Horace Walpole (1781) - The Mysterious Mother
Gothic (post 1750s): dark, spooky, big architecture, Romantic era and romance genre -- it's gendered and related to eroticism; supernatural stagecraft
the Gothic is tied to sensory experiences and pleasure: imagining sensory experience son stage through spectacle
Countess of Narbonne (widow) has exiled her son (Edmund) and he is back home to reclaim his land. Adaliza is an "orphan" (except not).
What is the "pleasure" of The Mysterious mother?
Countess (in disguise) has sex with Edmund.
Catholicism and Horror are braided together
the pleasure of train wreck (
"striking incidents" and consistency in time, place, and character
Act 1: (setting up the Gothic space) --
"The Scene Lies at the Castle of Narbonne;
"antique towers" ; "vacant courts" "awful silence"
the crisis of futurity and reproduction (no heirs to Narbonne)
the Countess crossing the stage with a crucifix: mixes religious and spooky imagery and shapes the Gothic space;
Act 2:
dramatic irony: Edmund didn't grieve properly so his mom got mad?
the problem is that "natural" feelings and sentiments aren't working
making spooky children spooky; parallels and foils the Countess' mourning weeds
THINK OF THE INNOCENT CHILDREN!
The inappropriate temporality of grief and shame
Adeliza and Countess is maybe erotic???
what do we do with the excess? Is it Camp?
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Gothic becomes a queer inverse of hetero-erotic sentiment and conjugal intimacy