Gothic Phenomena and Weird Noumena: On Writing Dark Numinous Fiction

Abstract This article argues that the act of writing melts divisions between the subjective, phenomena-dictated experience of the ineffable (as in the Gothic) and the ineffability of the noumenal itself (as in the Weird). It begins by defining the Gothic and the Weird in relation to the writing act, identifying the Gothic tradition’s ongoing, markedly interior focus on writing (its phenomena-oriented focus), and conversely, the literary Weird’s preoccupation with the problem of “writing the unwritable,” or that which exceeds subjective apprehension (noumena and the numinous). It then defines Maurice Blanchot’s philosophy of writing and connects it to the respective subject-object positions of the Gothic and the Weird in the context of writing-about-writing. Finally, it applies Blanchot’s philosophy to works by three defining literary figures: the Gothic work of Edgar Allan Poe (“Ligeia” [1838]), the Weird writing of H. P. Lovecraft (“The Unnamable” [1925]), and the Gothic-Weird hybridizing of Stephen King (Lisey’s Story [2006]).