The Gothic

The Gothic was a literary movement that put focus on ruin, decay, terror, and chaos. It was developed during the Romantic period and was a response to rational thought and reason. It is meant to emphasize human emotions, instead of reasoning. The readers imagination is stoked with dark scenery and obscurity. It will often center around an old house inhabited by ghosts or family curses.  Key elements that are most always used are: atmosphere which focuses on fear of the unexplained, settings removed from civilization, the paranormal or supernatural, terror, omens, and a lady in distress. In gothic literature, the sublime brings in aspects of humanity. It produces the "strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling" (Edward Burke On the Sublime 1757). Disruption of harmony is evoked by terror and to cause terror, you need obscurity. Mary Shelley brings the supernatural and gothic into her novel Frankenstein.  Victor's creature was made from death and decay, then brought to life by electricity. Victor used nature to create something unnatural.

https://www.thoughtco.com/gothic-literature-2207825

https://the-artifice.com/the-sublimes-effects-in-gothic-fiction/

https://natureofwriting.com/courses/literary-theory-1/lessons/edmund-burke/topic/the-sublime

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein#/media/File:Frontispiece_to_Frankenstein_1831.jpg

Associated Place(s)

Event date:

1831