19th Century Gothic

Question 1

What is the other name for 19th century gothic?

Answer 1

Romantic era gothic

Question 2

What were the main preoccupations?

Answer 2

Fear of the unknown, the conflict between Enlightenment, scientific views and Romantic ideas, crumbling of traditional values.

Question 3

Robert Hume

Answer 3

‘There is a persistent suspicion that Gothicism is a poor and illegitimate relation of Romanticism.’

Question 4

What are some of the common themes between gothicism and romanticism?

Answer 4

The human condition, the sublime, emotion and feeling, the power of nature.

Question 5

What is the difference between the sublime in Romantic poetry and in gothic literature?

Answer 5

In Romantic poetry, the sublime is often the motivation for spiritual transcendence and self-actualisation. Gothic fiction takes the aesthetic reaction of the Romantics and subverts it by creating delight and confusion from terror.

Question 6

Fred Botting

Answer 6

At the heart of Romanticism is a conceptualisation of the self that is resolutely individualistic and idealistic, but which is nonetheless ‘shadowed’ by despair. Gothic threatens to expose the ‘shadow’ behind this idealised, transcendental self.

Question 7

What are the key texts of Romantic era gothic?

Answer 7

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
Don Juan, Lord Byron