Gothic Literature

Question 1

Characteristics (Gothic)

Answer 1

• Mostly novels written between 1760-1812
• European genres: roman noir (France), Schauerroman (Germany)
• “Gothic”->barbaric,‘medieval’, frightening, dark
• Picturesque scenery
• Often set in continental Europe (Spain, Italy,
Germany/Austria,…) rather than England
• Images of ruin and decay (literally and metaphorically)
• Motifs: cruelty, hauntings, imprisonment, madness, sexual transgressions
• Melodrama and excess
• Damsel in distress; fallenhero

Question 2

Examples Gothic Fiction

Answer 2

• Horace Walpole, *The Castle of
Otranto: A Gothic Story *
• Ann Radcliffe, The Mysteries of
Udolpho
• Matthew Lewis, The Monk
• Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
• Charles Maturin, *Melmoth the Wanderer *

Question 3

Ann Radcliffe

Answer 3

• never appeared in public, nor mingled in private society, but kept herself apart

Works:
• A Sicilian Romance
• The Romance of the Forest
• The Mysteries of Udolpho
• The Italian

Question 4

Features of Ann Radcliffe’s Novels

Answer 4

• Innocent (often orphaned) heroines
• Sentimental tradition —> excess of feelings

Content:
• Imagined horrors combined with more ‘realistic’ mysteries
• Suspense
• Rational explanation at the end à
“supernatural explained”
• Clear moral at the end, restitution of domesticity

Question 5

Terror vs. Horror

Answer 5

Ann Radcliffe:
Terror: awakens the faculties to a high degree of life [leading to the sublime]; Horror: freezes and nearly annihilates faculties them

Question 6

Matthew “The Monk” Lewis

Answer 6

• Writer and politician (diplomat, MP)
Works:
• The Monk
• The Castle Spectre
• The Minister: A Tragedy, in Five Acts
• The East Indian: A Comedy in Five Acts
• Romantic Tales

Question 7

Mary Shelley

Answer 7

• Father William Godwin
• Mother Mary Wollstonecraft
• Starts a relationship with Percy Bysshe Shelley while he is still married; marries him
• Loss of several children and periods of depression
• Return to England after PBS’s death

Question 8

Mary Wollstonecraft

Answer 8

• mother of Mary Shelley

• Vindication of the Rights of Men: rejection of aristocracy, arguing for democracy
• Vindication of the Rights of Women:
– arguing for education for women
– comparing marriage to “legal prostitution”
– criticizing “innocence” as a virtue

Question 9

William Godwin

Answer 9

• father of Mary Shelley

• “Government by its very nature counteracts the improvement of original mind.”
• Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and its Influence on Morals and Happiness: progress is possible and can be brought about by rationality rather than laws

Question 10

Mary Shelley Major Works

Answer 10

• *Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus
• Mathilda
• Valperga; or, The Life and Adventures of Castruccio, Prince of Lucca
• The Last Man
• Lodore
• Falkner
• Rambles in Germany and Italy in 1840, 1842, and 1843 *

Question 11

Gothic Most Important (5 (3))

Answer 11

• Setting:
-Alps
- Arctic
- Uncanny study
• Monster
• Fallen hero
• Sublime
•Science

Question 12

Science in Gothic Fiction

Answer 12

• Vitalism: difference between living and inanimate entities (“vital spark”)
• Abernathy/Lawrence debate: body and soul v. body as a purely mechanic system

Question 13

Motifs Frankenstein

Answer 13

• Faust —> ambition
• (Failing) creator —> hybris
• (Failed)Prometheus —> lack of responsibility
• Humanity Narrative
• Framed narrative: Captain Walton, Frankenstein, Creature
• First person narrators, homodiegetic