Sample Student Research Project 2012
Essay
LITR
4232 American Renaissance
Sample Student Research Project 2012
Essay
Jennifer Hamilton
Continuous Change: History of the Gothic
Gothic is a term that is used broadly to describe many different forms of
literature, and as a result has many different meanings. Founded in the late 17th
century in
To understand the changes that have occurred in the gothic literary
tradition, we have to examine the beginning of the use of the gothic. While it
is hard to define the exact reason that the gothic genre was formed, it is not
too farfetched to see the gothic, under the broader umbrella of romanticism, as
a reaction to the Enlightenment of the 17th century. Society during
the era of enlightenment was dedicated to the advancement of knowledge and the
sciences, and valued the truth over emotion and feelings. This was also the
period of great revolution, both political and industrial. Toward the end of the
1700’s there was a return to romanticism and emotion found in literature.
According to David Punter in The
Literature of Terror: The Gothic Tradition, the romantic tradition was
revived to recreate the ancient traditions and escape the present. As a result,
the gothic form that emerged represented the dark side and mystery of
Romanticism (4). While there may have been earlier representations of the
gothic, critics agree that Horace Walpole (1764-1797) is credited with the
founding of the genre in 1764 with his work
The
Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823) is known for many of her works, but in this
paper we will examine only The Mysteries
of Udolpho. “Ann Radcliffe’s gothic is noted for its ‘explained
supernatural’ in which every suspicion of ghost, fairy, or other manifestation
of the spirit is strictly ‘naturalized’ as a misapprehension – a trick of the
light or the nervous mind” (Sandner 91). In
Udolpho, Emily, despite the illusion
of the supernatural is able to control her feelings and not fall victim to the
gothic imagination. According to Andrew Smith in
Gothic Literature, Emily’s ability to
remain sensible throughout the novel is due to what Radcliffe sees as the moral
virtue of women’s sensibility (31). Although the novel is filled with gothic
elements, such as an ancient castle, death of the father, evil villain and
secrets, everything has an explanation. On his deathbed Emily’s father tells her
to remain in control of her senses:
“do not indulge in the pride of fine feeling, the romantic error of amiable
minds. Those, who really possess sensibility, ought early to be taught, that it
is a dangerous quality, which is continually extracting the excess of misery, or
delight, from every surrounding circumstance. And, since, in our passage through
this world, painful circumstances occur more frequently than pleasing ones, and
since our sense of evil is, I fear, more acute than our sense of good, we become
the victims of our feelings, unless we can in some degree command them” (72).
This advice would echo throughout the novel, and every supernatural event would
have an explanation. However, the reader is still left with the impression at
the end of the story that although everything was explained, the supernatural
could have still been possible, since the feelings created in the gothic novel
are psychological and stay in the readers mind.
Many works that are considered gothic are also usually able to be placed
in other categories of literature that interconnect. Mary Shelley (1797-1851)
is best known for her work Frankenstein,
published in 1818. This work is considered not only gothic and romantic but is
also considered as an early precursor to science fiction. Where the earlier
gothic literature focused on the supernatural such as ghosts, Shelley focused on
the scientific. The monster created by Frankenstein in the novel was both
natural and unnatural, and served as a warning to modern times about playing God
and taking science too far. Shelley examines the role of evil in her novel,
which seems to be something learned and not something humans are born with.
Smith writes that Frankenstein deals
with one of the issues of romanticism, which is the role of nature (Smith 42).
This creature is both natural and unnatural, being created by man from pieces of
humans but humans who are dead. Smith uses this quote from Frankenstein to
illustrate his point: “A flash of lightning illuminated the object and
discovered its shape plainly to me; its gigantic stature, and the deformity of
its aspect, more hideous than belongs to humanity” (qtd Smith 46).
After 1830, during the Victorian period, a new form of the gothic which
had been developing emerged. This form explored the psychology of good and evil
in the human mind through aspects of fantasy and realism. To the Victorians the
middle ages represented the ultimate perfection of life and art along with the
ideal social order (Ringel 22). To the writers of this period the haunted spaces
that were described in the novel were symbols for the haunted minds of the
characters, and the ancient ruins stood for the decay of society. Influential
European writers of this period include, but are not limited to: Charlotte
Bronte, Le Fanu, and Bram Stoker. This was also a very important time for
American gothic literature, with writers such as Washington Irving, Nathaniel
Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe.
The 1800’s were a time of rapid industrialization along with
urbanization, and these issues are commonly found in literature of the time.
Fear of the changes that were occurring in society became represented through
the internalization of gothic elements. Authors of these times, both European
and American, would hold the greatest influence over the future of literature,
film and music. One of the writers that most people associate with gothic
literature today is Bram Stoker. Although not the first person to write about
vampires (Stoker was himself influenced by Le Fanu’s
Carmella), his best known work
Dracula, written in 1897, led to the
popularization of vampire fiction. Divided between the rural Transylvanian
landscape and urban England, Dracula
questions the notion of humanity that people of the time were facing. While it
is obvious that Dracula is no longer human, Stoker examines what it is that
separates him from the other characters. The scariest thing about
Dracula is that it causes the reader
to question reality, and what we believe to be true. According to Van Helsing,
the most important difference that separates humans from vampires, or the
undead, is the soul. Everything we learn about Dracula seems to be in defiance
of nature. He is immortal, undead, which means he is dead but still alive, and
his actions appear unnatural. The character of Dracula is similar to the
creature in Shelley’s Frankenstein,
causing the reader to question the nature of humanity. While at first feeling
captivation with Dracula, soon Jonathan wrote he felt fear and terror: “What
manner of man is this, or what manner of creature is it in the semblance of man?
I feel the dread of this horrible place overpowering me” (58). There are many
elements of gothic found in the novel; from the ancient castle of Dracula and
his ancestors to the modern landscape of London filled with industrialized
buildings and smoke and fog, Stoker is able to connect the past with the
present. The internalization of the gothic allows the writer to bring the
feelings of the past into the modern landscape, without having to set the story
in the past.
One of the problems faced by American gothic writers is that as a new
nation, America did not have the settings used by European writers to place
their story in. One of the ways they dealt with this problem is by creating the
wilderness gothic, such as found in work by Irving. While many critics focus on
what made American literature different, Ringel emphasizes the continuity
between the old world and the folklore found in the literature of the new world
(Ringel 3). American gothic deals with concerns of the past, and their
unwillingness to face the unpleasant side of their heritage (Ringel 13).
Washington Irving (1783-1859) is the first influential author to place the
settings of his story in America. Written about 1819 to 1820,
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow tries to
deal with the American past in a modern setting. The main problem of the story
is that Sleepy Hollow seems to be stuck in time. In the beginning, Irving wrote:
“it is such little retired Dutch valleys, found here and there embosomed in the
great State of New York, that population, manners, and customs remain fixed,
while the great torrent of migration and improvement, which is making such
incessant changes in other parts of this restless country, sweeps by them
unobserved” (section 6, found on Dr. White’s course site). Throughout the work,
folklore and legends are the main method that the gothic is transmitted to the
reader. Haunted spaces are mentioned numerous times: “marvelous tales of ghosts
and goblins, and haunted fields, and haunted brooks, and haunted bridges, and
haunted houses, and particularly of the headless horseman” (section 17). The
imagery invoked by Irving throughout forces the feeling of fear and gloom upon
the reader. It is the subconscious belief in supernatural happenings (even while
at the same time denying them) that connects America with the old world European
beliefs of witches, ghosts and other supernatural occurrences, that comes across
in early American writing. Everybody in modern America recognizes the story of
the headless horseman, even if they have never read the work. When Ichabod saw
the headless horseman, he described: “he beheld something huge, misshapen and
towering. It stirred not, but seemed gathered up in the gloom, like some
gigantic monster ready to spring upon the traveler” (section 59). At the
conclusion of the story, the reader learns that, perhaps, the headless horseman
was only Ichabod’s imagination playing with him; the unknown appears monstrous
and foreign.
There is historic relevancy in the gothic manifestations of fear in
American literature. “From the earliest explorers through the Puritans and into
the twentieth century, dwellers in New England have endowed the native peoples,
the fields and the forests, and later the factories, towns, and cities, with
shapes of fear” (Ringel 8). The fear of the supernatural, found in both medieval
and Renaissance eras in Europe, will develop itself into the Puritan belief that
the devil is against New England (Ringel 75). In the 17th century,
this fear culminated in what we now know as the Salem Witch Trials. Though
before the time of the authors examined here, the fear of witchcraft is found
throughout American literature up until the twentieth century. Ringel writes:
“It is the learned view of witchcraft—of pacts, sabbats, and perverse
sexuality—that has become familiar to us from the eighteenth-century Gothic
novel and its descendants in popular fiction and film. The witch’s curse and the
tortures of the Inquisition swiftly became gothic clichés along with evil monks
and crumbling castles (Ringel 88). Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864), born in
Salem, would have been familiar with this aspect of American history. For
example, in his work, The House of the
Seven Gables, Hawthorne uses a witch to bring forth the curse in the story.
Puritan doctrine, concerned with the fall of man, is present in much of
Hawthorne’s writing which deals with issues of good versus evil (Ringel 8).
Considered one of the most influential writers of the period, Edgar Allan
Poe (1809-1849) would become synonymous with the term gothic. The westward
expansion of America into the frontiers would result in a change in New England.
This shift in demographics would lead to the belief that New England was
experiencing a spiritual decay, and lead to a preoccupation with the mysteries
of death (Ringel 144). Poe, more than any other author examined, focused on the
psychological implications of sin and guilt. His work is filled with haunted
spaces, primarily set in Europe, death and decay. Poe, like no other, is able to
convey intense emotion through his writing, deeply impacting the reader. When
reading The Fall of the House of Usher
(1839), it is impossible to miss the sense of gloom the narrative gives. In the
first paragraph, he wrote: “view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not
how it was – but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of
insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit” (section 1, Dr. White’s course page). The
haunted building here is able to represent the evil of the family, and the sin
it represents. One of the themes commonly found in other works of Poe, the fear
of pre-mature burial, is found here as well. In the story, Usher, afraid of
burying his sister alive, orders her to be entombed in a temporary tomb.
However, his own internal fear seemed to bring his worries into reality. In a
manifestation of the fears of the mind into the external, Usher’s imagination
comes to life when his sister, buried alive, exits her tomb: “For a moment she
remained trembling and reeling to and fro upon the threshold – then, with a low
moaning cry, fell heavily inward upon the person of her brother, and in her
violent and now final death-agonies, bore him to the floor a corpse, and a
victim to the terror he had anticipated” (section 43). It is Poe’s ability to
elicit feelings of terror in the reading that enabled him to influence so many
future artists.
The gothic genre has experienced so many changes from the original
conception, that it is difficult to give an exact definition of the term.
However, in the twentieth century, there are more works that draw inspiration
from the original gothic works than ever. Ringel writes: “the current triumph of
the gothic mode can be seen in the boom in horror fiction and films” (Ringel
204). In the early 1900’s several film adaptations of Bram Stoker’s novel
Dracula were released, such as
Nosferatu in 1922 and
Dracula in 1931. Some of the modern
authors that incorporate elements of the gothic in their work include Anne Rice
and Stephen King. King’s novel, Salem’s
Lot, influenced by Stoker’s Dracula,
brings European vampire mythology into New England (Ringel 207). In 1976, Anne
Rice wrote one of her best known works,
Interview with the Vampire. Not only do these authors draw inspiration
directly from previous gothic literature, but they continue to influence future
work. In 1960, a film version of the Fall
of the House of Usher was released. In the 1990’s film versions of
Bram Stoker’s Dracula, directed by
Francis Ford Coppola was released, along with
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
The gothic genre has been very influential in the development of modern
literature and film. Although the form of the gothic has changed throughout the
years, the feeling of fear and terror invoked has not. As in the case of early
writers, sometimes the value of their work is not discovered in their lifetime.
While these writers have become classic authors that are studied in school, only
the future can know whether the writers of the present will hold any influence
or become known as only a temporary popular author.
Work Cited
“Chronology of Key Events.” Gothic Literature: A Gale Critical Companion. Ed. Jessica
Bomarito. Vol. 1: Topics. Detroit
Library. Web 29 Apr. 2012.
