The Gothic Contagion from Popular Literature to Transmedial Memes

Abstract

The article examines the development of the Gothic mode across the centuries in terms of transmedial contagion. In particular, the analysis focuses on the survival of specific Gothic tropes and figures in the nineteenth-century street literature phenomenon of penny-blood. This lowbrow literary form will be considered in its inherent dynamics of adaptation and appropriation to highlight its role in transforming some of the most iconic characters into vehicles of cultural transmission: memes that have come to redefine the viewer’s relationship to Victorian literature and culture.