Complete Gothic document- May 2023
Genre History
The Gothic is a malleable genre, based primarily on the aim of transgressing societal normative values. Given that this
is an extremely vague concept, it is obvious that the Gothic takes many forms within media and has evolved over time
according to intersectional conditions.
This is how to style the Gothic comparative:
- ‘cyclical’ genre that ‘emerges in times of cultural stress’ (Hurley)
- Andrew Green- the Gothic forces us ‘to challenge and to question’
- Terror and horror elicit a mix of fear and fascination in the reader, hence the transgression of contemporary
social norms appears intriguing
- Wisker ‘disturbs complacent assumptions’
- Poor imitation of the Romantics- R Hume , Gothic being an ‘unvaryingly poor imitation and subcategory of
the Romantics
- ‘ fragmentary, inconsistent, jagged’ – Punter
- The Sadeian Woman – ‘colludes and connives in her own capture’
- In his diabolic solitude,” she writes, only the possibility of love could awake the libertine to perfect,
immaculate terror. It is this holy terror of love that we find, in both men and women themselves, the source of
all opposition to the emancipation of women.”
- Marquis de Sade – ‘sexuality is power’ , French aristocratic libertine
- Punter- ‘ The Gothic is a distorting lens, a magnifying lens’
- ‘Carter ironically suggests that the Gothic vision is in fact an accurate account of life, of the ways we project
our fantasies onto the world and then stand back in horror when we see the come to life’ – David Punter
- Punter- Gothic a genre which is interdependent on other genres and texts
Throughout the hybrid genre an its progression one might see a growing focus on social commentary and
contemporary values, e.g. activism becomes a more central idea within later Gothic works, alongside Victorian
intrigue into spiritualism and the séance
Early Gothic
1764 1788, finishes just before the French Revolution. Pre-Gothic ideas are fixated upon Medievalist influences.
1764- the Castle of Otranto, title Gothic used as a farce, ‘Gothic’- deriving from the middle ages, barbaric
establishes Gothic tropes- the supernatural/promise of the supernatural
- Using standard properties of the Gothic ,medieval settings, castles and ancient houses, aristocratic corruption
- Gothic meaning ‘barbarous’ or ‘deriving from the middle ages’ , elements of antiquity and (the promise of) the
supernatural—Horace Walpole
- Craze is not immediate, but this Gothic era forms the basis for later developments, primarily drawing
unsettling intrigue for the uncanny (Freud’s ‘unheimlich’ thesis, the return of the repressed)
- Sinister aristocrat, dilapidated buildings and the Ingenue archetype.
- Begins with Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1764) princess Isabella- humble piety and beauty
- Use of ghosts and familial legacy, intrigue surrounding the aristocracy
Medievalism, Uncanny (unheimlich), aristocratic fascinations, brooding aristocratic villain and the uncanny
High Gothic (1789-1813)
The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) – brooding aristocratic villain (Montoni) , and threatened he resourceful virgin
heroine with an unspeakable fate- wolf/sheep dynamic, powerful/passive
- High Gothic and Late Gothic works adopt Dark Romanticism, sensationalist ideas of the sublime but
- Ann Radcliffe- ‘expand(s) the soul’ (terror) while horror ‘annihilates the senses’
- See also the Satanic horror that exists in Matthew Lewis’ The Monk (1796) ‘soul and body to the devil’
- Ann Radcliffe, more rational horror and feminine Emily St Aubert, experiences physical and psychological
isolation after being entrapped in the Castle of Udolpho by Signor Montoni- appears prominently in
, Northanger Abbey (1817)- Jane Austen, Northanger Horrid Novels, suggestion of scary ideas, not outright
exposition- contrasts Matthew Lewis’ The Monk
- Gothic craze of 1790s
Strong Romantic elements, proliferation of terror and horror as constituent tropes frequently harnessed by the Gothic,
1789 Storming of the Bastille- political activism and revolutionary ideas spread throughout Europe
Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Late Gothic (1813-1838)- Penny Dreadfuls produced during the 19th century, Sweeney Todd and Varney the Vampire-
sensationalist, Edgar Allan Poe , extreme psychological states- true horror
Gaskell- The Old Nurse’s Story
-addition of the supernatural formula,- see ‘Origins of the Gothic’ by John Mullan, Byronic anti-hero seen in
Frankenstein (1818)
- idea of binary oppositions and doubles, which carries through to the Post-Gothic era, and distortion of the human
form
- Romantic ideas, e.g. STC’s Christabel – gloomy scenery, etc
- Freud’s uncanny applied to the human condition his examples from the Gothic tales of E.T.A Hoffmann used to
account for the special feeling of disquiet and uncanny that they aroused , both disturbing and fascinating
-end of this era going into the post-Gothic started to explore extreme emotional states and the nature of psychological
horror
- Polodori’s ‘The Vampyre’ (1819)- craze for vampire fiction- Byronic archetypes origin , Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’,
Austen’s ‘Northanger Abbey’, Clermont The Byronic Hero and Anti-Hero, Tragic ideas
- The Peterloo Massacre (1819), formation of the Metropolitan Police (1829),
Post-Gothic (1839—1897 and beyond) – VICTORIAN ERA BEGINS 1938, FOLLOWS THE ROMANTIC ERA
- Carmilla (1872)- Sheridan Le Fanu vampires, the monstrous feminine archetype
- Fear and uncertainty often enacted in epistolary novels and the formation of a plot through several narrative
viewpoints ( Dracula, 1897)
- Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte (1847) – sublime Yorkshire Moors, the sublime, gloomy and awe-inspiring
settings
- James’ ‘Turn of the Screw’, Stoker’s ‘Dracula’, Wilde’s ‘Picture of Dorian Gray’ , Jekyll and Hyde, etc
- Epistolary form, periphrasis
Wuthering Heights Emily Bronte, Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Gray, James’ Turn of the Screw, Poe Fall of the House of
Usher and Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque
Dickens’ David Copperfield (1849-50)
Postfeminist Gothic- The Bloody Chamber (1979)
Tropes
-Gothic revival architecture- terrifying period- harsh laws and superstitious rituals
Extreme emotions , medieval castles, entrapment, constraint, etc. mysterious and torturous practices
Appreciation of extreme emotions and the sublime, barbaric laws of the past, horror and apprehension, isolation and
dissociation from the world, stories shrouded in darkness and mystery
Transgression Literally meaning ‘go beyond’ into sin and condemnable actions, transgression is central to the
Gothic as it allows authors to explore what is socially unacceptable. Means to shock and draw
out deeper desires/ fantasies
- Fred Botting, The Gothic ‘reinforced the values and necessity of restoring or defining
limits’, e.g. ideas of The New Woman, Eliza Lynn Linton’Wild Women as Social
Insurgents’
, - Greg Buzwell Daughters of Decadence article, the Contagious Diseases Acts allows
for the forcible detainment of prostitutes in ‘Lock Hospitals’
- Transgression subverts contemporary standards and therefore varies according to the
social expectations of the time period
- Jude the Obscure , Thomas Hardy- Sue Bridehead’s aversion to marital duties,
subversion of the expectations of women
- ‘New Woman’ coined in the mid-to-late 19th century
- E.g. Galvanism
The Uncanny Freud’s thesis – unheimlich, return of that which is repressed, revelation of what is
private/concealed- e.g. human but not fully human, sense of displacement that is brought
through presence of remnants of familiarity juxtaposed by new ideas – elicits and eerie feeling
that something is subtly wrong ghosts, moving tapestries/paintings, technology in contrast
to the ‘Old’ ways, medieval buildings, old aristocracy, etc.
‘Almost-human’ ‘Nearly Ordinary’, subtle distortion of images that retain a large sense of
normality, but still carry an off-putting appearance
The Abject ‘disturbs identity, system, order’- Julia Kristeva – does not respect borders, positions, rules
- Disturbing to the point of guttural aversion, often triggers bodily reactions like
vomiting and fainting
- Abjection literally meaning cut off/cast away- so far from normality that it disturbs to
the point of being unbearable to observe
- Awful to a maximum, unavoidable degree
The Grotesque - Monstrous, malformed, elicits disgust and horror- unnatural, Danny Boyle’s version of
‘Frankenstein’ theatrical- starring Benedict Cumberbatch
The Obscure - Lack of clarity, binary oppositions of light-dark, could manifest literally through
setting or figuratively. Darkness, lack of clarity
Doppelganger Parallel juxtapositions, e.g. The Picture of Dorian Gray and Frankenstein, utilises binary
oppositions to demonstrate a terrifying duality – moral chiaroscuro ‘light vs dark’
Twins, exposition of a fatal flaw/ corruption
Archetypes Tragic and Byronic archetypes, The Other, satanic villains, brooding/sinister aristocrat,
monstrous feminine, the ingenue
Ellen Moers, ‘quintessentially defenceless victim’
Terror - Anxious anticipation, but not direct exposure to, danger which ‘expands the soul’
according to Ann Radcliffe, see The Mysteries of Udolpho – anticipation of danger
Horror - Blood, gore, and outright display of the awful – potent and grotesque displays e.g.
Matthew Lewis’ ‘The Monk’ ‘annihilates the senses’ (Ann Radcliffe)
Isolation - Complete alienation and loneliness, sense of being maddeningly cut off/ cast away
which produces a terrifyingly vulnerable condition
- E.g. Jane Eyre, hysteric wife of Mr Rochester being locked in an attic, Victor heavily
studying at Ingolstadt, and the paranoid reclusive nature of the homodiegetic narrator
in Poe’s ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’
The Other - Said’s modern commentary of the Other being a repressed victim of hegemony amidst
the ‘War on Terror’ during the early 21st century
- A being who is ostracised, often different in appearance and ‘othered’ by indication of
their physiognomy – Count Dracula, Heathcliff, Professor Pesca, Frankenstein’s
Creature
Decay and - Ancient ruins and old buildings, disarray in settings often links closely to the uncanny
Dilapidation and the obscure
Taboo - Shame and social aversion, subjects which are considered ‘taboo’ align closely with
other tropes which involve being socially ostracised.
- The ultimate taboo, Frankenstein- transgression of life and death
-
The Sublime - Particularly applicable to high/late Gothic observations of Dark Romanticism’ –
powerful natural settings that generate a sense of simultaneous awe and inferiority in
the reader- Wutherimg Heights, Northanger Abbey, Steep Cliff at Whitby
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Mont Blanc in Frankenstein
The Liminal - State of the ‘unreal’/ dream-like, suspended between two permanent states in an often
ambiguous way, which could be presented literally in setting ( travelling, causeways,
changing topography, bridges, tunnels, cloudy landscapes) or psychologically/
