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Gothic Literature

Gothic Literature. Gothic:. - emotional extremes - Dark themes - Writers inspired by gothic architecture - Found most of its natural settings in the gothic style: castles, mansions, often crumbling and ruined 1782 painting by Henry Fuseli, titled “The Nightmare”. History:.

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Gothic Literature

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  1. Gothic Literature

  2. Gothic: - emotional extremes - Dark themes - Writers inspired by gothic architecture - Found most of its natural settings in the gothic style: castles, mansions, often crumbling and ruined 1782 painting by Henry Fuseli, titled “The Nightmare”

  3. History: • Gothic refers to a style of architecture started in the middle ages. • -Synonymous with the Middle Ages, chaotic, unenlightened, and superstitious. • -Enjoyed a revival in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris, France

  4. Beginnings of Gothic Literature • First Gothic novel: The Castle of Otranto, by Horace Walpole, 1765. • Suspenseful, medieval, remote setting, supernatural • Highly imitated • Based on Gothic architecture and draw from previous supernatural literature, such as Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Hamlet

  5. Beginnings Continued… - Ann Radcliffe: The first great Gothic writer. • A Sicilian Romance (1790), Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), and The Italian (1797). • Wrote The Italian as a response to Lewis’s The Monk • Gave rise to division in Gothic literature: “Terror Gothic” and “Horror Gothic”

  6. Reasons • Industrial revolution and political setting in the 18th and 19th Centuries made people afraid. • Gives an opportunity to have an emotional outlet for fears “Prse de la Bastille” (“Storming the Bastille”) by Jean-Pierre Houël (1735-1813)

  7. Gothic Fiction in the Nineteenth Century • The Contest: Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley and John William Polidori at the Villa Diodati on the banks of Lake Geneva in the summer of 1816. • Birth of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818) and Polidori's The Vampyre (1819).

  8. Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus • Written by Mary Shelly in 1818. • Mary conceived an idea after she fell into a “waking dream” during which she saw "the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together." • Theme of the dangers of science. • Considered the first Sci-Fi novel, but written as a tale of terror.

  9. Bram Stoker’s Dracula • Written in 1897 • Didn’t invent the vampire, but has been responsible for many interpretations of the vampire in the 20th and 21st centuries Gary Oldman in Bram Stoker’s Dracula

  10. Gothic Inspired Literature • Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte • Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte • “Christabel,” by Byron

  11. Rise of the Ghost story • Ghosts are not as they are now, usually passive, or scary only in appearance • Modern ghost, driven by personal emotions

  12. American Gothic - Poe: The connection between Gothic fiction and detective fiction. • Transformed Gothic into a psychological process. Relying on tone, mood, and setting. • Wrote: “The Raven,” “Tell-Tale Heart,” etc. “Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.” “The Raven” - Edgar Allen Poe

  13. Gothic in the Twentieth Century and beyond • Modern Gothic: the mass Gothic novel • Pattern: • Innocent young heroin suspects her rich husband of crime. • Dauphine Du Maurier’s Rebecca

  14. Gothic Today • Everything from Vampires to Monsters • Point more toward horror • Authors: Ann Rice, Clive Barker, Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and Stephenie Meyer, etc. • Types: Urban Legends, Ghost Stories, Horror Novels, Suspense and Horror Movies

  15. Characteristics of Gothic Lit. • A castle, ruined or intact, haunted or not • Ruined buildings, which are sinister • Dungeons, underground passages, crypts, labyrinths, dark corridors, etc. • Shadows, a flickering candle, or light failing • Omens and ancestral curses • Magic, supernatural beings, or suggestion of supernatural • A passion-driven, willful villain-hero, or villain • A curious heroine with a tendency to need rescuing • A hero with a hidden identity, revealed at the end • Horrifying events or threat of horrifying events.

  16. Terror Intense, sharp, overmastering fear. Psychological. Horror an overwhelming and painful feeling caused by something frightfully shocking, terrifying, or revolting; a shuddering fear . Physical, more animal in nature. Terror vs. Horror

  17. How do they do it? • Setting: Dark and sinister • Mood/Tone: melancholy • Literary devices: relies heavily on Imagery to make you feel and see what’s going on. • Also use similes, metaphors, characters, etc.

  18. The Plot Outline

  19. Plot • Character: direct the action. Usually a protagonist and antagonist, as well as major and minor characters • Setting: Where, when, it takes place • Inciting Event: What starts the action • Conflict: The problem • Rising Action: Events leading to the climax • Climax: The point of no return, the turning point • Falling Action: Events that lead to the resolution • Resolution: How the conflict is resolved for good or bad • Theme: The message/purpose of the book.

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