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This CT Professor Knows A Lot About Scary Things. And Why 'horror Appeals To Almost All Of Us'

Horror is actually good for you.

That bold statement comes from Mark A. Fabrizi, who traces an almost lifelong fascination with the genre.

"Horror appeals to almost all of us, whether we admit it or not. Sweaty palms and fright can purge negative emotions and relieve stress. Being scared makes us feel alive and we love to experience threats vicariously," said Fabrizi, of Westbrook and professor of Secondary Education and department chair at Eastern Connecticut State University.

Fabrizi should know: He recently published the "Historical Dictionary of Horror Literature."

"I was thinking back to my earliest days and I thought, 'I've always liked horror.' I have an older brother and younger sister and the three of us used to tell ghost stories at night," he said.

Fabrizi also admits to enjoying the nightmares he had as a child. "I found them more interesting and exhilarating than standard dreams, so I always looked forward in a weird way to them."

The book, part of a series published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, is a comprehensive study aid for horror that offers information on influential authors, terminology, texts, subgenres, literary movements, and a lengthy timeline of events.

Mark Fabrizi, of Westbrook, a professor of Secondary Education and department chair at Eastern Connecticut State University, recently published the "Historical Dictionary of Horror Literature."

It reaches as far back as 4,000 BCE to ancient Sumerian myths about demons who were part ghost, part vampire, and part zombie. Fabrizi pointed out that wolfmen, witches, vampires, and zombies loom in tales for more than 6,000 years.  Also, the book includes more than 450 cross-referenced entries covering authors, subgenres, tropes, awards, and organizations related to horror.

"I included anything significant in horror. There's a 20-page introduction, a comprehensive bibliography of source material, and I address some of the terms in connection with each other. For example, terror, horror, and revulsion are all talked about in one section because they can be discussed in relation to one another," said Fabrizi, noting the reference book is for librarians, scholars, students,  specialists, and casual readers of horror who want to broaden their understanding.

According to Fabrizi, defining horror wasn't easy.

"As I thought more about horror, I saw it wasn't defined by structural elements. It was more of an effect on its reader," he said. "Horror is a work primarily intended to startle, scare, disgust, or create a fear response."

While on sabbatical in 2022, Fabrizi conducted eight months of research with the help of student assistant Eva Glaser, a junior at Eastern from Sturbridge, Mass., who focused on the biographical research on authors of horror tales.

"I found it incredibly enriching and rewarding. I love to do the research. It's so much fun, and I love writing, as well," said Fabrizi who started his research at the beginning of horror with "The Castle of Otranto" by Horace Walpole, considered the first Gothic novel.

Soon, Fabrizi had three dozen or more books strewn about his office as he compiled material. He studied witch trials that influenced horror, read the graveyard poets, examined Ovid's first ghost story in "Metamorphoses," vampires in Eastern Europe in the early 18th century and late 19th century, werewolves in France in the 12th century, and more.

He uncovered little known facts such as Louisa May Alcott, famed author of "Little Women," published her first horror novel under the pseudonym A.M. Bernard, and how the line, 'there'll be scary ghost stories' in the popular Christmas song "It's the Most Wonderful Time of Year" can be traced to the mid-19th century and the influence of Charles Dickens who wrote A Christmas Carol, a Christmastime ghost story.

Dickens dedicated Christmas issues of magazines he edited to ghost stories and that concept traveled to the U.S. The book also includes famed horror author Stephen King who was a keynote speaker at a conference at the University of Maine in 1996 where Fabrizi presented a paper about horror literature. "He was a phenomenal speaker," said Fabrizi a former 18-year high school English teacher who previously used King's book "Pet Sematary" in one of his classes.

Fabrizi also cultivated an interest in fantasy. "I moved from fantasy to horror. I see a connection between them pretty clearly because both require a suspension of disbelief to believe in the reality of the story," he said.

While pursuing his doctorate at the University of Hull, U.K., Fabrizi wrote a dissertation on using fantasy literature to develop critical literacy skills in students, expanding his own knowledge of the genre, along with insight into horror. "My training at Hull helped me quite a bit. Horror is an incredibly popular genre and it's starting to get more attention from scholars."

Not one to remain idle, in 2016, Fabrizi edited a book of scholarly essays on using fantasy literature in the classroom, and in 2018, he edited "Horror Literature and Dark Fantasy: Challenging Genres."

It apparently was only natural Rowman & Littlefield would ask him to add to its series of historical dictionaries.

"My background is in education so a lot of my writings are connected to education. I'd written on horror and fantasy – Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings – with a pedagogical connection. The historical approach of this book is different. I learned a lot."

Additionally, he recently published the second edition of his book, "Writing a Watertight Thesis" and is working on an encyclopedia of role-playing games.

The horror genre continues to be an important part of Fabrizi's life. He's planning a second edition of his dictionary and this summer, he will be teaching a one-week mini-course, "A Brief History of Horror," as part of an on-campus special program Eastern offers for high school students.

In spring 2025, he will be teaching Wizards, Witches, and Warriors, a new course at Eastern.  "It's a great opportunity for students to sit in a classroom with a teacher who is passionate about the subject. I'm excited to teach it."

Goths: How An Ancient People Gave Name To A Contemporary Subculture

22 of May is World Goth Day - a celebration of all things dark and eerie.

With its gloomy atmosphere and aesthetics, goth is one of the most iconic music genres and scenes. But why do we call it 'goth'? We've asked Emma McEvoy, Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Westminster and expert in all things Gothic, to tell us about how the word travelled through time.

For the Romans, the Goths were some of the many 'barbarian' peoples outside their empire, on the eastern side. In 410AD the Visigoths (or Western Goths) sackedcloseSackAn attack on a place which causes a great amount of damage and destruction. The city of Rome - a crucial moment in history. By 476AD, the Roman empire's western part had fallen, destroyed by the Goths along with the Huns, the Vandals and other peoples. For many, the word Goth was synonymous with destruction, as the term 'vandal' still is today.

A different meaning

The word Gothic came back with a different meaning in the Renaissance. It was used to describe medieval culture, particularly art and architecture. People in the Middle Ages had not called their own culture Gothic - the term was applied retrospectively as an insult. In the 1530s, Italian architect and historian Giorgio Vasari was the first to use the word to describe medieval art, as a synonym for 'barbaric'.

When the fashion for building in a neoclassical style gripped Britain in the later 17th and 18th Centuries, medieval architecture was thought by many to be tasteless - lacking in elegance and proportion. It was labelled Gothic because it was considered the opposite of classical architecture.

However, words and fashions change. As the 18th Century wore on, more people became interested in medieval architecture, and many started to experiment with Gothic design. The wealthy had mock-medieval buildings built for them, and some even constructed Gothic ruins (known as 'follies') in their gardens.

A reaction against convention

In the mid-18th Century, in literature as in architecture, there was a reaction against convention. Some writers wanted to write about ghosts and devils - and that's how the first Gothic novel came about.

Horace Walpole published The Castle of Otranto on Christmas Eve 1764. It was so out-of-step with contemporary literary taste that, in the first edition, he pretended it was a translation from a medieval manuscript. By the second edition, he admitted that he'd written it himself. He called it a "Gothic Story" because it contained the kind of plot associated with medieval romances, and because it was set in the Middle Ages.

Generational divide

In the 1790s, stories about persecuted maidens running through ruins, away from dastardly villains, were read avidly. Gothic dramas were rapturously received in theatres. By this point, Gothic literature didn't have to be set in the Middle Ages or even in the past.

These stories were meant to be enjoyably scary, and tended to have a generational divide. Villains were powerful members of the older generation, members of an oppressive Establishment, while the heroes and heroines were young people trying to escape from the grim legacy of the past. Curses and historic injustices were important plot drivers, and ruins, castles and abbeys were favourite settings. Heroes and heroines spent a long time imprisoned or having to navigate their way through underground passages. A popular subsection of such literature was vampire fiction, which started to flourish after the publication of John William Polidori's short story The Vampyre in 1819.

When cinema was invented, some of the first films had similar themes. The figure of the vampire was popular from the beginning.

A new sound

Fast-forward to the late 1970s and the rise of a new music style with a dark mood, deep bass lines and melancholic melodies. The word gothic began to be used to describe the sound of British bands like Siouxsie and the Banshees and Joy Division.

In 1979 another British band, Bauhaus, released Bela Lugosi's Dead, which is often cited as one of the first examples of goth music. The song title refers to the Hungarian actor who played Count Dracula in the 1931 Hollywood film. It's a song full of eerie noises, and it sounds as if it could have been recorded in a Gothic castle.

Goth music gave rise to a subculture: goth. The traditional goth image includes black or purple clothes, tons of black eyeliner and dark make-up. Some goths dress in lavish faux-Victorian clothes recalling characters from Gothic film and literature. The English seaside town of Whitby has become a popular goth destination, thanks to Bram Stoker's description of Whitby Abbey in Dracula.

'Goth' and 'Gothic' have had many different meanings. It is strange to think that a word referring to an ancient population became a way to describe a new and exciting style of literature, film and, eventually, music.

This article was published in May 2022

Spine-chillers And Suspense: A Timeline Of Gothic Fiction

Gothic novels have been scaring us for 250 years.

The mid-18th Century - an era of dark, satanic mills at home and nightmarish social upheaval abroad - saw public taste shift from traditional tales of romance and adventure to an appetite for terror.

It is a wide-ranging genre which includes Frankenstein, Dracula and Wuthering Heights. The success of recent novels such as Twilight continue its popularity. This timeline spotlights key moments in the evolution of spine-tingling Gothic stories.

This article is intended as a teacher-mediated learning resource. Please note that, as the title suggest, it explores gothic themes and classic works of fiction. Teacher review is recommended prior to use in class.

1764

English aristocrat Horace Walpole combines the supernatural and horrific to create the first Gothic novel.

Purporting to be translated from an earlier manuscript, The Castle of Otranto introduces what have become classic Gothic devices, such as a foreign location, a dark and ominous castle and a naïve young woman fleeing from an evil, lustful man. In a direct imitation of Shakespearean tragedy, Walpole introduces comedy to relieve the novel's most melodramatic moments.

Defining the Gothic novel. Clip from Gothic Ghost Novels: The Story of the Ghost Story.

1794

Ann Radcliffe helps to define what makes a Gothic novel and enjoys massive commercial success.

In her best-known novel, The Mysteries of Udolpho, Radcliffe introduces 'the explained supernatural', a technique by which terrifying, apparently supernatural incidents have a logical explanation. Over the course of her previous novels, Radcliffe developed the formula of 'the female Gothic', first introduced in The Recess by Sophia Lee. The formula is perfected in Udolpho, and has since become a Gothic norm.

Illustration from The Mysteries of Udolpho, Ann Radcliffe's Gothic romance. 1796

Matthew Lewis scandalises the literary world.

Lewis's novel about the misdeeds of a spoiled priest features an incredibly gory finale. It was one of the characters censoring the Bible, however, which most upset its contemporaries – as well as the fact that its teenage author was an MP. The novel, which has been retrospectively classed as 'Male Gothic', features the genre's typical themes of a lone male, exiled and an outsider.

The Monk provoked outrage, but met with great success. 1816

On the shores of Lake Geneva, Lord Byron challenges his friends to write a ghost story.

Among them is John Polidori. He writes The Vampyre, the first vampire story to be written in English. The novel introduces the Byronic hero to Gothic. He is the attractive, dangerous outsider, whose struggles with melancholy will feature in numerous classics of the genre. On publication The Vampyre is incorrectly attributed to Byron instead of Polidori, to the annoyance of both writers, but the novel is a success and sparks a craze for similar vampire tales.

Vlila Diodati, on the shores of Lake Geneva, where Lord Byron's ghost story challenge took place. 1816

Lord Byron's competition produces another Gothic classic: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus.

Shelley's story features many Gothic spine-tingling elements, including the macabre horror of raising the dead. However, the novel in which a creature created from disparate body parts is brought to life is often considered to be the first in the science fiction genre. Many believe it to be a warning about the dangers of contemporary science.

The creation of Mary Shelley's monster. Clip from Frankenstein: Birth of a Monster.

1818

Jane Austen parodies the genre.

While not the first satire of Gothic to be published – The New Monk (1798) and The Heroine (1813) were among a number preceding it – Northanger Abbey is perhaps the most memorable of the genre. The novel, whose lead character is a young girl obsessed by Gothic stories, contains direct references to The Mysteries of Udolpho and The Monk.

Jane Austen satirises Gothic in Northanger Abbey. 1840

Edgar Allan Poe's collection of short stories is published.

While the tales feature many traditionally frightening Gothic themes, Poe's characters also suffer psychological terror - "terror of the soul". The collection includes Poe's famous story 'The Fall of the House of Usher', which charts the descent of Roderick Usher into madness through fear. Other stories in the collection feature a collection of madmen and unreliable narrators.

Writer Denise Mina on why Poe was a literary pioneer. Clip from: Edgar Allan Poe: Love, Death and Women.

1847

Emily Bronte transports Gothic to the wild and dangerous Yorkshire moors.

The classic romantic novel has become synonymous with the idea of the Female Gothic: where women are trapped in a domestic space and dominated by men. In addition it includes many other Gothic traits: stories told within stories, the supernatural, the tyrannical 'villain', and Wuthering Heights itself, the imposing building in which much of the story is set. In the character of Heathcliff, Bronte creates the ultimate Byronic hero.

Emily Bronte published the novel under the male pseudonym of Ellis Bell. 1871

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's story establishes the formula for the female vampire.

Le Fanu's tale of the mysterious Carmilla owes a debt to Samuel Coleridge's unfinished poem Christabel, but becomes influential in its own right, second only to Dracula in terms of popular vampire characters. Le Fanu draws on emerging ideas about female sexuality to depict a vampire whose lesbian inclinations are surprisingly explicit by Victorian standards. Carmilla becomes the model for female vampires in film, with variations of the character appearing in Hammer horrors, among others.

Illustration by DH Friston accompanying the original publication of Carmilla. 1886

Robert Louis Stevenson explores the nature of good and evil.

A literary success in the Victorian era, the tale has lived on and (like Frankenstein and Dracula) its characters have transcended the original text to become a modern myth. The novel is also the fullest articulation of the important Gothic theme of the double: the contrast between good and evil in people or places. Stevenson anticipates the ideas of Sigmund Freud, whose first psychoanalytic studies were to be published just five years later.

1897

Bram Stoker's iconic vampire is introduced.

While Richard Marsh's horror novel The Beetle was the bigger seller in 1897, it is Stoker's story that has captured and engaged the public's imagination. The tale of the Transylvanian count transferred well to screen, helping to cement the myth of Dracula and, in turn, dominating our idea of how male vampires look and behave.

How Dracula preyed on Victorian fears. Clip from Why They Bite.

1946

Mervyn Peake publishes Titus Groan, later followed by Gormenghast and Titus Alone.

Peake's epic trilogy for adults introduces the castle-kingdom of Gormenghast, an exaggerated, baroque, stylised world that merges Gothic and fantasy literature inspiring future generations of children's writers.

The tale of Titus Groan marked the opening stage of the Gormenghast trilogy. 1975

Stephen King creates the Gothic horror blockbuster.

King's vampire story 'Salem's Lot is a critical and popular success. The author is lauded for breathing new life into the traditional vampire story by incorporating modern fears and realistic settings. Two years later his supernatural horror The Shining is published. A film adaptation of the story becomes a classic Hollywood horror.

Stephen King reinvigorated the vampire tale with 'Salem's Lot. 1976

Anne Rice establishes the idea of the 'sympathetic vampire'.

Rice's vampire couple, introspective, guilt-ridden narrator Louis and charismatic, amoral anti-hero Lestat are far removed from the traditional idea of the vampire. This paves the way for the brooding romantic vampire found in modern popular culture, such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, True Blood and Stephanie Meyer's Twilight novels. These achieve great popular success, reigniting interest in vampire tales and introducing Gothic to a new audience.

Author Anne Rice speaking at Chicago Comic Con in 2012. 1977

Angela Carter rewrites fairy tales from a feminist perspective.

Carter's collection of short stories is perhaps the most famous example of feminist Gothic. Her retelling of traditional children's stories exposes some of the major Gothic themes, including incest, violence and the objectification of women.

Angela Carter's collection of stories defines contemporary Gothic in the UK. 2000

Mark Z Danielewski's cult 700-page novel redefines Gothic for the twenty-first century.

The novel brings many traditional elements of Gothic together, while turning the process of reading itself into a labyrinth with convoluted footnotes, different typefaces, elaborate arrangements of text on the page, and passages in code, mirror writing, musical notation and Braille.

House of Leaves is a complex and experimental text.

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