The Gothic novel

James Ward, Gordale Scar, 1814,
London, Tate Gallery
The Gothic novel
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Marina Spiazzi, Marina Tavella,
Margaret Layton © 2012
The Gothic novel
1. The origin of the name
It came to popularity at the end of the 18th century
The adjective ‘Gothic’
three connotations
Medieval, linked
to the architecture
of the 12th-14th
centuries
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Irregular,
barbarous,
opposed to
Classicism
Wild, supernatural,
in the sense of
mysterious
The Gothic novel
2. Influences
The 18th-century
society
Industrial exploitation
• Destruction of the single human
being.
• Man as a slave to forces he could
not control.
• Gothic symbols as denunciation of
social problems.
The ‘sublime’
• As a celebration of terror.
• As a rejection of constraints and
limits.
• As exploration of forbidden areas.
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The Gothic novel
3. The Gothic setting
• Great importance given to
terror, characterised by
obscurity and uncertainty,
and horror, caused by evil
and atrocity.
• Darkness, a necessary
ingredient for the
mysterious, gloomy
atmosphere.
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The Gothic novel
3. The Gothic setting
• Ancient settings isolated
castles and mysterious
abbeys with hidden
passages, underground
cellars, secret rooms.
• Catholic countries as the
setting for the most terrible
crimes, due to Protestant
prejudices against
Catholicism.
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The Gothic novel
4. The characters
• Characters dominated by exaggerated
reactions in front of mysterious situations or
events.
• Supernatural beings: vampires, monsters
and ghosts.
• Sensitive heroes: they save heroines.
• Heroines stricken by unreal terrors and
persecuted by the villains.
• Satanic, terrifying male characters, victims
of their negative impulses
Henry Fuseli (Johann Heinrich Füssli),
The Nightmare, 1781, Goethe Museum,
Frankfurt
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The Gothic novel
5. The language
Gothic writers chose vocabulary that referred to emotions and feelings, capable of
evoking anxiety, fear or horror.
Semantic areas
Words
Mystery
enchantment, ghost, haunted, infernal, magic, secret, spectre,
vision
Fear / Terror /
Sorrow
agony, anguish, apprehensions, despair, dread, fearing,
frightened, hopeless, horror, melancholy, miserable, panic,
sadly, scared, shrieks, sorrow, tears, terror, unhappy,
wretched
Haste
anxious, breathless, frantic, hastily, impatient, running,
suddenly
Anger
anger, enraged, furious, rage, resentment, wrath
Largeness
enormous, gigantic, large, tremendous, vast
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The Gothic novel
6. Metonimy
Metonymy: a subtype of metaphor, in which something is used to stand for
something else. The following metonymies for doom and gloom suggest
elements of mystery, danger, or the supernatural and are common in Gothic
novels.
Elements of nature
wind, especially howling; gusts of wind
blowing out lights
rain, especially blowing
thunder and lightning
Setting
doors grating on rusty hinges
clanking chains
lights in abandoned rooms
doors suddenly slamming shut
ruins of buildings
barking of distant dogs / wolves
Characters
sighs, moans, howls, strange sounds
characters trapped in a room
footsteps approaching
crazed laughter
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The Gothic novel
7. First Gothic authors
•
•
•
•
Horace Walpole  The Castle of Otranto (1764)
Ann Radcliffe  The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794)
Matthew Lewis The Monk (1796)
Mary Shelley Frankenstein (1818)
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The Gothic novel
8. Popularity
• Great interest during the 18th century common to all strata
of society.
• The features of Gothic novels preserved in modern and
contemporary descendents of this genre in the works of:
 Charlotte Brontë
 Edgar Allan Poe
 Robert Louis Stevenson
 Bram Stoker
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