THE END OF THE 18 th CENTURY

BROUGHT THE SO-CALLED GOTHIC NOVELS TO POPULARITY. THE INTEREST IN SUCH NOVELS WAS COMMON TO ALL STRATA OF SOCIETY. THE GOTHIC INFLUENCE, HOWEVER DID NOT CEASE AFTER THIS PERIOD: TODAY’S GHOST AND HORROR NOVELS, WHICH ARE SO KEENLY READ ALL OVER THE WORLD, COME FROM THE 18 TH-CENTURY GOTHIC NOVEL.

The rationalistic outlook of the elightenment proved unsatisfactory

Reason seemed powerless to correct the evils of society such as the misery and ugliness brought about by industrialization

The supremacy of reason as the only path to knowledge and progress had led to the repression of emotion and feeling and reason had turned into a sort of mental prison.

The appeal was to the heart and the relationship between sense and sensibility

There was a growing interest in humble and everyday life

The country was considered the ideal place for meditation

A new taste for the desolate, the love of ruins, graveyards, ancient castles and abbeys was part of the revival of interest in the past as opposed to the present ugly reality

The rediscovery of the art, architecture, legends, and popular traditions of the Middle Ages manifested itself in the Gothic vogue (it was a facet of exoticism)

DAVID HUME (1711-1776)The Scottish historian and philosopher denied the

objectivity of experience as stated by Locke and wrote:

“Beauty is no quality in things themselves: it exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty”.

THIS PROVOKED A SHIFT FROM AN OBJECTIVE TO A SUBJECTIVE VISION OF BEAUTY

A

PHILOSOPHICA

L ENQUIRY

INTO THE

ORIGIN OF OUR

IDEAS OF THE

SUBLIME AND

THE BEAUTIFUL

(1756)

Edmund Burke

1764 Horace Walpole

THE CASTLE OF OTRANTO

1786 William Beckford

VATHEK

1794 Ann Radcliffe THE MYSTERIES

OF UDOLPHO

1796 Matthew Lewis

THE MONK

1797 Ann Radcliffe THE ITALIAN

1818 Mary Shelley FRANKENSTEIN

Horace Walpole (1717-1797), fourth Earl of

Orford, son of Sir Robert Walpole, introduced

and named the genre with The Castle of Otranto:

A Gothic Story (1764).

Educated at Eton and King's College Cambridge.

Between 1739 and 1741 Horace Walpole toured

France and Italy with his friend the poet Thomas

Gray (1716-71). On his return to England,

Walpole became a Member of Parliament .

Shortly after taking up his seat, Walpole leased

(1747) then bought (1749) Strawberry Hill in

Twickenham, London. Following his purchase,

Strawberry Hill was remodelled in Gothic style,

something resembling the set for a Hammer

Horror movie.

It was the Gothic atmosphere of Strawberry Hill

that led to the writing of The Castle of Otranto.

One night, early June 1764, Walpole fell asleep in

the gloom of Strawberry Hill and had a

nightmare. The nightmare became The Castle of

Otranto.

HORACE WALPOLE

1717- 1797

Horace Walpole: I waked one morning at the beginning of last June from a dream, of which

all I could recover was, that I had thought myself in an ancient castle (a very natural dream for a head filled like mine with Gothic story) and that on the uppermost bannister of a great staircase I saw a gigantic hand in armour. In the evening I sat down and began to write, without knowing in the least what I intended to say or relate. The work grew on my hands, and I grew fond of it - add that I was very glad to think of anything rather than politics - in short I was so engrossed in my tale, which I completed in less than two months, that one evening I wrote from the time I had drunk my tea, about six o'clock, till half an hour after one in the morning, when my hand and fingers were so weary, that I could not hold the pen to finish the sentence, but left Matilda and Isabella talking, in the middle of a paragraph.

The Castle of Otranto is a little over the top. It is almost as though Walpole was writing a parody of the very genre he was creating. It contains all the set pieces of Gothic fiction, the crumbling Gothic castle, frightened Isabella fleeing through a long subterranean passage has almost become the trade mark of the horror movie.

In 1747 he leased his 'little Gothic castle', a forty acre estate in Twickenham called 'Strawberry Hill'. After he purchased it two years later he would begin his passionate and monumental task of doubling its size, assisted by "The Committee of Taste" John Chute, the artist Richard Bentley and himself. He remodelled the exterior with Georgian Gothic architectural details such as battlements and towers and added extensive gardens and landscaping. Inside, the rooms were adorned with biblical scenes and portraits of ancestors. Walpole filled its rooms from his eclectic collection of furnishings, antiquities and works of art. In his library he amassed a huge collection of materials including historical prints and collections of poems and plays published during the reign of George III. Windows were meticulously replaced with 16th and 17th century stained glass pieces that were an integral part of Walpole's vision. He added a library, gallery, a star chamber, an armoury, bedrooms and an oratory. Though he was by no means Catholic he borrowed heavily elements from the gothic church aesthetic.

THE ARCHETYPAL

GOTHIC FICTION

Despite its early date of appearance, THE CASTLE OF OTRANTO may be rightly said to begin Romantic fiction in England, especially that based on mystery and horror. The main features of Walpole’s novel – fear, suspance, a love of ruins and night scenes – will be taken up by countless Romantic novelists and poets.

Mary and Percy Bysshe Shelley spent the summer of 1816 in Switzerland with their baby, William, and Claire Clairmont, Mary’s stepsister. There they met with Lord Byron and William Polidori, Byron’s doctor. One evening they met at Villa Diodati, Byron’s villa.

“Incessant rain often confined us for days to the house.Some volumes of ghost stories, translated from the German into French, fell into our hands.(…)

“We will each write a ghost story” said Lord Byron; and his proposition was acceded to. There were four of us. The noble author began a tale, a fragment…Shelley commenced one founded on the experiences of his early life. Poor Polidori had some terrible idea about a skull – headed lady… I busied myself to think of a story - a story to rival those which had excited us to this task…”

By MARY SHELLEY

THE CREATION OF THE MONSTER

Frankenstein, a Swiss scientist, manages to create a human being by joining parts selected from corpses. Despite careful preparation, the result of the experiment is ugly and revolting; the monster becomes a murderer and in the end he destroys his creator. The story is not told chronologically and is introduced to us by a series of letters written by Walton, a young explorer on a voyage of expedition to the North Pole, to his sister Margaret Saville.

A brave hero, a persecuted heroine & a villain

Supernatural characters & events (Alfonso’s ghost, the gigantic helmet)

Third person omniscient narrator

The creator & his creature, Captain Walton

A monster created through scientific experiments

First person narration, epistolary novel, three different narrators.

Frankenstein