Characteristics of Gothic Literature

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Characteristics of Gothic Literature
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When did it become popular?

• Later 18th Century
• Started with a Gothic Revival -- mid-1700s
• Visible in gardens
• Seen in architecture (gargoyles) of the Middle
  Ages
• 1740s - Horace Walpole - Strawberry Hill estate
  near London
• Published The Castle of Otranto a Gothic Story -
  1764

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Application to literature

• Any kind of romantic, scary novel
• Came from Germany in the late 1700s - early
  1800s
• Popular among female writers
• Became best sellers!

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Famous Gothic Writers

• Ann Radcliffe - The Mysteries of Udolpho
• Jane Austen -- Northanger Abbey (parody of Gothic
  novels)
• Charlotte Bronte -- Jane Eyre
• Emily Bronte -- Wuthering Heights
• Shirley Jackson, Daphne du Maurier, Barbara
  Michaels, Anne Rice

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A classic

• Mary Shelleys Frankenstein (1818)
• Single most important product of this tradition
• Themes relate to science, poetry, psychology,
  alienation, politics, education, family
  relationships, etc.
• Tradition 8-foot tall monster made of separate
  body pieces

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Influence felt elsewhere

• Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Coleridge--
  skeleton ship and the crews reaction
• Christabel by Coleridge-- atmosphere, setting,
  and fragmentary plot of seduction and witchery
• Manfred by Byron -- initial scene
• The Even of St. Agnes by Keats -- setting

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Famous Gothic Writers - contd.

• Edgar Allen Poe
• Steven King

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Characteristics

• Set in Medieval times
• Dark, mysterious, evil tone
• Dark castles, palaces, chambers, haunted mansions
• Isolated setting
• All come together to emphasize the sense of evil

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More characteristics

• Presence of ghosts, spirits, vampires, and other
  supernatural entities
• Mysterious disappearances and reappearances
• Supernatural or paranormal occurrences

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Characteristics -- contd.

• Religion, usually Christianity or at least
  spirituality, is confronted.
• A gothic double is used in which a character
  who seems to be good is linked with another who
  is evil

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More characteristics

• Blood, pain, death
• Cruelty
• Eroticism
• Characters with aberrant psychological states
• Events are uncanny, macabre, or melodramatically
  violent bordering between reality and unreality

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Purpose

• To evoke terror versus horror in the reader
  because of situations bordering reality/unreality
• Often used to teach a message
• May lack a Medieval setting but will develop an
  atmosphere of gloom and terror

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Differentiating between the two

• Horror
• An awful apprehension
• Described distinctly
• Something grotesque
• So appalling, unrealistic
• Depends on physical characteristics

• Terror
• A sickening realization
• Suggestive of what will happen
• Depends on readers imagination
• Sense of uncertainty
• Creates an intangible atmosphere of spiritual
  psychic dread

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American Gothic

• Important from the mid-18th Century on
• Related to Romantic Period
• Criticizes national myth of new-world innocence
  by voicing the cultural contradictions that
  undermine the nations claim to purity and
  equality - Teresa A. Goddu
• Tells of historical horrors that make national
  identity

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Southern Gothic
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• Customary setting because its the source of
  values not necessarily welcome in the rest of the
  country
• Poe was the first Southern gothic writer
• Common themes race, alienation, sense of
  otherness

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Cyber gothic literature

• Situations seem unrealistic during this time
  period but possible in the future
• Dark setting
• Nothing natural all man-made
• Characters bodies are often altered, making them
  less human-like
• Based on knowledge and a technologically
  enhanced future

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