Dark Romantic: F. Scott Fitzgerald and the Specters of Gothic Modernism

While critics have historically maligned F. Scott Fitzgerald’s fantastical writings as side experiments in allegory and nonsense, this unusual set of fictions highlights a previously unrecognized “Gothic mode” that compels us to reinterpret much of his literary corpus. Tracing the archetypal figure of the ghost in “A Short Trip Home,” “The Ice Palace,” “One Trip Abroad,” “Thank You for the Light,” and This Side of Paradise reconfigures our understanding of the unusual presence of supernatural figures in his work, his relationship with Jazz Age social politics, and his engagement with Gothic literary history. Fitzgerald’s latent Gothicism not only throws new light on his forgotten short stories and most acclaimed novels but also positions him as a central figure in the emerging discourse of Gothic modernism.