THE TWO MAIN STRESSES OF THE GOTHIC
Terror and horror are the terms adopted by Ann Radcliffe in her essay On the
Supernatural in Poetry (1826) to describe the emotional responses that the Gothic novel
tries to elicit from the reader. Terror is characterised by obscurity or in the indeterminate
treatment of threatening events; it expands the soul and "awakens the faculties to a high
degree of life".
Horror, on the other hand, almost annihilates the reader's capacity of response by means
of an explicit display of atrocities. The main representative of terror was Ann Radcliffe,
while Matthew Lewis reflects horror in his novel The Monk (1795).The difference between
terror and horror is that between terrible apprehension and painful realization, between the
smell of death and stumbling against a corpse. Terror creates an atmosphere of
superstitious fear, while horror crudely presents the physical revolting macabre in an
atmosphere of spiritual despair.
Tratto da Spiazzi Tavella Lit & Lab, Zanichelli, vol. 2, p. 368.