The Gothic Tradition in Fiction by William Patrick Day
Published 1985 · 80,000 words · about 7 hours at an average pace · Essays & Criticism
How hard is The Gothic Tradition in Fiction to read?
The Gothic Tradition in Fiction scores 63 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it quite demanding. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 62 out of 100
- Psychoanalytic and literary critical vocabulary, accessible with context.
- Sentence structure: 58 out of 100
- Abstraction: 70 out of 100
- Theoretical framework drawn from psychoanalysis applied to specific texts.
- Information density: 70 out of 100
- Consistently argued with textual support throughout.
- Narrative indirection: 15 out of 100
- Direct argument about forms of indirection and displacement.
- Symbolic density: 20 out of 100
- The Gothic's symbolic machinery is the primary object of analysis.
- Ironic distance: 15 out of 100
- Measured scholarly distance from material that demands emotional engagement.
- Resolution withholding: 15 out of 100
- Psychoanalytic readings are productive rather than conclusive.
- Structural complexity: 38 out of 100
- Organized by thematic and generic concern rather than chronology.
How The Gothic Tradition in Fiction is regarded
The Gothic Tradition in Fiction holds a literary regard score of 58 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.