Gothic fiction: Difference between revisions

The first work to call itself Gothic was [[Horace Walpole]]'s 1764 novel ''[[The Castle of Otranto]]'', later subtitled "A Gothic Story". Subsequent 18th-century contributors included [[Clara Reeve]], [[Ann Radcliffe]], [[William Beckford (novelist)|William Thomas Beckford]], and [[Matthew Gregory Lewis|Matthew Lewis]]. The Gothic influence continued into the early 19th century; works by the [[Romantic poetry|Romantic poets]], like [[Samuel Taylor Coleridge]] and [[Lord Byron]], and novelists such as [[Mary Shelley]], [[Charles Maturin]], [[Walter Scott]] and [[E. T. A. Hoffmann]] frequently drew upon gothic motifs in their works.

[[Alexander Pope]], who had a considerable influence on Walpole, was the first significant poet of the 18th century to write a poem in an authentic Gothic manner.<ref>{{Cite thesis|author=Saraoorian, Vahe |url=https://etd.ohiolink.edu/apexprod/rws_etd/send_file/send?accession=bgsu1554464085299421&disposition=inline |title=The Way To Otranto: Gothic Elements In Eighteenth-Century English Poetry |type=PhD dissertation |publisher=Bowling Green State University |date=1970 |access-date=May 4, 2022}}</ref> ''[[Eloisa to Abelard]]'' (1717), a tale of star-crossed lovers, one doomed to a life of seclusion in a convent, and the other in a monastery, abounds in gloomy imagery, religious terror, and suppressed passion. The influence of Pope's poem is found throughout 18th-century Gothic literature, including the novels of Walpole, Radcliffe, and Lewis.<ref>{{Cite thesis |author=Virginia Stoops, Marion|url=https://etd.ohiolink.edu/apexprod/rws_etd/send_file/send?accession=osu1166460676&disposition=inline|title=Gothic Elements in Pope's Eloisa to Abelard |type=MA thesis |publisher=Ohio State University |date=1973|access-date=May 4, 2022}}</ref>

At the height of the Gothic novel's popularity in the 1790s, the genre was almost synonymous with [[Ann Radcliffe]], whose works were highly anticipated and widely imitated. ''[[The Romance of the Forest]]'' (1791) and ''[[The Mysteries of Udolpho]]'' (1794) were particularly popular.<ref name="Sucur">{{Cite encyclopedia|title=Gothic fiction|encyclopedia=The Literary Encyclopedia.|last=Sucur|first=Slobodan|date=2007-05-06|issn=1747-678X}}</ref> In an essay on Radcliffe, [[Walter Scott]], writes of the popularity of ''Udolpho'' at the time, "The very name was fascinating, and the public, who rushed upon it with all the eagerness of curiosity, rose from it with unsated appetite. When a family was numerous, the volumes flew, and were sometimes torn from hand to hand."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://archive.org/details/livesnovelists01scotgoog/page/n5/mode/2up |title=Lives of the Novelists |last=Scott |first=Walter |publisher=Carey & Lea|page=195| date=1825}}</ref> Radcliffe's novels were often seen as the feminine and rational opposite of a more violently horrifying male Gothic associated with [[Matthew Lewis (writer)|Matthew Lewis]]. Radcliffe's final novel, [[The Italian (Radcliffe novel)|''The Italian'']] (1797), responded to Lewis's ''[[The Monk]]'' (1796).,<ref name="Hogle"/> Radcliffe and Lewis have been called "the two most significant Gothic novelists of the 1790s."<ref>{{Cite web|author=Miles, Robert|url=https://archive.org/details/a_companion_to_the_gothic/page/n49/mode/2up|title=
A Companion to the Gothic |date=2000|page=49|isbn=978-0-63123-199-8}}</ref>

The popularity and influence of ''The Mysteries of Udolpho'' and ''The Monk'' saw the rise inof shorter and cheaper versions of Gothic pamphletsliterature in the forms of [[Gothic bluebooks]] and [[chapbooks]], which in many cases were plagiarized and abridgments of well known Gothic novels.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Thomas|first=Susan |url=https://library.unimelb.edu.au/asc/whats-on/exhibitions/dark-imaginings/gothicresearch/gothic-bluebooks-the-popular-thirst-for-fear-and-dread |title=Gothic bluebooks: The popular thirst for fear and dread|publisher=[[University of Melbourne]]}}</ref> ''The Monk'' in particular, with its immoral and sensational content, saw many plagiarized copies, and was notably drawn from in the cheaper pamphlets.<ref>{{Cite book |last=J. Potter|first=Franz J. |url=https://thedarkartsjournal.wordpress.com/2021/05/14/review-gothic-chapbooks/ |title=Gothic Chapbooks, Bluebooks and Shilling Shockers, 1797-1830 |date=2021 |publisher=University of Wales Press |isbn=978-1-78683-670-0}}</ref>

Byron was also the host of the celebrated ghost-story competition involving himself, [[Percy Bysshe Shelley]], [[Mary Shelley]], and [[John William Polidori]] at the Villa Diodati on the banks of [[Lake Geneva]] in the summer of 1816. This occasion was productive of both Mary Shelley's ''[[Frankenstein|Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus]]'' (1818), and Polidori's ''[[The Vampyre]]'' (1819), featuring the Byronic [[Lord Ruthven (vampire)|Lord Ruthven]]. ''The Vampyre'' has been accounted by cultural critic Christopher Frayling as one of the most influential works of fiction ever written and spawned a craze for [[Vampire literature|vampire fiction]] and theatre (and, latterly, film) that has not ceased to this day.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Frayling | first =Christopher | author-link =Christopher Frayling | title =Vampyres: Lord Byron to Count Dracula | publisher =Faber | date =1992 | orig-year=1978 |location=London |isbn=978-0-571-16792-0 |url =https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780571167920}}</ref> AlhoughAlthough clearly influenced by the Gothic tradition, Mary Shelley's novel is often considered the first science fiction novel, despite the novel's lack of any scientific explanation for the monster's animation and the focus instead on the moral dilemmas and consequences of such a creation.

During two decades, the most famous author of Gothic literature in Germany was the polymath [[E. T. A. Hoffmann]]. Lewis's ''[[The Monk]]'' influenced and even mentioned it in his novel ''[[The Devil's Elixirs]]'' (1815). The novel explores the motive of [[Doppelgänger]], a term coined by another German author and supporter of Hoffmann, [[Jean Paul|Jean-Paul]], in his humorous novel ''[[Siebenkäs]]'' (1796–1797). He also wrote an opera based on [[Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué]]'s Gothic story ''[[Undine (novella)|Undine]]'' (1816), for which de la Motte Fouqué wrote the libretto.<ref>Hogle, p. 105–122.</ref> Aside from Hoffmann and de la Motte Fouqué, three other important authors from the era were [[Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff]] (''[[The Marble Statue]]'', 1818), [[Ludwig Achim von Arnim]] (''Die Majoratsherren'', 1819), and [[Adelbert von Chamisso]] (''Peter Schlemihls wundersame Geschichte'', 1814).<ref>Cusack, Barry, p. 91, pp. 118–123.</ref> After them, [[Wilhelm Meinhold]] wrote ''[[The Amber Witch]]'' (1838) and ''[[Sidonia von Bork]]'' (1847).

The key author of the transition from Romanticism to Realism, [[Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol]], who was also one of the most important authors of Romanticism, produced a number of works that qualify as Gothic fiction. Each of his three short story collections features a number of stories that fall within the Gothic genre or contain Gothic elements. They include "[[St. John's Eve (short story)|Saint John's Eve]]" and "[[A Terrible Vengeance]]" from ''[[Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka]]'' (1831–1832), "[[The Portrait (short story)|The Portrait]]" from ''Arabesques'' (1835), and "[[Viy (story)|Viy]]" from [[Mirgorod (short story collection)|''Mirgorod'']] (1835). While all are well known, the latter is probably the most famous, having inspired at least eight film adaptations (two now considered lost), one animated film, two documentaries, and a video game. Gogol's work differs from Western European Gothic fiction, as his cultural influences drew on [[Ukrainian folklore]], the [[Cossacks|Cossack]] lifestyle, and, as a religious man, [[History of the Russian Orthodox Church|Orthodox Christianity]].<ref>Simpson, c. p. 21.</ref><ref>Cornwell (1999). Neil Cornwell, pp. 189–234.</ref>

By the [[Victorian era]], Gothic had ceased to be the dominant genre for novels in England, partly replaced by more sedate historical fiction. However, Gothic short stories continued to be popular, published in magazines or as small [[chapbooks]] called [[penny dreadfuls]].<ref name="Birch"/> The most influential Gothic writer from this period was the American [[Edgar Allan Poe]], who wrote numerous short stories and poems reinterpreting Gothic tropes. His story "[[The Fall of the House of Usher]]" (1839) revisits classic Gothic tropes of aristocratic decay, death, and madness.<ref>(Skarda and Jaffe (1981) pp. 181–182.</ref> Poe is now considered the master of the American Gothic.<ref name="Birch"/> In England, one of the most influential penny dreadfuls is the anonymously authored ''[[Varney the Vampire]]'' (1847), which introduced the [[trope (literature)|trope]] of vampires having sharpened teeth.<ref>[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brian-cronin/did-vampires-not-have-fan_b_8415636.html "Did Vampires Not Have Fangs in Movies Until the 1950s?"]. ''Huffington Post''. Retrieved 27 September 2017.</ref> Another notable English author of penny dreadfuls is [[George W. M. Reynolds]], known for ''[[The Mysteries of London]]'' (1844), ''Faust'' (1846), ''Wagner the Wehr-wolf'' (1847), and ''The Necromancer'' (1857).<ref>Baddeley (2002) pp. 143–144.)</ref> [[Elizabeth Gaskell]]'s tales "The Doom of the Griffiths" (1858), "Lois the Witch", and "The Grey Woman" all employ one of the most common themes of Gothic fiction: the power of ancestral sins to curse future generations, or the fear that they will. [[M. R. James]], an English medievalist whose stories are still popular today, is known as the originator of the "antiquarian ghost story." In Spain, [[Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer]] stood out with his romantic poems and short tales, some depicting supernatural events. Today some consider him the most-read Spanish writer after [[Miguel de Cervantes]].<ref>{{Cite news |url=http://www.laprovincia.es/cultura/2011/07/28/becquer-escritor-leido-despues-cervantes/390220.html |title=Bécquer es el escritor más leído después de Cervantes |date=July 28, 2011 |access-date=February 22, 2018 |newspaper=La Provincia. Diario de las Palmas |language=es}}</ref>

*{{Cite book |last=Aldana Reyes |first=Xavier |title=Spanish Gothic: National Identity, Collaboration and Cultural Adaptation |year=2017 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |isbn=978-1137306005|ref=none}}