18th Century Gothic Flashcards
What were the main preoccupations of 18th century gothic literature?
Fear of the self, social upheaval (French Revolution), disorder, transgression
What was it synonymous with?
A certain literary and cultural barbarism
What was it at odds with?
The neoclassicism of the early 1700s. There was a wide philosophical and artistic shift away from the scientific rationalism of the Enlightenment.
What did Anne Radcliffe’s work do?
It presented feudalism as a benign hierarchal order, so long as power is exercised by men of virtue.
What do the tropes and themes of gothic fiction do?
Interrogate the dominant political ideology of the day, even when they appear to conform to a conventional, conservative vision of society.
What is the difference between terror and horror?
Terror is built on suspense, on uncertainty and obscurity.
Horror is the fear of something concrete.
What was Radcliffe’s opinion on horror and terror?
She felt that terror, not horror, was the path to the sublime - the ultimate goal shared by Romantic and gothic writers. Horror was born from Radcliffe’s refusal to satisfy reader expectations, to disclose something terrible or supernatural.
What did Radcliffe do with female Gothic?
She created a space where the gothic becomes the location of female struggle against various forms of patriarchal domination.
What are the 3 key texts from this period?
The Monk, Matthew Lewis
The Castle of Otranto, Horace Walpole
The Mystery of Udolpho, Anne Radcliffe
