah Waters, Power's work lends itself particularly well to exploring neo-Victorian gender issues and sexual politics, as well as intertexuality and literary re-vision. In this interview, Power discusses the abiding Victorian influence on present-day culture and literature, recurrent tropes of demon lovers, gothic obsession and entrapment in her work, her fascination with the Pre-Raphaelites, and the current market for gothic romance.
