The Gothic Genre
Why study the Gothic?
"As a literary form studies in universities, enamored of critics, when the contemporary Gothic combines the enlightenment of queer theory, and post-colonialism, with the multiple perspectives and angles of diversity of origin, sexuality and culture, this broad scope offers a disconcerting enrichment. Gothic is everywhere. through its relentless questioning it exposes dis-ease and discomfort, sometimes only to reinforce the complacencies it disrupts, but more thrillingly often leaving writers and readers less comfortable."
G Whisker, Contemporary Women's Gothic Fiction. (2016). [The only NSW library that seems to have this book is Uni of Western Sydney. Otherwise have a look at the limited bits on google books - it's $150+ so I don't want to buy it for the library unless I absolutely have to. Let me know if you think it's worth the price.]
G Whisker, Contemporary Women's Gothic Fiction. (2016). [The only NSW library that seems to have this book is Uni of Western Sydney. Otherwise have a look at the limited bits on google books - it's $150+ so I don't want to buy it for the library unless I absolutely have to. Let me know if you think it's worth the price.]
Defining the Gothic
The first use of the term "Gothic" is for architecture from the late medieval period. During the 12/13th century people discovered ways to build tall imposing structures (mostly churches, but also castles) which featured long pointed arches, tall towers and ornate decorations. You can read about Gothic architectural features at Exploring Castles [https://www.exploring-castles.com/castle_designs/characteristics_gothic_architecture/] or John Ruskin's (an influential English critic of the Romantic period), 1851 essay, The Nature of Gothic [http://homes.ieu.edu.tr/arch204/READINGS/02_RUSKIN.pdf].
During the late 18th century and throughout the 19th century, Romantic artists, writers and other creatives were worried about the rise of technology and fascinated with the ruins of old Gothic buildings. This gave rise to a new architectural style called Neo-Gothic or Gothic Revival. Architects weren't so much interested in getting back to medieval ideals as using some of the features of medieval architecture (arches, tracery, stained glass windows, tall thin columns, interesting roof-tops, gargoyles) to inspire their imaginations in new directions. The St Andrew's and St Mary's Cathedrals, and the Main Quad at the University of Sydney are great examples of this architecture which you can easily visit (Look out for the kangaroo gargoyle if you're at Sydney uni!). |
English novelist, Jeanette Winterson's The Gothic Nightmare casts the Gothic Sublime as the epitome of Romanticism's response against the scientific rationalism of the Enlightenment period. At the same time, there was a strong interest in non-Christian forms of spirituality (with lots of new religions beginning in Western countries) and proto-psychology, as well as a celebration of nature and the lives of 'simple peasants' (including their folklore - this is the era of Grimm and other collectors) as a refuge from the horrors of industrialisation (think dark towns filled with fog, coal-dust, criminals and sick poverty-stricken families) and the political instability and monstrous violence of the French Revolution. Gothic literature thus developed out of the Romantic era's fascination with desolate landscapes and ominous ruins where anything could happen, natural or supernatural, rational or supernatural. Unlike other genres, the Gothic Genre is defined through it's lavish settings and eerie atmosphere, rather than just through characters and action. Just being considered 'dark' is not enough to make a text Gothic; it needs to use the setting to reflect the psychological state of the (usually) lone protagonist, evoking suspense and dread.
Because the focus was not on instructive realism, like the bildungsromans of the Enlightenment period, Gothic novels were viewed as the lowest, most sensationalist form of literature (which may have had something to do with their popularity among young female readers!) - blasphemous and obscene novels that inflamed the imaginations and corrupted the morals of readers. Lewis' The Monk certainly fits these descriptions, but others (such as Radcliffe's novels) simply excel at being creepy. Have a read and see which critics you agree with.
Study Guides and Literary Criticism
Schmoop [https://www.shmoop.com/gothic-literature/] and study.com's introductions are simple starting points (ignore the advertising). The British Library [https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/themes/the-gothic] has excellent introductory analyses of important Gothic texts, outlining key features of the genre and including pictures of ephemera to recreate the context of each text. Some useful Youtube introductions include: Rachelle Chaykin, Mrs Gehres,
We have a couple of collections and study guides available in the library. These are classed as study guides and available only as OVERNIGHT LOANS. Please make sure they come back in the morning so that other students can access these texts.
contemporary study guides or lit crit:
Because the focus was not on instructive realism, like the bildungsromans of the Enlightenment period, Gothic novels were viewed as the lowest, most sensationalist form of literature (which may have had something to do with their popularity among young female readers!) - blasphemous and obscene novels that inflamed the imaginations and corrupted the morals of readers. Lewis' The Monk certainly fits these descriptions, but others (such as Radcliffe's novels) simply excel at being creepy. Have a read and see which critics you agree with.
Study Guides and Literary Criticism
Schmoop [https://www.shmoop.com/gothic-literature/] and study.com's introductions are simple starting points (ignore the advertising). The British Library [https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/themes/the-gothic] has excellent introductory analyses of important Gothic texts, outlining key features of the genre and including pictures of ephemera to recreate the context of each text. Some useful Youtube introductions include: Rachelle Chaykin, Mrs Gehres,
We have a couple of collections and study guides available in the library. These are classed as study guides and available only as OVERNIGHT LOANS. Please make sure they come back in the morning so that other students can access these texts.
contemporary study guides or lit crit:
- Gothic Readings wiki has some interesting reviews to sift though - Let me know if you want me to order one of these books.
- Gothic Literature - Sue Chaplin (2011) SG 820.9
- The Gothic Reader - Martin Myrone (ed.) (2006) SG 809.3 GOT [It's out of print but if you can find copies, it would be an awesome class text for extension]
- The Gothic Imagination - Stirling University - interdisciplinary blog and discussion site includes reviews, essays and interviews with authors
- More coming soon (likely to arrive in early april)....
- Studies in Gothic Fiction (online journal through Cardiff University Press)
- The Female Gothic: New directions [Also out of print and insanely expensive but very good. Tell me what you think]
- Women and the Gothic: Edinburgh Companion (2016) [hopefully on order]
- Post-millenial gothic: comedy, Romance and the Rise of Happy Gothic - Catherine Spooner (2017) On order.
- A New companion to the Gothic - David Punter (ed.) (2012)
- The Gothic Wanderer - blog about Gothic texts by an academic - often rambling and personal but worth exploring for unusual information or links between texts..
- "Individual and Social Psychologies of the Gothic" lists excerpts from The Monk, The Mysteries of Udolfo, Vathek and Frankenstein together with excepts from critical commentary of these texts.
- "Of the Country conversatioin a winter's Evening: their opinions of spirits and Apparitions" - non-fiction about folklore, 1725) Henry Bourne
- "Supernatural Horror in Literature" (critical essay, 1927) - H P Lovecraft
- "Nightmare touch" and "Gothic Horror" in Shadowings (1900)- Lafcardio Hearne
- Bram Stoker "The Censorship of Fiction" (essay, 1908)
- "The Terrorist system of Novel-writing" (1797)
- "On the supernatural in Poetry" Ann Radcliffe (posthumous publication 1826)
- The Tale of Terror (critical study of the history of gothic writing, 1921) [The review includes a link to the text itself.]
- Eino Railo The Haunted Castle: A Study of the Elements of English Romanticism (1927) [It's at the State Library. The link is to amazon's "look inside" listing - if you tell me it's very useful, I'll get a copy.]
Some of the elements that have come to be considered Gothic include:
Setting:
Setting:
- Windswept moors or eerie forests
- Ancient ruins or dungeons
- Dark, shadowy towers and mysterious monasteries
- Abandoned castles, manors or mansions
- Churches, graveyards, mental asylums and other liminal spaces (often as tomb or womb metaphors)
- Moonlight (or the lack of it), storms,
- Labyrinths, empty winding corridors, locked rooms,
- Exotic places far from civilisation (according to the racist viewpoint of the times!) - Eastern Europe, Middle East, the Orient.
- QUIZ to make you think about Gothic Settings (and suggest a related text for you to read) [https://bookriot.com/gothic-book-quiz/]
- Vulnerable heroines (usually naive virgins who venture outside the domestic sphere)
- Predatory women, femme fatales
- Dark brooding strangers (usually the heroes)
- Irredeemable villains (often evil, tyrannic relatives)
- Flamboyant, seductive villains (possibly positioned as antiheroes)
- Restless wanderers (may be supernatural characters like ghosts)
- Vampires, demons and other supernatural creatures
- Melodramatic twists
- Supernatural events, sometimes including prophecies
- Mysterious disappearances/appearances
- Transgression of social taboos (murder, rape, incest etc)
- Decline of civilisation/morality
- Threat of (modern) technology
- Imagination (from a psychological perspective); the gap between madness and creativity
- Madness, hysteria, paranoia or other forms of psychological ruin
- The exotic 'Other ' or macabre carnivalesque
- Battle between good and evil (or any other binary)
- Supernatural violence
- Death, decay - literal or metaphoric (often conflated with love/passion)
- Detailed description of settings and mental states - often conveyed through first person narrative voice/s
- Symbolism (veils, mirrors, shadows) and metonymy - may be layered and shifting in modern Gothic writing
- Duality, doubling and mirroring of characters, roles and events (in postmodern writing these doubles serve to collapse psychic identities)
- Juxtaposition of human/monster (later, asking the reader whether the monster has more humanity than the human)
- Frame narratives (stories within stories), multiple narrators (including unreliable narrators), conflicting narratives
- Intertextuality: literary, religious and philosophical references
Early Gothic Texts
- Helen Maria williams "The Bastille: A Vision", (poem from Julia, A Novel. 1790)
- Walpole - The Castle of Otranto (novel, 1753) the 'original' gothic text.
- William Beckford - History of the Caliph Vathek (1786)
- Ann Radcliffe - After Walpole, Radcliffe is the most influential English gothic write - You should definitely read at least one of her novels. Brisish Library has an overview of her works that makes a good starting point. The Mysteries of Udopho (1794) was a run-away best seller that made her as famous (and well paid) as J K Rowling! Schmoop has an overview that covers the main points ususally taught in schools. The Italian (1797) generally considered a protest about the shocking scenes of The Monk. The Castles of Athlyn and Daunbane (1789), A Sicilian Romance (1791), Gaston de Blondeville (posthumous, 1826).
- Matthew Lewis - The Monk (1796). Audio book available. (This was seen as blasphemous and borderline pornographic in it's day - it was to some extent intended as a satire of Walpole and Radcliffe's works.)
- Clara Reeve - The Old English Baron (1778)
- Sophia Lee The Recess (1783) Has 'postmodern'(!) pastiche structure and multiple perspectives.
- Matthew Lewis the Castle Spectre (play, 1797)
- Charlotte Dacre Zofloya or the Moor (novel, 1806), The Libertine (1807), Hours of Solitude I and Hours of Solitude II (poems, 1805 - not all are Gothic, but her lovers definitely fit the Gothic mould)
- Sarah Wilkinson The Count of Montabino (novel, 1810)
- Mary Robinson The Haunted Beach (poem, 1790s?) There's a useful intro in this blog.
- Joanna Baillie Plays of the Passions (plays, 1798), Orra (play, 1810), de Montford: A Tragedy (play, 1798), Fugitive voices (poems, 1840) Like Radcliffe, Baillie is one of the 'forgotten' female writers who influenced the 'great' men of the English literary canon - Sir Walter Scot went so far as to call her a “female Shakespeare”! the Joanna Baillie Project has analytical summaries of her work and Eva Coupkova examines her Gothic interpretation of the Sublime in Joy in Fear. [I'm trying to buy some of her 27 plays for the library...]
Romanticism vs. The Gothic
It's often hard to differentiate between Romantic and Romantic Gothic writing, especially in people who wrote both types of literature (eg the Romantic poets: Byron, Shelley, Keats). One way to distinguish them is to focus on Romantic idealism(eg the reverence for the myth of medieval chivalry). Another is to examine the way they interpret the Sublime.
For the Romantics [http://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/the-sublime/the-romantic-sublime-r1109221], the Sublime was to be found in the supreme awe-inspiring aspects of nature (vast open vistas, craggy mountain peaks, cataclysmic storms at sea, ). These transcendent spaces transported artists and poets to a realm beyond the rational which inspired passion and creativity - ordinary people could then experience these deeply emotive and spiritual places through art and literature. Caspar David Friedrich's "Wanderer above the sea of fog" represents the figure of the Romantic artiste well, identifying the figure of the Man (never a woman!) with transcendent nature through the shape of the distant peak to his right, but also suggesting mastery through his central position on the summit. Despite the dark silhouette and air of mystery, it is a very positive representation of human subjectivity, with a vast creative and spiritual future ahead of the figure, despite the fog of everyday existence below him. |
In contrast, Gothic writers tend to focus on the grotesque elements of the transcendent, especially the monstrous potential for destruction and the abject materiality of humanity. The Gothic sublime
The painting on the the right is an illustration for Milton's description of the nativity (Jesus' birth!) in Paradise Lost. Instead of concentrating of that most sublime of events, the incarnation of God in a baby, or the identification of God/Man with nature in the stable setting, he has chosen to illustrate "The flight of Moloch", a God worshipped by the Ammonites in the Bible through child sacrifice (Lev. 18:21, Jer. 32:35). Baby Jesus seems to rise from the flames as the worshipers turn away from his glory, but the entire picture is overshadowed by the dark brooding priest-king and the demon/God. This demon relates to the "spectre" in his other paintings (see the illustration from Jerusalem, below). A symbol of human reason (ie laws and morals) detached from imagination, emotion and spirituality, the spectre haunts and oppresses the blacksmith whose bellows, tongs and anvil symbolise the horrors of modern technology that chain him to earth - the transcendent, here, is represented though a constrained view of hellish flames and demonic murmurs binding us to prosaic reality.
The painting on the the right is an illustration for Milton's description of the nativity (Jesus' birth!) in Paradise Lost. Instead of concentrating of that most sublime of events, the incarnation of God in a baby, or the identification of God/Man with nature in the stable setting, he has chosen to illustrate "The flight of Moloch", a God worshipped by the Ammonites in the Bible through child sacrifice (Lev. 18:21, Jer. 32:35). Baby Jesus seems to rise from the flames as the worshipers turn away from his glory, but the entire picture is overshadowed by the dark brooding priest-king and the demon/God. This demon relates to the "spectre" in his other paintings (see the illustration from Jerusalem, below). A symbol of human reason (ie laws and morals) detached from imagination, emotion and spirituality, the spectre haunts and oppresses the blacksmith whose bellows, tongs and anvil symbolise the horrors of modern technology that chain him to earth - the transcendent, here, is represented though a constrained view of hellish flames and demonic murmurs binding us to prosaic reality.
Trapped in the materiality and horror of modern life and surrounded by supernatural representations of such horrors, Gothic literature harnesses the power of imagination in a completely different way to Romantic literature; it encourages us to delight in our darkest fears and traumas. Since the Romantic period saw both the theory of atavism (backwards evolution) and the tentative beginnings of modern psychology, it is perhaps not surprising that the Romantic Gothic sought to reveal our most savage instincts and drives (see Psychological Interpretations below).
The Gothic can thus also take on a political aspect, with the supernatural darkness representing gender, racial or postcolonial oppression - which might account for the large numbers of women and Irish (colonised by Britain at this point in history) writers in this genre (See The Female Gothic and Postcolonial Gothic below). |
English Gothic texts from the Romantic Period
- Lord Byron as a cult figure - From the moment his first poem was published, Byron was marketed as the archetypical gothic hero - dark, brooding, highly picturesque and overall "mad bad and dangerous to know". The British Library has a more sedate take on the Byron Legend, as does Lissette Lopez Szwydky-Davis's outline for a course at the University of Arkansas.
- John Polidori - The Vampire (novel,1819) The very first vampire story (or was it?)
- thomas Love Peacock Nightmare Abbey (satirical novel, 1817)
- Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey (satrical novel,1818) F AUS
- Emily Bronte (novel, poems). Wuthering Heights F BRO
- [I'm not counting Jane Eyre because Gothic elements in certain parts of the story don't make the whole text Gothic, but if you want to read it it's at F BRO]
- John Keats (poems): "Isabella and the pot of Basil", "La Belle Dame Sans Merci", "The Eve of St Agnes", "Lamia" (unusual sympathy toward the woman/monster)
- Lord Byron (short story, poems) - Fragment of a novel, "Manfred", "Don Juan", "Giaour" (after the novel Valthek),
- Percy Bysshe Shelley "Ghasta, or the Avenging Demon" (poem, 1810)
- Charles Maturin - Melmoth the Wanderer (1819)
- Christina Rosetti - "Goblin Market", "The Convent Theshold"
- Mary Shelley - Frankenstein (novel, 1831) F SHE
- Coleridge - "Christobel' (poem DATE) , Osorio / Remorse (play, 1797 - In print: I'll buy this if you want to read it), The Mad Monk (poem, 1800 - skip to Page 347 in the Gutenberg link)
- Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray (novel, 1891) F WIL
- Sir Walter Scott: "The FireKing" (poem, 1799)
- James Hogg - The Private Memoirs and confessions of a justified sinner
- Bram Stoker Dracula (novel, 1897) F STO
- Robert Louis Stevenson - The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (novel, 1886) F STE
- blake (poems)
- The Princess and the Goblin by George McDonald
1633 John Donne- The Apparition
1743 Robert Blair- The Grave
1790 Robert Burns- Tam O'Shanter
1798 Samuel Taylor Coleridge- The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
1801 Robert Southey- Thalaba the Destroyer
1808 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe- Faust
1810 Percy Bysshe Shelley- The Spectral Horseman
1842 Mikhael Lermontov- The Demon
1846 Edgar Allan Poe- The Raven, Annabel Lee, The Bells
1855 Robert Browning- Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came, Porphyria's Lover
1857 Charles Baudelaire- Skeletons Digging
1862 Christina Rossetti- Goblin Market
1869 Lewis Carroll- Phantasmagoria
1896 A.E. Housman- The True Lover
German Romantic - "Sturm und Drang"
Some of the most famous writers of German literature (Goethe occupies a status similar equivalent to Shakespeare in the English canon) come from the early Romantic period (the last half of the C18th) and wrote, among other types of texts, Gothic literature. This era is called the "Sturm und Drang". This is often translated as "Storm and Stress" but the word "drang" also carries the idea of "urge" or "impulse" and "yearning", all words which link to Romantic idea/ls. The texts were usually tragedies and concentrated on the exaggerated emotional lives of individualistic characters who (felt that they) existed outside the established social order. The works were run-away best sellers and were immediately translated into other languages (including English) and into other art forms such as plays, operas, ballets and paintings, but were widely criticised as unwholesome because they included social and religious taboos such as suicide (The Sorrows of Young Wether) or pacts with the devil (Faust).
German Gothic novels are often called "schauerromane" or "shudder novels", and were considered the lowest of literature - like schlock-horror films today. Obviously the versions here are translations, but I've tried to find early translations that would be the versions first read in English during the period they were most influential. Key texts with strong Gothic elements include: |
- Gottfried August Burger - "Lenore" (ballad, 1774 - the story is often retold as "Death and the Maiden")
- E T A Hoffman - (late 1700s: short stories, some of which became plays, orchestral suites, operas and ballets) "The Sandman" (1816), The Devil's Elixirs (novel, 1815) ,
- Benedikte Naubert - Hermann of Unna (1788)
- Friedrich von Schiller - The Ghost-seer (1789), (cp. Coleridge - "To the Author of the Robbers" (sonnet, DATE?)
- Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué - Undine (translated widely into plays, poems, ballets, operas, films and children's stories. Thought to be the main inspiration for Anderson's "the little mermaid"); Children's version illustrated by Arthur Rackham gives an indication of where it was at by 1909..
- Wolfgang von Goethe - Faust (German, play, 1832). The original pact with the devil (If you want to read outside this unit, read Marlow's version, written just after Shakespeare died) , The Sorcerer's Apprentice (poem,
- Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff (The Marble Statue, 1819); Many of his poems (romantic ballads with gothic elements) were set to music and form a key part of the romantic Art--Songs canon (Schumann, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Strauss etc). If you're interested in classical music, they would be well worth exploring.
- Ludwig Achim von Arnim (Die Majoratsherren, 1819), collected (and elaborated on) folktales and and misc poems Romantic ballads with Gothic elements) were set to music and form a key part of the romantic Art--Songs canon (Schumann, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Schoenberg etc). If you're interested in classical music, they would be well worth exploring. So far I can only find his works in German - sorry - but some of the songs will have English translations.
- Johann Karl August Musaus - fairy tale collection similar to Grimm Brothers
- Adelbert von Chamisso - The Wonderful History of Peter Schlemil, (novella,1814).
- Wilhelm Meinhold - The Amber Witch or Sidonia the Sorceress (novel, 1838) [One of Oscar Wilde's favourite books as a child!]
- Jeremias Gotthelf - The Black Spider (1842) [this is on order - expect it to be available in term 2] F GOT Here's a current review.
- Theodor Storm - The Rider on the White Horse or The Dykemaster (1888) [this is on order - expect it to be available in term 2] F STO
Modernist German Gothic
- Hanns Heinz Ewers - Best known for his trilogy The Sorcerer's Apprentice, Alraune and Vampyre (NB: links are to part of a self-published translation), Ewers 'decadent' books were burned by the Nazi party and he fled to America. His short story, "The Spider" (1915) has been turned into a graphic novel. and "The Death-Eye" was turned into an Opera. [He was also the translator of Edgar Allen Poe into German; if you read German this could be an interesting comparison
Spanish Gothic Fiction
Spain has a very dark history and you'll find Gothic elements in art and literature dating right back from the days of the Spanish Inquisition through the Napoleonic Wars to Franco's civil war - perhaps one of the reasons Spain was used as an exotic location and dark Spanish features were used to depict villains or dark heroes in English writing. However, very little of this literature has been translated into English, so this list focuses mostly on modern writers and contemporary films.
Contemporary Spanish Gothic
Given the horrific events of Spanish colonisation of the West Indies and South America, it's not surprising that other writing in Spanish includes strong Gothic elements:
- Miguel de Cervantes Don Quixote (1601) Contains many Gothic elements (meeting with death, eerie buildings, mad quests etc) that influenced later writers across Europe.
- Cornelia Bororquia o la víctima de la Inquisición (1801)
- La Urna Sangrienta (1834)
- Ramón del Valle Inclán’s Dark Garden (1920)
- Emilia Pardo Bazán in The Ripper of Yesteryear (1900)
- The Tower of the Seven Hunchbacks / La torre de los siete jorobados (Edgar Neville, 1944)
- Pardo Bazán’s novella, “Un Destripador de Antaño”
- Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer
- Adelaida García Morales,
- Espido Freire and Javier
- García Sánchez
- Camilo José Cela’s celebrated novel La Familia de Pascual Duarte
- García Morales’s El Testamento de Regina
- Espido Freire’s Diabulus in Musica
Contemporary Spanish Gothic
- The Orphanage / El orfanato[Juan Antonio Bayona, 2007]
- Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s The Shadow of the Wind (2001).
- Almodóvar The Skin I Live In (frankenstein retelling)
- Guillermo del Toro: The Devil's Backbone (2001) and Pan's Labyrinth (2006), Crimson Peak (2015)
- La madre muerta (The Dead Mother, 1992)
- Los ojos de Julia (Julia’s Eyes, 2010)
Given the horrific events of Spanish colonisation of the West Indies and South America, it's not surprising that other writing in Spanish includes strong Gothic elements:
- Rosario Ferré's “La muñeca menor” (“The Youngest Doll”, 1976) and “La bella durmiente” (“Sleeping Beauty”), 1976 [Puerto Rican]
French Gothic Fiction
After 1815, a distinctive French fantastic, stimulated by a new appetite for imaginative and exotic literature (sometimes coined the frénétique), blended the German Sturm und Drang with the picaresque and ‘merveilleux
odier, a theorist and writer who played a major role in the rise of the fantastic in France. Nodier rejected the ideas of Voltaire and Diderot, arguing that an interest in materialism and the exclusion of the supernatural ‘only occurs because man has ceased to observe the external world properly, and has assumed that it is governed by abstract laws’ The French revolution and it's conflation of blood and freedom, violence and pleasure, stands central in any analysis of the French Gothic. "Dancers of the Dead" gives some interesting insights into the culture of the time.
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The American Romantic
American Romanticism developed differently from European Romanticism; it developed out of the alternative spirituality called Transcendentalism. Transcendentalists believed that the Sublime/transcendence of nature was embodied in every human and that we could access this natural goodness through our intuition. (Try the Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy for theoretical aspects). They were frequently non-conformists in religion and lifestyle, and were idealists, supporting the suffrage and abolitionist movements and practising sustainability - many went on to have a major political impact in these areas, including laying the foundations of the conservation movement and helping to abolish slavery and kickstart prison reform. Some transcendentalists even lived in utopian communes, like proto-hippies. Transcendentalist literature included lots of essays on religion, philosophy, equality and nature, but also included poetry and novels that celebrated non-conformity and individualism, which still form a large part of American identity. You can read omse of the work in their magazine, The Dial.
Famous writers include Ralph David Emerson (Self-Reliance and Dial - essays) and Henry David Thoreau (Walden and Civil Disobedience), Walt Whitman (Song of Myself - poem, celebrates the self as divine), Louisa May Alcott (Little Women series and other children's novels that portray social equality and suggest alternative ways to educate children into these values), Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Psalm of Life, poems), Margaret Fuller (journalist and editor of The Dial, Woman in the Nineteenth Century),
Famous writers include Ralph David Emerson (Self-Reliance and Dial - essays) and Henry David Thoreau (Walden and Civil Disobedience), Walt Whitman (Song of Myself - poem, celebrates the self as divine), Louisa May Alcott (Little Women series and other children's novels that portray social equality and suggest alternative ways to educate children into these values), Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Psalm of Life, poems), Margaret Fuller (journalist and editor of The Dial, Woman in the Nineteenth Century),
Early American Gothic Literature
In contrast to Europe where Gothic Literature can be seen as a category within romantic literature, American Gothic writers were highly critical of Transcendentalism.
Puritan oppression - esp 4 women Tends toward the psychological thriller or straight horror Henry James's The Turn of the Screw (novella,1894) Edgar Allen Poe (short stories, poems) Tell Tale Heart, Fall of the House of Usher f POE, Pit nd the Pendulum, F POE The Raven, Arabella, H P L:ovecraft "The Outsider" "The Call of Cthulhu" Washington Irving - Legend of Sleepy Hollow? Nathaniel Hawthorne - House of the Seven Gables, scarlet letter??? Charles Brockden Brown Wieland (1798)
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Southern Gothic
When the European concept of the Gothic reached America it became imbued with the dark history of the deep south, including slavery and racial violence, decaying mansions and mysterious bayou landscapes, and African-American narratives of the supernatural. This is perhaps unsurprising, since this literature flourished in the poverty and political devastation of the "deep south" after the horrors of the American Civil War: Characters are grotesque and deformed; towns, minds and morals are in a state of decay; religion forms a background of macabre hysteria; and violence and corruption are formative everyday experiences.
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Charles Laughton’s singular thriller The Night of the HunterH P Lovecraft "The call of Cthulhu" (short story, made into a popular game!)
Toni Morrison - Beloved (novel, 1987) F MOR (uses Gothic as a lens to examine US slavery)
Anne Rice - Interview with a vampire (novel, 1976), Vampire Lestat, - the foundation of the contemporary Southern Gothic genre which places Gothic tropes within the misty swamps of Loisianna and their dark history F RIC
True Blood (TV Series, ) - continues the Southern Gothic tradition created by Ann Rice.
Stephen King - Salem's Lot (novel, Dracula rewrite, 1975), The Dark Half (1989), The Shining (1977) F KIN
Mary Flannery O'Connor "A view of the woods" (short story, 1955) "The Displaced Person, "A Good Man is Hard to Find."
Tananarive Due - short stories, short film etc. Horror or Sourthern Gothic with a postcolonial twist?
William Faulkner - the sound and the fury (1929), Light in august (1932), Absalom, Absalom (novel, 1936), "A rose for Emily (short story, 1930)
Eudora Welty - The Optimist's Daughter, Delta Wedding
Read more: http://www.oprah.com/oprahsbookclub/southern-gothic-distinguising-features/all#ixzz58wl4awkY
Carnivale (TC miniseries, )
Cafe (1951)
American Gothic
Carson McCullers's The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Ballad of the Sad
William Gibson - Virtual Light.
James Merrill's The Changing Light at Sandover, which is a modern epic that revolves around Quija board sessions. (poetry book)
Tenessee Williams A house is not meant to Stand'; A Gothic comedy (play, 19?)
Carson McCullers's The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
Thomas P. Cullinan
classic sourthern gothic films
http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/lists/10-great-southern-gothic-films
Modern Gothic Texts
Gormanghast Trilogy (gothic fantasy novels, with a slice of social satire) Coming soon to library
bram Stoker Dracula, the Jewel of the Seven Stars (1903)
Angela Carter - The Bloody Chamber (short stories, often feminist fairytale reworkings) F CAR, The Curious Room (Plays and Scripts) [Leichhardt library, the State library and Sydney uni library have copies]; Unicorn (collected poetry), The Snow Child, The Company of Wolves
Margaret Atwood - Half-hanged Mary?
Jeanette Winterson - Dark Christmas (short story, 2013), The Daylight Gate (novella, 2012), The Passion (novel, ) F WIN
Joan Lindsey - (Australian YA , 1967) Picnic at Hanging Rock - don't worry about the entire book (I'ts not gothic and poorly sturctured), but look at the descriptions of the girls/landscape on the picnic
James Merrill's The Changing Light at Sandover, which is a modern epic that revolves around Quija board sessions.
Susan Hill The Woman in Black (novel, 1983 - also play by Stephen Mallatratt, 1987)
Hilary Mantel Beyond Black (novel, 2005)
Ian McEwan - The Cement Garden (novel, 1978)
Alasdair Gray - Poor things (postmodern novel, 1992)
Mark Danielewski - House of Leaves (postmodern novel, 2000)
Brett Easton Ellis - Lunar Park (postmodern novel ereflecting on the creation and reception of American Psycho, 2005)
The Gothic in Popular Culture
True Blood (TV Series, ) - continues the Southern Gothic tradition created by Ann Rice.
Fairy tales for Wilde Girls (Australian YA novel, 2013)
The Simpsons - Treehouse of Horror, Season 2. (1990) - satirises Poe and "The Raven"
Buffy the Vampire slayer "Hush" (TV Series, )References Gothic traditions in early silent movies
Buffy the Vampire slayer: "Buffy vs. Dracula" (TV Series, ) References film versions of Dracula, including silent movies
Coraline (novel, graphic novel, film)
Sandman graphic novels
Alejandro Amenábar The Others (2001)
Versace 2012 collection [https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/gallery/2012/may/22/versace-autumn-winter-2012]
corpse Bride
Edwatrd Scissor Hands
Tim Burton as author study?
guillieme de Toro Crimson Peak, The Shape of Water
Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (silent film, Germany, 1922)
Cirque du soleil "Howling Wind" from the TV Series Solstrum (circus acts, 2004).
- Apocalyptica (Gothic metal on cellos!) - look through the videos Gothic elements - these are different from but ovelap the film noir elements
- Nightwish (Gothic symphonic metal music) - look through the videos as well as the lyrics for Gothic elements
- Bloodhound - Nosferatu
Literary References in Popular Culrure
- German writer, Ewers appears in Kim Newman's novel The Bloody Red Baron, as a predatory vampire who travels briefly with Edgar Allan Poe.
- Penny Dreadful (TV Series, 2014-2016) Does for Victorian Gothic texts what Shrek did for fairy tales.
Critical works
- The Postfeminist Gothic (2007) Syndey Uni UNSW, UWS
- Forever Young - maria antonia Lima (essay, 2016), looks at the evolution of the vampire figure since Dracula was written.
- Text Matters, A Journal of Literature Theory and Culture, Gothic Matters, (Łódź: Łódź University Press, No. 6, 2016)
Splattered InkPostfeminist Gothic Fiction and Gendered Violence - award winning study looks at violence against women in realist fiction with gothic elements (eg Jodi Picault).
Uneasy Lie the Bones: Alice Sebold's Postfeminist GothicSarah Whitney
Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature
Vol. 29, No. 2 (Fall 2010), pp. 351-373 (examines The Lovely Bones and Al ost Moon)
Young Adult and Children's Literature
Heap House by Edward Carey
Picture Books
Cautionary Tales for Children by Hillaire Belloc (ill. Edward Gorey)
What There Is Before There Is Anything There by Liniers Liniers
Liniers examines fear of the dark in a beautiful exploration of existentialism and emptiness. This is an excellent book for sparking conversation with your child on the paradox of personal relevance and irrelevance in a vast and complex world.
Elizabeth and Zenobia by Jessica Miller
Middle School
goth girl series
spooks series
The Princess and the Goblin by George McDonald
Heap House by Edward Carey
Coraline Niel Gaiman (novel, film and graphic novel)
Teens
Alysse Near - Fairy tales for Wilde Girls (Australian YA novel, 2013) F NEA
Laid Waste by Julia Gfrorer (graphic novel)
Picture Books
Cautionary Tales for Children by Hillaire Belloc (ill. Edward Gorey)
What There Is Before There Is Anything There by Liniers Liniers
Liniers examines fear of the dark in a beautiful exploration of existentialism and emptiness. This is an excellent book for sparking conversation with your child on the paradox of personal relevance and irrelevance in a vast and complex world.
Elizabeth and Zenobia by Jessica Miller
Middle School
goth girl series
spooks series
The Princess and the Goblin by George McDonald
Heap House by Edward Carey
Coraline Niel Gaiman (novel, film and graphic novel)
Teens
Alysse Near - Fairy tales for Wilde Girls (Australian YA novel, 2013) F NEA
Laid Waste by Julia Gfrorer (graphic novel)
Feminism and the Gothic
Contemporary feminist theory views gender as a performance and analyses the strategies women consciously and subconsciously use to support or challenge such performances. Since women in Gothic novels frequently transgress the social imperative which confines them to the domestic role of the "angel of the house', Gothic writing has been both critiqued as a tool of repression and hailed as a liberating space for female agency. When second wave feminist scholars (ie scholars of the 1970/80s) sought to revive female writing, Gothic fiction was viewed as a genre that represented women's repressed fears and anxieties about patriarchal oppression by blurring boundaries such as life, death, self/Other and through the conscious blurring of internal and external spaces. This gave it a privileged position in the female literary canon that was completely at odds with the earlier perception of Gothic novels as popular trash that had neither literary nor moral value.
Ellen Ledoux's essay, "Was there ever a female gothic?" has an interesting critique of the way the female Gothic has been constructed academically, with a focus on Ann Radcliffe and her reception in the C19th and a fabulous bibliography.
Reading List
Literary Criticism
Ellen Ledoux's essay, "Was there ever a female gothic?" has an interesting critique of the way the female Gothic has been constructed academically, with a focus on Ann Radcliffe and her reception in the C19th and a fabulous bibliography.
Reading List
- Emily Dickinson (poems, mid1800s): "One need not be a chamber to be haunted", "I felt a funeral in my brain", Samantha Landau's essay Haunted Homes and Uncanny Spaces: the Gothic in the poetry of Emily Dickinson surveys various elements of the Gothic architectural and literary traditions, and Dickinson's life before applying these tropes to Dickinson's poetry.
- Charlotte Perkins Gilman The Yellow Wallpaper (short story, 1898). This article outlines the context in which this critique of the mental health structures of her day was published.
- Emily Bronte "No coward soul am I" ( ), While Emily Bronte's poems fall more completely within the Romantic tradition, their embodiment of the (presumably female) persona's psychological states in the landscape is very much
- Mary Wollstonecraft - Maria or The Wrongs of Women (unfinished, posthumous,1798)
- Shirley Jackson - The Haunting of Hill House (novel, 1959)
- Daphne du Maurier Rebecca (novel, 1938) F DUM
- Fay Weldon - the Lives and Loves of a she-Devil (novel afte Frankenstein, 1983)
- Margaret Atwood - The Robber Bride (novel after C18th robber-novels esp. Schiller's The Robbers which inspired many English Gothic writers, 1983)
- Angela Carter
Literary Criticism
- The female Gothic: An Introduction has excerpts from key critical texts about women's Gothic writings. this a fabulous starting point because it outlines they key areas of feminist inquiry. If you only read one secondary text, this should be it.
- Diana Wallace and Andres Smith (2009) - The Female Gothic: New directions I think this book is fantastic. Have a look and let me know whether you agree - It's out of print but I'm happy to try to get a copy for the library.
- Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar The Madwoman in the Attic (1979). We have a copy of this text in the library at NF 809.892 GIL
- Clara Frances MacIntyre - Ann Radcliffe in relation to her time (1970)
- Diane Hoeveler "Joanne Baillie and the Gothic Body: Reading extremities in Orra and de Montford" Gothic Studies, Vol. 3, No. 2 (August 2001): 117-133.
- Ellen Moers - Literary women (1976) This is the first important analysis of women;s literature to discuss the way female authors coopted the gothic gernre to explore female experiences in a patriarchal culture.
- Fernanda sousa Carvalo (dissertation, 2009) Sexuality and Gender in Gothic fiction: Angela Carter and Anne Rice's Vampires (If you're analysing contemporary works, this is a good model for how to structure your research, even if you're not into modern vampires)
- Donna Mitchell "Leda or Living Doll: Women as dolls in Angela Carter's The Magic Toyshop"
- Malenas Ledoux, Ellen. (2011). Defiant damsels: Gothic space and female agency in Emmeline, the mysteries of Udolpho and secresy. Women's Writing. 18. . 10.1080/09699082.2010.508889. This article seeks to destabilize the dominant feminist reading of Gothic space as an allegory of domestic imprisonment and, by extension, to call into question the female Gothic's reputation as a genre primarily concerned with depicting women's victimization. Reading Charlotte Smith's EMMELINE (1788) and Eliza Fenwick's SECRESY (1795) in opposition to Ann Radcliffe's iconic THE MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO (1794), the essay demonstrates that while women authors sometimes portray Gothic spaces as confining or threatening, they also depict them as settings in which female characters exhibit physical prowess and find economic enfranchisement. That representations of these “defiant damsels” persist over time and adapt to changing political conditions suggests that both authors and readers utilized the potential of this symbolically rich space to imagine multiple types of domestic scenarios and to entertain a variety of transgressive female fantasies.
- Interesting question: From my research so far it seems like only English Gothic Lit had lots of female writers. Is this the Case? If so why?
Psychoanalytical interpretations of the Gothic
Christina Schneider - "Monstrosity in the English Gothic Novel"
Link to feminist? edgar allen Poe - "The Imp of the Perverse" (short story, 1845) Lafcadio Hearn "Nightmare touch" (biographical essay) in Shadowings (short story collection, 1900) |
Postcolonialism and Gothic Literature
It is, perhaps, not surprising to discover a strong sense of the Gothic underlying many Aboriginal literary texts, because Aboriginal culture is supported by a strong oral storytelling tradition with roots in pre-colonial spirituality - just the sort of tradition that the European romantic writers frequently chose to idealise. But the brutality of colonial Australian history has little in common with these ideals and contemporary writers and film makers have frequently appropriated Gothic motifs to articulate memories/stories of trauma and self-determination. This is a wonderful subversion of the Gothic tropes used by early colonists to depict Aboriginals as monstrous elements of the alien Australian landscape.
for a deeper examination of these ideas look for:
- Darkness subverted: Aboriginal Gothic in Black Australian Literature and Film is available at the State Library of NSW and The University of Sydney library. It discusses a range of texts by Aboriginal authors which use the Gothic genre to make political statements about the historical and contemporary Aboriginal experiences.
- "Australian Gothic" - pp 10 - 19 in The Handbook to Gothic Literature, pp286ff includes a discussion of Moffat's film, Night Cries.
Australian Aboriginal Texts
- Mythology and Reality collide in Alexis Wright's Plains of Promise, which depicts one woman's descent into madness as a result of the 'stolen generation' and another's attempt to unravel the complicated story of her ancestry..
- Kim Scott's novels (Benang, That Deadman Dance, Taboo) explore the fragmentation of Aboriginal identity by invoking Gothic tropes of the montrous and situating the protagonists in a strange, uncanny colonised landscape. Lisa Slater's essay, Monstrous (Textual) Bodies, explores Scott's suggestion that "there is much beyond our knowing, and yet we still must speak, forever fumbling for the right words."
- Colin Johnson/Mudrrooroo Nyoomgah writings use Gothic tropes (esp. in the historically-informed Vampire trilogy: The Undying, Underground and The Promised Land) to question the relationship between colonising and colonised peoples. Gerry Turcotte's Vampiric Decolonisation: Fanon, 'Terrorism' and Muderooroo's Vampire Trilogy is an excellent article about the use of Gothic devices to explore postcolonial issues. We have ordered a copy of Postcolonial Whiteness, in which this article appears. Maureen Clark has written about the feminist (very problematic female representation) and postcolonial (much more overt and very well-problematised through the identification of invaders as vampires) aspect of his writings in her PhD thesis, Muderrooroo: A likely Story Her book is available at the State Library of NSW.
- The house which forms the main setting of Vivian Cleven's Her sister's Eye is haunted by the ghosts of dispossession, creating a suitably Gothic backdrop for her exploration of oppression through class and gender, as well as race. Suzette Mayer's 'A Place with it's own shying': Countering the Aboriginal uncanny identifies many Gothic elements of the novel and contrasts them to other Australian novels such as Cloudstreet which effectively silence aboriginal perspectives.'
- Tracey Moffat's films very frequently evoke Gothic tropes to depict the fragmentation and re/construction of identity through narrative. The spectre on at the window explores the way the film beDevil (1993) articulates the process of narrativising memory, while Maureen Clark, in chapter 7 of Gothic topographies: Language, Nation Building and 'Race', investigates the Gothic Topographies: Language, Nation Building and ‘Race’ places Moffat's Night Cries and beDevil alongside other marginalised cultures, including post-soviet Russia and south Africa under apartheid. These films are available on DVD - let me know if you'd like the library to buy them.
Political works
william godwin Caleb Williams
Eliza Fenwick Secresy or the Ruin on the Rock
Tananarive Due - short stories, short film etc. Horror or Sourthern Gothic with a postcolonial twist?
Jarlath Kileen The Emergence of Irish Gothic fiction (2014)
Jamaica Kincaird the Autobiography of my Mother (novel, 1996)
Mayra Montero In the Palm of Darkness
Queer Readings
Bela Lugosi's 'camp' portrayal of Dracula
Masculinities in gothic culture
Lesbian gothic Pauline Palmer (1999)
Unsorted stuff
mattel Monster High rangeJOURNAL ARTICLE
The Authenticity of Coleridge's Reviews of Gothic Romances Charles I. Patterson
The Journal of English and Germanic Philology
Vol. 50, No. 4 (Oct., 1951), pp. 517-521
https://www.jstor.org/stable/27713335?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
Powell, Allison. (2018). “If He Be Mr. Hyde, We Shall Be Mr. See”: Using Graphic Novels, Comic Books, and the Visual Narrative in the Gothic Literature Classroom. 117-132. 10.1007/978-3-319-63459-3_8. In this chapter, Powell highlights the advantages of incorporating graphic novels into the Gothic literature classroom. Considering texts such as Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and their graphic novel adaptations, Powell discusses the ways in which the universality of comics and the ability of comic characters to adapt through the years allow students to relate to older texts in a new and refreshing way. As Powell demonstrates, comics and other forms of visual narrative are universally engaging and can serve as a means to usher reluctant readers toward a more pleasurable, and thus successful, classroom experience, while introducing the visual narrative to the Gothic literature classroom not only bridges the gaps with less advanced learners, but engages all levels of students, better ensuring mastery of complex Gothic topics.
DelVillanoGhostly Alterities. Spectrality and Contemporary Literatures in English
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