Introduction to the Gothic
The Gothic period is known to be between 1764 - 1820 however nowadays the Gothic features have been challenged features include:
Abbeys (Monastries)
Absent mothers Ancestral curses Archaisms (Archaic language) Blood Castles Catholics Concealment (secrets and mystery) Chests Corruption Counts/Lords Crypts (stone basements where the dead are kept) Death Documents Doppelganger Dreams Dungeons Embedded narratives Escape European settings (Transylvania) Forests |
Flickering
candles Hyperbolic language Housekeepers Ghosts Imprisonment Incest Insanity Isolation Justice Labryinth Masks and helmets Mirrors Monks/ religious figures Monsters Moonlight Mountains Multiple narrative voices Mutilations Maidens Men Oppression Orphans Persecution corrupter. |
Poisoning
Portraits Religion Revenge Secrets Secret panels Sensational shocking events Sex Silence Storms Threats Trespass Underground passages Vampires Villains Violation Violence Wild remote places Wills Women - Vulnerable and alone. Young, curious and independent. |
Important Themes And Motifs:
- Horror can be defined as fear as a result of an actual experience
- Terror can be defined as fear as a result of an uncertain or obscure source. It is the perceived threat preying on the imagination. Not based on concrete experience or evidence.
- The Sublime - The feeling of being overwhelmed. Something that cannot be expressed. The sublime relies on obscurity as we are unable to fully comprehend the experience leading to the feeling of awe.
- The Uncanny - Strange, eerie or mysterious. Out of the ordinary but also slightly familiar, producing a peculiar unsettling experience.
- Taboos - Cultural moral or religious restricts. They are usually challenged.
- The supernatural - What is above nature and cannot be explained
- Oppositions - Two opposing concepts are shown to collapse and blur so as to show that they are not as different as we believe.
- Otherness - Something that is different from ourselves and so perceived as a threat. Sometimes this is because despite being different we can recognise ourselves in it.
- Obscurity - Key element to the sublime. Includes physical and mental obscurity- darkness, fogginess, confusion and things not seen or understood clearly.
- The Reverent - Term used to describe the past. Something of the past coming back to haunt you or seeking retribution. Return of repressed elements of the past.
- The Doppelganger - A double, mirror image or alter ego. Usually reveals the negative or repressed elements of the individual.
- The Liminal - Living on edge. The experience of being on a boundary, marginal. Neither one thing nor another. The state of uncertainty and refusing categorization.
- Abhuman - Something that is human but in the process of becoming monstrous, for example vampires or werewolves.
The Mysteries of Udolpho Research
- The novel was written in 1794 by Ann Radcliffe who was very successful at the time due to the popularity of her romance and Gothic fiction novels.
- Whilst Radcliffe was very successful, her work was also frowned upon as Gothic fiction was not intellectual and therefore looked down upon by society. Many people considered the novel to be something that women would read and thought it to be a waste of time (also for the fact that is is written in 4 volumes).
- The story is set in 1584 and entails the story of Emily St. Aubert, a young inquisitive French lady who is orphaned by the death of her father. Emily goes to live with her Aunt but her Aunt's pernicious husband Montoni.
Extract
Emily gazed with melancholy awe upon the castle, which she understood to be Montoni's; for, though it was now lighted up by the setting sun, the Gothic
greatness of its features, and its mouldering walls of dark grey stone, rendered it a gloomy and sublime object. As she gazed, the light died away on its walls, leaving a melancholy purple tint, which spread deeper and deeper, as the thin vapour crept up the mountain, while the battlements above were still tipped with splendor. From those too, the rays soon faded, and the whole edifice was invested with the solemn duskiness of evening. Silent, lonely and sublime, it seemed to stand the sovereign of the scene, and to frown defiance on all who dared to invade its solitary reign. As the twilight deepened, its features became more awful in obscurity, and Emily continued to gaze, till its clustering towers were alone seen, rising over the tops of the woods, beneath whose thick shade the carriages soon after began to ascend.
This extract contains many references to Gothic features as well as Gothic concepts. The Gothic features include the dark imagery of the gloomy vast castle. The extract is set at twilight with strong imagery of the moonlight falling on certain objects and so there is Gothic connotations of darkness and a link to the idea of obscurity. The castle itself is situated so it is 'solitary' and so is isolated from the rest of the world. The concept of the sublime is evident in the extract as the vastness and the largeness of the castle is awe. The thick shade implies the idea of concealment through the setting creating a sense of mystery.
- Romanticism Research
|
The Romance of the Forest (1791)
She stepped forward, and having unclosed it, proceeded with faltering steps along a suite of apartments resembling the first in style and condition, and terminating in one exactly like that where her dream had represented the dying person; the remembrance struck so forcibly upon her imagination that she was in danger of fainting; and looking round the room, almost expected to see the phantom of her dream. Unable to quit the place, she sat down on some old lumber to recover herself, while her spirits were nearly overcome by a superstitious dread, such as she had never felt before. She wondered to what part of the abbey these chambers belonged, and that they had so long escaped detection. The casements were all too high to afford any information from without. When she was sufficiently composed to consider the direction of the rooms, and the situation of the abbey, there appeared not a doubt that they formed an interior part of the original building.
As these reflections passed over her mind, a sudden gleam of moonlight fell upon some object without the casement. Being now sufficiently composed to wish to pursue the inquiry, and believing this object might afford her some means of learning the situation of these rooms, she combated her remaining terrors, and, in order to distinguish it more clearly, removed the light to an outer chamber; but before she could return, a heavy cloud was driven over the face of the moon, and all without was perfectly dark: she stood for some moments waiting a returning gleam, but the obscurity continued. As she went softly back for the light, her foot stumbled over something on the floor, and while she stooped to examine it, the moon again shone, so that she could distinguish, through the casement, the eastern towers of the abbey. This discovery confirmed her former conjectures concerning the interior situation of these apartments. The obscurity of the place prevented her discovering what it was that had impeded her steps, but having brought the light forward, she perceived on the floor an old dagger: with a trembling hand she took it up, and upon a closer view perceived that it was spotted and stained with rust.
Ann Radcliffe The Romance of the Forest 1791.
As these reflections passed over her mind, a sudden gleam of moonlight fell upon some object without the casement. Being now sufficiently composed to wish to pursue the inquiry, and believing this object might afford her some means of learning the situation of these rooms, she combated her remaining terrors, and, in order to distinguish it more clearly, removed the light to an outer chamber; but before she could return, a heavy cloud was driven over the face of the moon, and all without was perfectly dark: she stood for some moments waiting a returning gleam, but the obscurity continued. As she went softly back for the light, her foot stumbled over something on the floor, and while she stooped to examine it, the moon again shone, so that she could distinguish, through the casement, the eastern towers of the abbey. This discovery confirmed her former conjectures concerning the interior situation of these apartments. The obscurity of the place prevented her discovering what it was that had impeded her steps, but having brought the light forward, she perceived on the floor an old dagger: with a trembling hand she took it up, and upon a closer view perceived that it was spotted and stained with rust.
Ann Radcliffe The Romance of the Forest 1791.
The Gothic Herione
When discussing the Gothic heroine, it is important not only to define who she is, but also how she differs from other literary heroines of her time. There are two ways in which the Gothic heroine is set apart from her peers, and only one of these is within her control. Almost inevitably, the Gothic heroine is intended to be the best at everything she does; she is sometimes so seemingly perfect as to appear self-parodying. The standards of what this perfection entails have changed over the years as societal expectations of women fluctuate; a modern Gothic heroine is valued more for her strength and outspokenness, while an earlier heroine might be prized for her purity and silence. Regardless, however, she is often more intelligent, more beautiful, more accomplished, and more resilient than any other woman--and in the earlier novels - more chaste. These are the characteristics within the control of the young woman. There are, however, outside factors surrounding the behavior of the Gothic heroine. By the very nature of the genre, these women are faced with huge obstacles—These obstacles are nearly always overcome with grace and ingenuity.
The Art of Gothic: Britain's Midnight Hour- Liberty Diversity Depravity
- Gothic is Sinister, supernatural and filled with Horror it is also a Medieval style of building, dedicated to the glory of god.
- They used the term Gothic as an insult to describe anything that did not come from the civilised world of Ancient Greece and Rome. They dismissed centuries of Art - described Gothic as primitive and worthless.
- The Italian renaissance described Gothic as barbaric, wild and gloomy.
- The middle ages produced some of the greatest cathedrals and churches - Visions of heaven and warnings of hell. Protestant reformation swept away the medieval world for nearly 3 centuries the language and art of Gothic was rejected due to catholic superstitions until the Georgians fell back in love with Gothic.
- Gothic allowed British to whisper desires and darkest fears. It could be seen as a form of clocked mystery (Sex).
- Horace Walpole ‘Castle of Otranto’, published 1764 it was the first Gothic novel - launched Gothic fans. He published it by 'William Marshall' as such fiction meant shame.
- Walpole built Strawberry Hill in the outskirts of London, out of the centre of things - symbolised an Englishmen’s right to be unusual
- Strawberry hill is unconventional - an English nobleman living in a house that evoked the Catholic Church - everyone knew the English aristocracy built houses in classical ancient Greek and Roman style, and Walpole's was outside with nature.
- Powerful men built country Estates like Stowe House (Lord Cobham) - very opposite of Gothic - expressed pride and moral values - showed that these men were the power of ancient Greece and Rome.
- However crumbling remains of ruined Abbeys and Monasteries were examples of the banished past
- Folly’s designed - Ivory clan ruin was made to look ruin - designed to proclaim aristocratic power. Ruins are linked to nature (and Gothic), because ruins were overgrown and were overtaken by nature.
- Picturesque was a new way of seeing landscape – introduced feelings of awe and dread
- The 'Sublime' was coined by Edmund Burke, who said it meant something that "excites sensations of terror, the most powerful of our emotions".
- Artists painted the sublime landscape with a scene because as an audience, we were protected. Frissons of fear without the risk. (James Ward, Phillip de Loutherbourg and Turner
- Shakespeare plays were full of the supernatural and strange. He was irregular - broke all of rules and so inspired the 18th C. melancholics.
- Thomas Parnell (1721) wrote poems inspired by Shakespeare like 'A Night Piece on Death', which was a moral message about the inevitability of death.
- French revolution - Terror - Political terror - History itself was Gothic. Revolution in France meant new industries, darkness, new sciences (Frankenstein)
- Ann Radcliffe was the bestselling Gothic author in the time. Jane Austen Gothic parody 'Northanger Abbey' was to show how real life was challenging enough and that there was no need for Gothic terrors.
- Gothic became a way of looking at the subconscious mind. Gothic was mutating became a movement in art, literature and language.
The term “Gothic” might originally have been an insult by the Italian Renaissance artists they described anything that did not come from the civilized world of ancient Greece and Rome it meant barbaric wild and gloomy with one word they dismissed centuries of medieval art and architecture as primitive and worthless. But it took English Georgian aristocrats to reclaim it, creating new forms of literature and painting, and “a new taste for terror and weirdness”. From The Castle of Otranto to The Monk (a grisly tale of religious depravity) via paintings of nightmares and fake medieval follies, Graham-Dixon is positively gleeful as he describes the works that shocked the people. Andrew Graham-Dixon takes us on interesting view through the origins of the Gothic movement in Britain during the eighteenth century. We are introduced to several figures both familiar and unfamiliar - Ann Radcliffe, Thomas Chatterton, and Jane Austen - who all offered different takes on the power of Gothic to excite readers' imaginations. Gothic implies the sinter the supernatural and horror, a medieval style of building, sacred architecture dedicated to the glory of god. The 'Sublime' was coined by Edmund Burke, who said it meant something that "excites sensations of terror, the most powerful of our emotions". The sublime can be used to describe a matter of things, ranging from landscape, power, awareness of vastness, infinity, difficulty, magnificence, emotion (terror) and more. It is said that the sublime is best enjoyed at a distance. The Gothic explores such darkness beyond human knowledge that it’s sense of mystery and idea of having unknown boundaries, makes it obscure as it creates a sense of awe.