Gothic Literature

Subgenre of Romanticism
1800-1860
 When did it become popular?
• Later 18th Century
• Started with a “Gothic
Revival” -- mid-1700’s
• Visible in gardens
• Seen in architecture
(gargoyles) of the Middle
Ages
• 1740’s - Horace Walpole -
Strawberry Hill estate
near London
http://www.puzzlehistory.com/gothgrdn.jpg
• Published The Castle of
Otranto: a Gothic Story -
1764
The Beginnings…
✓ Gothic Literary tradition
came to be in part from
Gothic Literature the Gothic architecture of
the Middle Ages.
✓ Gothic cathedrals with
irregularly placed towers,
and high stained-glass
windows were intended
to inspire awe and fear in
religious worshipers.
•Gargoyles—carvings of small
deformed creatures squatting at
the corners and crevices of
Gothic cathedrals—were
supposed to ward off evil
spirits, but they often look more
like demonic spirits themselves.

•Think of the gargoyle as a

mascot of Gothic, and you
will get an idea of the kind of
imaginative distortion of
reality that Gothic
represents.
Gothic Literature
✓ It was an offshoot of Romantic Literature.
✓ Gothic Literature was the predecessor of modern
horror movies in both theme and style.
✓ Gothic Literature put a spin on the Romantic idea of
nature worship and nature imagery.
✓ Along with nature having the power of healing, Gothic
writers gave nature the power of destruction.
Frankenstein is full of the harsh reality of nature.
Many storms arise in the novel, including storms the
night the Creature comes to life.
✓ The most common feature of Gothic Literature is the
indication of mood through the weather.
Gothic vs. Romanticism
Romantic writers celebrated the
beauties of nature.
⦿ Romanticism developed as
a reaction against the
rationalism of the Age of
Reason.
● The romantics freed the
imagination from the hold of
reason, so they could follow
their imagination wherever it
might lead.
● For some Romantics, when
they looked at the individual,
they saw hope (think “A
Psalm of Life”).
Gothic writers were peering into
the darkness at the supernatural.
⦿For some Romantic writers,
the imagination led to the
threshold of the unknown—the
shadowy region where the
fantastic, the demonic and the
insane reside.
⦿ When the Gothic's saw the
individual, they saw the
potential of evil.
Gothic Movement in America

The Gothic Tradition was firmly established in Europe before

American writers had made names for themselves.

By the 19th century, Edgar Allan Poe, Nathanial Hawthorne, and to a

lesser extent Washington Irving and Herman Melville were using
the Gothic elements in their writing.

Edgar Allan Poe was the master of the Gothic form in the United
States.
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
http://www.encounterspri.com/Articles.htm
More characteristics
• Presence of ghosts,
spirits, vampires, and
other supernatural
entities
• Mysterious
disappearances and
reappearances
• Supernatural or
paranormal
occurrences
http://www.penelopesweb.com/gargoyles.html
Characteristics -- cont’d.
• A gothic “double” is
used in which a
character who seems
to be good is linked
with another who is
evil

www.pagedepot.com/.../ GOTHIC%20CHAPBOOKSX.HTM
More characteristics
• Blood, pain, death
• Cruelty
• Characters with
“aberrant psychological
states”
• Events are uncanny or
melodramatically violent
bordering between
reality and unreality
http://www.pantip.com/cafe/chalermthai/newmovie/
hauntedcastle/hc.html
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
Differentiating between the two
• Horror • Terror
•“An awful
apprehension”
•Described distinctly
•Something grotesque
•So appalling, unrealistic
•Depends on physical
characteristics
• “A sickening realization”
• Suggestive of what will
happen
• Depends on reader’s
imagination
• Sense of uncertainty
• Creates an “intangible
atmosphere of spiritual
psychic dread”
 Gothic Conventions

Murder Death Suicide Ghosts Demons

Gloomy Family Dungeons Curses Torture

settings secrets
Vampires Spirits Castles Tombs Terror
A few more gothic conventions

✓ Damsel in distress (frequently faints in horror)

✓ Secret corridors, passageways, or rooms
✓ Ancestral curses
✓ Ruined castles with graveyards nearby
✓ Priests and monks
✓ Sleep, dream, death-like states
 Metonymy of gloom and terror

✓ Metonymy is a subtype of metaphor, in which something

(like rain) is used to stand for something else (like sorrow).
✓ For example, the film industry likes to use metonymy as a
quick shorthand, so we often notice that it is raining in
funeral scenes.
 Note the following metonymies that suggest
mystery, danger, or the supernatural
wind, especially howling sighs, moans, howls, eerie sounds

rain, especially blowing clanking chains

doors grating on rusty hinges gusts of wind blowing out lights

footsteps approaching doors suddenly slamming shut

lights in abandoned rooms crazed laughter

characters trapped in a room baying of distant dogs (or wolves?)

ruins of buildings thunder and lightning

 Importance of Setting

✓ The setting is greatly influential in Gothic novels.

✓ It does not only evokes the atmosphere of
horror and dread, but also portrays the
deterioration of its world.
✓ The decaying, ruined scenery implies that at
one time there was a thriving world.
Basic Plot Structure for a Gothic Novel

✓ Action in the Gothic novel tends to take place at night, or at

least in a claustrophobic, sunless environment.
✓ Ascent (up a mountain high staircase);
✓ Descent (into a dungeon, cave, underground chambers or
labyrinth) or falling off a precipice; secret passage; hidden
doors;
✓ Physical decay, skulls, cemeteries, and other images of death;
ghosts; revenge; family curse; blood and gore; torture; the
Doppelganger (evil twin or double), etc.
 Gothic Writers

✓ Anne Rice
✓ Edgar Allan Poe
✓ Stephen King
✓ Stephenie Meyer