Gothic novel: Encyclopedia II - Gothic novel - The first gothic novels

Gothic novel - The first gothic novels

The term "gothic" came to be applied to the literary genre precisely because the genre dealt with such emotional extremes and dark themes, and because it found its most natural settings in the buildings of this style -- castles, mansions, and monasteries, often remote, crumbling, and ruined. It was a fascination with this architecture and its related art, poetry (see Graveyard Poets), and even landscape gardening that inspired the first wave of gothic novelists. For example, Horace Walpole, whose The Castle of Otranto is often regarded as the first true gothic novel, was obsessed with fake medieval gothic architecture, and built his own house, Strawberry Hill, in that form, sparking off a fashion for gothic revival.

Walpole's novel arose out of this obsession with the medieval. He originally claimed that the book was a real medieval romance he had discovered and republished. Thus was born the gothic novel's association with fake documentation to increase its effect. Indeed, The Castle of Otranto was originally subtitled A Romance -- a literary form held by educated taste to be tawdry and unfit even for children, due to its superstitious elements -- but Walpole revived some of the elements of the medieval romance in a new form. The basic plot created many other gothic staples, including a threatening mystery and an ancestral curse, as well as countless trappings such as hidden passages and oft-fainting heroines.

It was, however, Ann Radcliffe who created the gothic novel in its now-standard form. Among other elements, Radcliffe introduced the brooding figure of the gothic villain, which developed into the Byronic hero. Unlike Walpole's, her novels, beginning with The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), were best-sellers, and virtually everyone in English society was reading them. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818) is undoubtedly one of the most important literary triumphs of this period.

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