THE GOTHIC NOVEL

Second half of the 18th century

Interest in INDIVIDUAL CONSCIOUSNESS

marked by a taste for:

an impulse for freedom and escape from the ugly world

the fear of the triumph of evil and chaos over good and order

the strange and the mysterious

'GOTHIC' was an adjective first applied to architecture

It was used for the first time in a literary context by Horace Walpole - The Castle of Otranto - A Gothic Story (1764)

inspired by his miniature castle at Strawberry Hill

Features:

intended to arouse FEAR in the reader

reflecting the historical moment

disillusionment with Enlightenment rationality

bloody revolutions (America, France)

SETTING:

isolated castles, abbeys, convents with dungeons

night and darkness to create gloomy atmospheres

characters perceiving others as hostile

GOTHIC HERO:

voluntarily or involuntarily isolated

GOTHIC HEROINE:

afflicted with unreal terrors

persecuted by a villain (=evil)

an outcast in exile as divine punishment

PLOTS:

complicated, with supernatural beings and suspense

Novels:

The Castle of Otranto (1764) by Horace Walpole

The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) by Ann Radcliffe

The Monk (1796) by Matthew Gregory Lewis

Frankenstein (1818) by Mary Shelley

On the Supernatural in Poetry (1826) - Ann Radcliffe

Dracula (1897) by Bram Stoker

LATER:

Vlad the Impaler - 15th century in Moldavia

turned into a vampire named Dracula ('devil' in Wallachian) by the author

told through journals and fragments of letters

4 parts:

2nd. In England, Dracula seduces and destroys Lucy Westenra

3rd. Dr Van Helsing and others join to fight Dracula

1st. Jonathan Harker's trip to Count Dracula's castle and meeting with 3 female vampires

4th. Dracula is destroyed within his castle

The Woman in Black (1983) by Susan Hill

A ghost story about Arthur Kipps who attends the funeral of Mrs Alice Drablow and catches a glimpse of a young woman dressed in black.