Gothic critics + analysis + more Flashcards
What does John Bowen say the Gothic is fascinated with?
Gothic fiction is fascinated by strange places
What 2 types of setting are there (John)
wild and remote landscapes .. to very imprisoning places.. somewhere like Dracula
What does the past do in the Gothic?
the past erupts within the present and deranges it
Castles: ‘what they turn out to be once you are inside them is _____, scenarios of ____ of claustrophobia, of being unable to escape’
Who says this?
- labyrinths
- imprisonment
- David Punter
What does Chris Baldick say, “For the Gothic effect to be attained…”
“.. a tale should combined a fearful sense of inheritance in time with a claustrophobic sense of enclosure in space”
Name the painting, date + name for Goya’s painting
Saturn Devouring his Son (1819-1823)
What themes does Goya’s painting portray?
Otherness/Uncanny
Terror/Horror
Abhuman
Taboo - cannibalism
What was the first work of Gothic genre ? Date?
Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1764)
What triplet does Luckhurst use to describe the Gothic?
“Disordered, dark and labyrinthine”
Luckhurst says The Gothic genre “____ ____ punishments on those who ____ ___ the norm, but at the same time is in ___ ___ of lasciviously ____ these ______
inflicts exorbitant
step outside
the business
imagining
transgressions
Who says the Gothic is simultaneously “conservative and subversive” and what does this even mean?
Luckhurst - keeps traditional ideas whilst also challenging them
How does Ann Radcliffe define terror and horror?
“Terror.. expands the soul and awakens the facilities to a high degree of life”
Horror “contracts, freezes and nearly annihilates them”
What does Freud say about the uncanny?
the uncanny is “the shiver of realising that modern reason has merely repressed rather than replaced primitive superstition” - fears resurface, making us feel uneasy/disturbed
The 7 key motifs in Gothic as explained by John Bowen are..?
Place and time (setting)
Power
Sexual power
The uncanny
The sublime
Crisis
Supernatural & the real
What does John say the sublime is?
“The sublime isn’t harmonious, balanced and beautiful .. but is often terrifying and awesome and overwhelming”
