LITR 4328 American Renaissance Research Posts 2015 (research post assignment) Research Post 1

Nathan Mesloh

3/19/15

                                                               What Caused the Darkness to Spread?

     During the span of class we have read many gothic works, many of them being works by Edgar Allan Poe such as Ligeia and The Raven. Being a major fan of horror movies such as Paranormal Activity, Insidious, and others of the like I’ve been extremely excited about reading these works, even though the gothic is more than just horror. But I started to wonder just how far back this genre went, and what the major points of its uprise were.

     My first search led me to a British website where a Professor by the name of John Mullan examined the origins of the gothic and posted his findings. It starts with a very interesting statement by saying that the entire genre started off all as a sophisticated joke (bl.uk). The first time the word “gothic” was applied to a story was when Horace Walpole wrote The Castle of Otranto in 1764 and added “A Gothic Story” as a subtitle. This book started a small wave of following novels throughout the rest of the 1700s (http://interestingliterature.com/).

     This wave of novels sparked the popularity of the gothic style. One of the later ones was the still popular Frankenstein by Mary Shelley in 1818. Though this was near the end of the wave it was an important step for gothic writing because the nature of the story gave form to a scientific approach of writing. Whereas this wave may not have been the biggest contribution to the gothic becoming such a popular style they were the start (http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu).

     Edgar Allan Poe was certainly one of the biggest gothic writers of all time, with the way he mastered the style and exploited fears of readers. He became drawn to the style because of his fascination with fear and how it affects people (bl.uk). Before Poe, the style focused more on the setting and darkness and the supernatural but not a focus on fear. Poe however started turning gothic into horror and made death and decay a common theme (articlemyriad.com).

      To summarize my findings, the gothic style was started in 1764 with the novel The Castle of Otranto which was written as somewhat of a joke. It sparked a wave that produced Frankenstein, one of the biggest novels of the genre. It was Poe, however, who started turning to making gothic into horror because of his fascination with fear. Poe understood fear and managed to incorporate it so well that he is one of the most popular gothic writers today. Researching this has answered my question fully, and I very much enjoy having more knowledge about a genre I very much enjoy.

                                                               Works Cited

"A Brief Historical Overview." A Brief Historical Overview. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Mar. 2015.

"The First Gothic Novel." Interesting Literature. N.p., 27 Apr. 2014. Web. 20 Mar. 2015.

"Gothic Qualities in the Works of Poe." Article Myriad. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Mar. 2015.

"The Origins of the Gothic." The British Library. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Mar. 2015.