THE GOTHIC NOVELS OF THE 18TH CENTURY:


The Gothic Novel emerged as a specific literary genre in the latter half of the 18th century. These novels are marked with an atmosphere of supernatural occurrences, horror, mystery and suspense. The word Gothic originated from the early Germanic tribe, the Goths. Subsequently, the word came to signify anything medieval. During this period, a medieval type of architecture, characterized by the use of pointed arches, vaults, intricate recesses developed and became popular throughout the Western Europe. The term Gothic novel has an alternative term, the Gothic romance.
 This literary genre was a product of an interest in the possibilities for emotional excitement by the ages of superstition and romance generated out of a growing interest in the “Gothic” It is a type of prose fiction pioneered by Horace Walpole with his novel The Castle of Otranto: A Gothic Story, published in 1764. Other successful practitioners of this literary genre were Mrs. Anne Radcliffe (1764-1823) The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) , Clara Reeve,  The Champion of Virtue, a Gothic Story, (1777),William Beckford Vathek,1786 and Matthew Gregory Lewis (1775-1818) The Monk, 1796.

Main Features of a Gothic Novel:
There are some features typical of this genre. They are- unnerving setting, like a haunted castle, atmosphere steeped in mystery and suspense, ominous signs and curses, nightmares, a typical villain or an antihero, a damsel in distress, a love story, emotional distress resulted from the love affair, fear and paranormal or supernatural activity.
 The setting of the novel is supposed to be gloomy, like an ancient, haunted castle, furnished with dungeons, moats, secret doorways, intricate passages, sliding panels. The story concentrates on the torture inflicted in an innocent heroine by a cruel lascivious villain. The Gothic novel is also characterized by its abundant use of the ghosts, apparitions, mysterious figures, supernatural incidents. The novelists aimed at evoking spine chilling terror, by presenting mysterious events and horrific atmosphere.
 The term Gothic was later widely used by the novelists for the kind of fiction, which develops a gloomy atmosphere of terror and often the events in the story represent something uncanny or macabre, and violent. It may also deal with aberrant psychological states, like in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818).Later; the novels of this genre were interpreted from a psychoanalytic perspective, as the external manifestation of the internal fear, guilt and perverse impulses of a civilized mind.


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