A Familiar Compound Ghost

A Familiar Compound Ghost explores the relationship between allusion and the uncanny in literature. An unexpected echo or quotation from an earlier text in a new work can be compared to the sudden appearance of a ghost or mysterious double, the reanimation of a corpse, or the discovery of an ancient ruin hidden in a modern city.

Brown identifies moments where this affinity between allusion and the uncanny is used by writers to generate a particular textual charge, where uncanny elements are used to flag patterns of allusion and to point to the haunting presence of an earlier work. A protagonist's encounter with a Doppelgänger, for example, can represent a moment of recognition for the reader as well as for the character, creating unease through a frisson of déjà vu. The disquiet of the character faced with the strangely familiar is shared by the reader who feels that he or she has read something like this before.

A Familiar Compound Ghost traces the subtle patterns of connection between texts centuries, even millennia apart, from Greek tragedy and Latin epic, through the plays of Shakespeare and the Victorian novel, to contemporary film, fiction, poetry and popular culture. Each chapter takes a different uncanny motif as its focus: doubles, ruins, reanimation, ghosts and journeys to the underworld. Although influenced by many recent theoretical developments, this is essentially a work of literary criticism, driven by close readings of primary texts rather than by a monolithic theory, or by discourses outside literature.