Gothic Horror

A Brief History

The birth of a genre

• The Gothic Novel is a genre of literature • It combines elements of both horror and romance. • It was ‘invented’ by Horace Walpole - The Castle of

Otranto (1764)• It aimed for ‘a pleasing sort of terror’• It combined melodrama and parody, and explored:

– the joys of extreme emotion, – the thrills of fearfulness and awe inherent in the sublime, – a quest for atmosphere,– and the inevitable decay and collapse of human creations

Religious Conflict

• English Protestants often linked old buildings with what they saw as a dark and terrifying period in history

• A period with harsh laws enforced by torture, and with mysterious, fantastic and superstitious rituals.

• A period dominated by Catholicism, including Roman Catholic excesses such as the Inquisition.

Key Ingredients

• Prominent features:– terror (both psychological

and physical)– mystery– the supernatural– ghosts– haunted houses and Gothic

architecture (e.g. castles)– darkness– death and decay– madness– secrets– hereditary curses.

• Stock characters:– tyrants– villains– bandits– maniacs, – Byronic heroes– persecuted maidens,– madwomen– magicians– vampires and werewolves– monsters and demons– ghosts, – the Devil himself.

Gothic Architecture

• The term "Gothic" often applied to buildings• Often spelled "Gothick", to highlight their

"medievalness”• Castles, mansions, and monasteries, often remote,

crumbling, and ruined. • This fascination inspired the first wave of gothic

novelists. • Horace Walpole, whose The Castle of Otranto (1764) is

the first true gothic novel, was obsessed with gothic architecture, and built his own house in that style (as did Stephen King)

Radcliffe and Lewis

• Radcliffe made the gothic novel socially acceptable

• She introduced the brooding figure of the gothic villain, (which developed into the Byronic hero).

• Radcliffe's novels, above all The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), were best-sellers,

• Matthew Lewis - The Monk (1796). • Highly influential tale of depraved monks, sadistic

inquisitors and spectral nuns (N.B. severe criticism of the Catholic church)

European Gothic

• There were parallel Romantic literary movements, e.g.: – the roman noir ("black novel") in France, – the Schauerroman ("shudder novel") in

Germany

• These works were often more horrific and violent than the English gothic novel.

Byron

• The poetry, romantic adventures and character of Lord Byron, described by a former lover as 'mad, bad and dangerous to know' was another inspiration for the Gothic.

• 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 produced both Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818) and Polidori's The Vampyre (1819)

American Gothic

• An important and innovative re-interpreter of the Gothic in this period was Edgar Allan Poe

• He believed 'that terror is…of the soul’. • His story "The Fall of the House of Usher" (1839)

explores these 'terrors of the soul' whilst revisiting classic Gothic ingredients of decay, death and madness.

• The legendary villainy of the Spanish Inquisition is revisited in "The Pit and the Pendulum" (1842).

Victorian Gothic

• Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886)

• Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891),

• George du Maurier's Trilby (1894), • Henry James's The Turn of the Screw

(1898) • Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897)

20th Century Gothic

• Many modern writers of horror borrow gothic features:– Anne Rice (e.g. Interview with a Vampire)– Stephen King– Susan Hill (e.g. The Woman in Black)– Patrick McGrath (e.g. The Grotesque)

Gothic Media

• The themes of the Gothic novel were transferred into:– Theatre– Film (e.g. 1930s Universal Horror films,

Hammer Horror etc.)– Music (e.g. Black Sabbath, Metallica, King

Diamond etc.)

Some questions:

1. What was considered the first ever Gothic novel?2. What religion was Gothic horror often criticising?3. Name TWO each of the key FEATURES and CHARACTERS

in Gothic Horror.4. Which 1796 book, by Matthew Lewis, heavily influenced all

Gothic Horror to follow?5. What was the Gothic Novel called in a) France; and b)

Germany?6. What important event happened near Lake Geneva in 1816?7. Name one example of Victorian Gothic Horror.8. Name one 20th Century Gothic Horror writer.9. Name one group of Gothic Horror films.10. Name one band heavily influenced by the Gothic movement.