Unseen Gothic

Question 1

What is SSNAPP and C

Answer 1

Setting, sublime, narrative voice, architecture, passive female, patriarchal Male and Contextual link

Question 2

SSLAP’N V

Answer 2

Sound, semantic field(e.gwar suffering death), light/dark, ascent/descent, presence of the past. And nature vs man, Verb voice( powerful, violent active, passive)

Question 3

PPRSS f and h

Answer 3

Pathetic fallacy, positive/ negative, rule of three/ sibilance/ alliteration, structure, sentence structure. Figurative language (metaphors/ simile/ personification/ imagery), horror/terror

Question 4

What is sublime

Answer 4

To be in aww and scared of nature

Question 5

What is pathetic fallacy

Answer 5

The phrase pathetic fallacy is a literary term for the attribution of human emotion and conduct to things found in nature that are not human. It is a kind of personification that occurs in poetic descriptions, when, for example, clouds seem sullen, when leaves dance, or when rocks seem indifferent.

Question 6

What does sentence structure refer to

Answer 6

Short =blunt/sudden/ action
Long =descriptive/ setting tone/building suspense
Word order = lists

Question 7

A common point with setting

Answer 7

Setting reflects character

Question 8

Structure for the gothic entails..

Answer 8

Journey/ perspective zoom/ wide/ small/perspective shift/ tone shift/ dramatic climax

Question 9

Narrative voice entails…

Answer 9

First person = personal/ emotive investment
third person= omnipresent/ detached narrator (allows for authorial comment)
Past tense= allowed hindsight/ reflection/ comfort it was survivable

Question 10

What is romanticism

Answer 10

• a literary, artistic, and philosophical movement
• 18th century
• a reaction against neoclassicism and an emphasis on the imagination and emotion
• showed an appreciation of external nature, an interest in the remote, a predilection for melancholy, and the use in poetry of poetry in older verse forms

Question 11

1764

The Castle of Otranto: The first Gothic novel

Answer 11

English aristocrat Horace Walpole combines the supernatural and horrific to create the first Gothic novel.

Purporting to be translated from an earlier manuscript, The Castle of Otranto introduces what have become classic Gothic devices, such as a foreign location, a dark and ominous castle and a naïve young woman fleeing from an evil, lustful man. In a direct imitation of Shakespearean tragedy, Walpole introduces comedy to relieve the novel’s most melodramatic moments.

Question 12

1794

The Mysteries of Udolpho: The dawn of female Gothic

Answer 12

Ann Radcliffe helps to define what makes a Gothic novel and enjoys massive commercial success.

In her best-known novel, The Mysteries of Udolpho, Radcliffe introduces ‘the explained supernatural’, a technique by which terrifying, apparently supernatural incidents have a logical explanation. Over the course of her previous novels, Radcliffe developed the formula of ‘the female Gothic’, first introduced in The Recess by Sophia Lee. The formula is perfected in Udolpho, and has since become a Gothic norm.

Question 13

1796

The Monk: Shocking society

Answer 13

Matthew Lewis scandalises the literary world.

Lewis’s novel about the misdeeds of a spoiled priest features incestuous necrophilia, matricide, cannibalism, voyeurism, and a satanic pact – not to mention an incredibly gory finale. It was one of the characters censoring the Bible, however, which most upset its contemporaries – as well as the fact that its teenage author was an MP. The novel, which has been retrospectively classed as ‘Male Gothic’, features the genre’s typical themes of a lone male, exiled and an outsider.

Question 14

1816

The Vampyre: Birth of the tale in English

Answer 14

On the shores of Lake Geneva, Lord Byron challenges his friends to write a ghost story.

Among them is John Polidori. He writes The Vampyre, the first vampire story to be written in English. The novel introduces the Byronic hero to Gothic. He is the attractive, dangerous outsider, whose struggles with melancholy will feature in numerous classics of the genre. On publication The Vampyre is incorrectly attributed to Byron instead of Polidori, to the annoyance of both writers, but the novel is a success and sparks a craze for similar vampire tales.

Question 15

1816

Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus: Raising the dead

Answer 15

Lord Byron’s competition produces another Gothic classic: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus.

Shelley’s story features many Gothic spine-tingling elements, including the macabre horror of raising the dead. However, the novel in which a creature created from disparate body parts is brought to life is often considered to be the first in the science fiction genre. Many believe it to be a warning about the dangers of contemporary science.

Question 16

1818

Northanger Abbey: Austen plays with Gothic

Answer 16

Jane Austen parodies the genre.

While not the first satire of Gothic to be published – The New Monk (1798) and The Heroine (1813) were among a number preceding it – Northanger Abbey is perhaps the most memorable of the genre. The novel, whose lead character is a young girl obsessed by Gothic stories, contains direct references to The Mysteries of Udolpho and The Monk.

Question 17

1840

Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque: Psychological terror

Answer 17

Edgar Allan Poe’s collection of previously published short stories is published.

While the tales feature many traditionally frightening Gothic themes, Poe’s characters also suffer psychological terror - “terror of the soul”. The collection includes Poe’s famous story ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’, which charts the descent of Roderick Usher into madness through fear. Other stories in the collection feature a collection of madmen and unreliable narrators.

Question 18

1847

Wuthering Heights: Gothic close to home

Answer 18

Emily Bronte transports Gothic to the wild and dangerous Yorkshire moors.

The classic romantic novel has become synonymous with the idea of the Female Gothic: where women are trapped in a domestic space and dominated by men. In addition it includes many other Gothic traits: stories told within stories, the supernatural, the tyrannical ‘villain’, and Wuthering Heights itself, the imposing building in which much of the story is set. In the character of Heathcliff, Bronte creates the ultimate Byronic hero.

Question 19

1871

Carmilla: The female vampire

Answer 19

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s story establishes the formula for the female vampire.

Le Fanu’s tale of the mysterious Carmilla owes a debt to Samuel Coleridge’s unfinished poem Christabel, but becomes influential in its own right, second only to Dracula in terms of popular vampire characters. Le Fanu draws on emerging ideas about female sexuality to depict a vampire whose lesbian inclinations are surprisingly explicit by Victorian standards. Carmilla becomes the model for female vampires in film, with variations of the character appearing in Hammer horrors, among others.

Question 20

1886

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde: Anticipating Freud

Answer 20

Robert Louis Stevenson explores the nature of good and evil.

A literary success in the Victorian era, the tale has lived on and like Frankenstein and Dracula its characters have transcended the original text to become a modern myth. The novel is also the fullest articulation of the important Gothic theme of the double: the contrast between good and evil in people or places. Stevenson anticipates the ideas of Sigmund Freud, whose first psychoanalytic studies were to be published just five years later.

Question 21

1897

Dracula: The vampire’s vampire lands at Whitby

Answer 21

Bram Stoker’s iconic vampire is introduced.

While Richard Marsh’s horror novel The Beetle was the bigger seller in 1897, it is Stoker’s story that has captured and engaged the public’s imagination. The tale of the Transylvanian count transferred well to screen, helping to cement the myth of Dracula and, in turn, dominating our idea of how male vampires look and behave.

Question 22

1946

Gormenghast trilogy: Stylised Gothic

Answer 22

Mervyn Peake publishes Titus Groan, later followed by Gormenghast and Titus Alone.

Peake’s epic trilogy for adults introduces the castle-kingdom of Gormenghast, an exaggerated, baroque, stylised world that merges Gothic and fantasy literature inspiring future generations of children’s writers.

Question 23

1976

Interview with the Vampire: Sensitive blood-suckers

Answer 23

Anne Rice establishes the idea of the ‘sympathetic vampire’.

Rice’s vampire couple, introspective, guilt-ridden narrator Louis and charismatic, amoral anti-hero Lestat are far removed from the traditional idea of the vampire. This paves the way for the brooding romantic vampire found in modern popular culture, such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, True Blood and Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight novels. These achieve great popular success, reigniting interest in vampire tales and introducing Gothic to a new audience.

Question 24

1977

The Bloody Chamber: Feminist Gothic

Answer 24

Angela Carter rewrites fairy tales from a feminist perspective.

Carter’s collection of short stories is perhaps the most famous example of feminist Gothic. Her retelling of traditional children’s stories exposes some of the major Gothic themes, including incest, violence and the objectification of women.

Question 25

2000

House of Leaves: 21st Century Gothic

Answer 25

Mark Z Danielewski’s cult 700-page novel redefines Gothic for the twenty-first century.

The novel brings many traditional elements of Gothic together, while turning the process of reading itself into a labyrinth with convoluted footnotes, different typefaces, elaborate arrangements of text on the page, and passages in code, mirror writing, musical notation and Braille.