ИСТИНА

This report explores the role of rhythm, punctuation, and prosodic patterning in the creation of fear and isolation in Gothic fiction, with a particular focus on the ghost stories of M. R. James and his twentieth- and twenty-first-century successors. Drawing on the methodological framework of Russian pragmaphonostylistics the study examines selected extracts from James’s "Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad" and "A Warning to the Curious", alongside works by R. H. Malden ("The Sundial"), Sheila Hodgson ("Come Follow!"), and the modern pastiche "He Who Brings Vengeance" in order to demonstrate in the clearest possible form the peculiarities of James's style of creating the atmosphere of fear and suspence. Through detailed analysis, the paper demonstrates that James’s peculiar stylistic signature arises not from descriptive excess but from rhythmic elongation, syntactic fracture, and focalisational instability, which force the reader’s breath and intonation into patterns of hesitation, panic, and dread. Comparisons with later imitators reveal both fidelity and deviation: Malden externalises terror through cyclical chase rhythm, Hodgson sharpens the psychological register through clipped syntax, while the modern pastiche smooths rhythm into stability, losing James’s uncanny breath. The report concludes that Gothic fear is not only thematic but prosodic, and that contrastive analysis with secondary texts (pastiches and stylisations) provides a precise vocabulary for articulating how language itself enacts the uncanny.