The Gothic Sublime: Rebellion, Revolution and Apocalypse of Self

How do we account for the pleasure derived from an object of Terror?

As Anna Leatitia Aikin asked in 1773. ‘Is it the pain of suspense (followed by survival), or the uneasy craving for an unsatisfied desire’ that tempts us into danger?

Is the Gothic genre a place of refuge? Is it a space to unflinchingly record our injustices and histories or can it act as a witness for anonymous victims?  How was the gothic imagination born and what of today’s online world and daily news can it communicate?  This workshop will use exercises to embed the Gothic Sublime’s subconscious and apocalyptic techniques in poetry practice to sublimate our own voices.  Looking at poems by Jo Shapcott, Mario Petrucci, Aoife Lyall, Ricky Laurentiis, J. Bailey Hutchinson and more.

Born from Edmund Burke’s ‘A Philosophical Enquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful’ 1757, and his ‘Theory of Terror’, the Sublime was an aesthetic experience designed to expand the soul and excite the imagination. Delivering profoundly emotional and spiritual shifts in readers without ever bringing them to actual harm.  However, the Gothic literature that followed is often linked to our darker, and more intense, grotesque revulsion of Horror and its annihilating psychological effects.  This workshop will look at how the Gothic Sublime emerged as a warning against the unfeeling ‘Age of Reason’, the failures of hereditary power, and what the French Revolution’s impact was on the explosion of gothic literature in the decades following, asking if the Gothic still has the power to question, challenge and overthrow authority in the present day?

Facilitator biography

Sara Jane Gray studied Sculpture at Guildhall University, exhibiting with The Collective, an anonymous art movement focused on plagiarism and originality, and as a solo artist creating a life-size, papier-mache ‘Unicorn’ for the baroque show House, Camberwell.  She worked as a ceramics/sculpture technician specialising in gothic/rococo design and as an Archivist for SE8 Gallery. Having suffered mental health difficulties she became reclusive only to be reborn after a late autism diagnosis.  She found poetry a sanctuary to explore the alienation of her condition and studied with Faber Academy, Poetry School, Mario Putrucci, Sarah Wardle, and others. She has been a guest poet at Yer Bard – Blue Shout Poetry Group, published with Fair Acre Press and The Alchemy Spoon and has taught her four part workshop ‘Defining the Sublime – Becoming Immortal to Climate Catastrophe’ at the London Library with The Versery.  She was longlisted in the National Poetry Competition 2025 and is attempting to write a gothic fantasy trilogy while working on her first poetry collection.