Jennifer Harrell

Gothic Genre 

          Growing up, I always seemed to be the unique one out of all my friends. I liked anything that seemed to be weird and didn’t fit in. Obviously, once I became interested in literature, I was drawn to the gothic genre. I admire anything that might seem strange to others. Such as, vampires, zombies, werewolves, ghosts, anything supernatural or suspenseful in a gothic way. When I started to begin my research, there was no doubt in my mind what to write it on, I knew I wanted to write it on the gothic, but I didn’t know what about the gothic to write about. But then hit me that even though I take delight in gothic literature, I didn’t necessarily know the origin of it. After the light bulb went off in my head, I set out on my quest to find out the history of gothic literature.

          The first place I visited was Dictionary.com. I wanted to find out the exact meaning of the word in context to writing. It defines that word as, “noting or pertaining to a style of literature characterized by a gloomy setting, grotesque, mysterious, or violent events, and an atmosphere of degeneration and decay: 19th-century gothic novels.” After that, I wanted to find out where it began. I then turned to the internet. Everywhere I turned, people were naming one person to be the creator of gothic. This was Horace Walpole who wrote The Castle of Otranto in the year 1764. Thus began a new genre of writing. People wanted to feel emotions, and that is exactly what gothic literature did to them. They felt fear, suspense, and longing.

          After reading repetitive information on the internet, I ventured into a place that most students don’t, the library. I went through three books about gothic literature and found some interesting information. I finally learned the extent of the era. It ranged from 1760 to 1820. Some of the early writes of the genre were Horace Walpole who is known to be the creator of gothic literature, Ann Radcliffe, and Matthew Lewis.

 Kilgour, an author of one of the books I read, defines gothic by saying, “One of the powerful images conjured up by the words ‘gothic novel’ is that of a shadowy form rising from a mysterious place: the laboratory table, Dracula creeping from his coffin, or, more generally, the slow opening of a crypt to reveal a dark and obscure figure.” This statement creates such a vast image in my mind of all the creepy things that you can only imagine through reading.

Another author, MacAndrew, defines it by saying, “Gothic fiction gives shape to concepts of the place of evil in the human mind.” Which is true, even today we go to see horror movies because brings out that evil that most people don’t ever act upon, but still think about. This assignment definitely taught me so much information about the gothic that I would have never learned otherwise, and has made my passion even greater.

Works Cited:

Hans, "A HISTORY OF GOTHIC". 3-15-2010 <http://www.fluxeuropa.com/history_of_gothic.htm>.

Kilgour, Maggie. The Rise of the Gothic Novel. London: Routledge, 1995

MacAndrew, Elizabeth. The Gothic Tradition in Fiction. New York: Columia University Press, 1979.

Punter, David. A Companion to the Gothic. Malden: Blackwell , 2000.

"The First Wave of Gothic Novels: 1765-1820". 3-15-2010 <http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/gothic/history.html

Voller, Jack G.   "Horace Walpole."   The Literary Gothic.  4 Aug. 2008. Web. 29 March 2010.