Gothic novel: Encyclopedia II - Gothic novel - Later developments

Gothic novel - Later developments

In Britain, the gothic novel as a genre largely played itself out by 1840. This was helped by the over-saturation of the genre by cheap "pulp" works—which would later morph into cheap horror fiction in the form of "penny dreadfuls"—as well as a decline in the genre's respectability since the turn of the century, caused by the publication of works such as Matthew Gregory Lewis' The Monk (1796), a shocking (particularly at the time) tale of sex, violence and debauchery that almost bordered on the pornographic.

However, the gothic novel had a lasting effect on the development of literary form in the Victorian period. It led to the Victorian craze for short ghost stories, as well as the short, shocking, macabre tale as mastered by the American author Edgar Allan Poe. It also was a heavy influence on Charles Dickens, who read gothic novels as a teenager and incorporated their gloomy atmosphere and melodrama into his own works, shifting them to a more modern period. The mood and themes of the gothic novel held a particular fascination for the Victorians, with their morbid obsession with mourning rituals, Mementos, and mortality in general.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Later developments", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki