My research is centred around Silent Era films adapted from nineteenth and early twentieth century Gothic literature with a special emphasis on the figure of the monster and its translation from literary to cinematic form. The corpus I have assembled for the purposes of this analysis comprises sixty-six films made in ten different countries between 1897 and 1929. Many of these films are considered lost and I have endeavored to reconstruct them as much as possible using materials located in film archives. The Introduction lays out the ground covered in the thesis and provides a working definition of ‘monstrosity’ in this context. The first chapter deals with the historical, economic, cultural, social and technological contexts of the films under discussion. The second chapter approaches the eight literary monster figures who form the core of this thesis through the lens of Adaptation Theory. The third chapter examines the elements of cinematic language that were particularly relevant to translating monster characters and Gothic literary narratives into silent film, placing this corpus into the context of silent film history and theory. The fourth chapter reviews a cross-section of intermedial systems of classification that have been applied to monster figures, and proposes a new system that would reflect the multifarious nature of the silent film Gothic literary monster. Chapters Five through Nine offer a theoretical framework for classifying the principal characteristics of the silent film Gothic monster by applying various philosophical and aesthetic concepts. The final chapter summarises the material presented in earlier chapters and offers relevant conclusions demonstrating how these films employ the unique characteristics, conventions, and limitations of the silent film medium in their representations of the Gothic literary monster.

Au début du vingtième siècle, un nouveau média à la mesure de l’Amérique voit le jour : le cinéma. Forme d’expression visuelle nouvelle, divertissement populaire égalitaire, véhicule privilégié du modèle américain dans le pays et à l’étranger, le cinéma s’affirme, dès ses premières années d’existence, comme un acteur majeur de l’américanisation du monde. Un de ses thèmes de prédilections est l’espace américain, et par extension ses paysages, qui ravit et fascine les spectateurs d’un bout à l’autre de la planète. Les mises en scène du territoire national et de sa géographie spécifique sont complexes car elles intègrent des éléments réalistes et une dimension imaginaire. Cette représentation polymorphe des États-Unis permet de promouvoir les valeurs américaines dans une société internationale moderne, transformée par l’essor de l’urbanisation et de l’industrialisation. L’Amérique filmique, élaborée par l’industrie cinématographique des premières décennies, offre des repères à un spectateur quelque peu perdu dans le nouvel ordre du monde se dessinant alors. / At the dawn of the twentieth century, a new media, in tune with American goals, was born: the motion pictures. It was a new kind of visual expression, an egalitarian form of popular entertainment and the best vehicle to convey the American way of life in the US and abroad. Therefore, cinema became, from its inception, a key participant in the Americanization of the world. One of its favorite topics was American space and its landscapes, which pleased and amazed movie-goers around the world. The way in which national territory and its specific geography were staged in films was complex because it intertwined realistic elements and a mythical dimension. That kaleidoscopic representation of the United States enabled the promotion of American values in a modern international society, transformed by the rise of urbanization and industrialization. Cinematic America, as it was created by the early motion pictures industry, offered landmarks to the spectator, somewhat lost in the emerging new world order.