Drinkwater 1
Allen Drinkwater
Dr. Nixon
ENGL 602
3 June 2014
Excerpt from The Gothic (David Punter and Glennis Byron)
Introduction
-- Gothic hard to define; almost a genre of convergences
 Historical phenomenon of eighteenth century
 Psychology/Repression
 Moments/Tropes of western literature
 Collection of subgenres (“ghost story, the horror story, the ‘techno-Gothic’”) (p. xvii)
-- Flourishing of Gothic during social upheaval (p. xix)
Civilization and the Goths
-- Goths = one of Germanic tribes eventually taking over Rome (410 CE)
-- “Gothic” becomes mobile term, identified by oppositional situating
 Goths leave no art behind, so framed as the primitive Other that ruined Rome’s
civilization (p. 3-4)
 Later, term “Goth” includes even tribes that invaded Britain
o Term effectively co-opted, turning idea of primitive into the authentic
o “…alternative, if mythical construction of the Gothic past as the site of a true
national, democratic and civilized heritage” (p. 4)
 Whig Party ascribes acts of liberty (Magna Carta/Revolution of 1688) to
deeply ingrained Goth predilections
 “The myth of the Goths” used for political/emotional purposes (p.5)
Gothic in the Eighteenth Century
--Gothic genre/novel born of cultural changes
 Reaction to the ubiquity of reason/rationality
 “..where the classics offered a world of clear rules and limits, Gothic represented excess
and exaggeration, the product of the wild and the uncivilized…” (p. 7)
 Resistance to the values/elegance/structure of civilization (p. 8)
o Gothic literature = Punk rock?
-- “Revival of the Gothic” Principal Areas:
 Ancient British heritage
 Ballads
 English Medieval Poetry
 Medieval Architecture (p. 9)
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--Graveyard poetry precedes Gothic
 Defies classical poetry’s notion that nature serves human needs (p. 10)
o “To learn wisdom, it is necessary to take a quicker and more frightening path,
which is the path not of reason but of intense feeling.”
o “…the mind is overwhelmed by…something greater than itself. What is crucial,
however, is that this ‘something greater’ is inevitably accompanied by terror.” (p.
11)
Gothic and Romantic
-- Romantic writers shaped by (and help shape) the Gothic!
 William Blake as Gothic
o Employs gothic standards, such as in poem Thel (p. 13)
 Graveyard poetry language
 “land unknown” and “voices of the ground” (p. 14)
 Vulnerable heroine
 Journey through the mind
o Uses Gothic for political implications

Samuel Taylor Coleridge as Gothic
o Psychological mood (dejection/disappointment/melancholy) (p. 14)
o Usage of ghosts (of past, haunting present)
 Related to pervasive feelings of guilt (p. 15)

Percy Bysshe Shelley
o Portray the wild/violent/extreme (p. 16)
o Ties of phantoms/ghouls of graveyard poets to earthly injustice (p. 17)

Lord Byron
o Mixed approach to Gothic
 Often satirical
 Condemns religion/politics, but not devoid of reverence (p. 18)

John Keats
o Uses Gothic in tandem with chivalry/medieval themes (p. 18-9).
Science, Industry, and the Gothic
--Gothic arrives with (because?) industrialization & emergent capitalism (p. 20)
--What is it to be human?
 Mechanization/fragmentation causes anxiety
 Frankenstein all about humanity being replaced by fragmented creature (p. 20)
 “Life principle” debate
o Abernathy maintains ties to metaphysical
o Lawrence wholly materialist (p. 21)
--The City is a gothic horror
 Gothic motifs/castles reflect the chaos of newly emerging urban landscapes (p. 22)
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--Evolution as Gothic
 Challenges supposed superiority of human beings
o Identify links to primal urges/desires – All civilization questioned
o Gothic features interplay between the two (e.g, The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll
and Mr. Hyde) (p. 22)
-- Twentieth century technologies revive Gothic anxieties
 Weapons = end of the world
 Artificial intelligence = Sleek version of Frankenstein’s creature (p. 24)
Frankenstein
--- “I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an
inanimate body. For this I had deprived myself of rest and health. I had desired it with an ardour
that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and
breathless horror and disgust filled my heart. Unable to endure the aspect of the being I had
created, I rushed out of the room and continued a long time traversing my bedchamber, unable to
compose my mind to sleep” (58-9).
-- Frankenstein’s tireless pursuit has finally been realized, with mixed results
 Certainly, has created something greater than himself
o Culmination of his obsession with knowledge, pushing science to limits!
 Unfortunately, he is filled with supreme dread
o Cannot “unexperience” the revelation
o The greatest achievement of his life results in the most palpable terror
[][][]
--- “I entered the cabin where lay the remains of my ill-fated and admirable friend. Over him
hung a form which I cannot find words to describe – gigantic in stature, yet uncouth and
distorted in its proportions. As he hung over the coffin, his face was concealed by long locks of
ragged hair; but one vast hand was extended, in colour and apparent texture like that of a
mummy…again turning towards the lifeless form of his creator, he seemed to forget my
presence, and every feature and gesture seemed instigated by the wildest rage of some
uncontrollable passion” (237).
-- Upon Frankenstein’s death, creature seemingly materializes
 Ghostlike!
 The terror discovered/created haunts relentlessly
o Even on his deathbed, Frankenstein could not forfeit the idea of hunting the
monster who claimed the lives of his loved one…not realizing that it was this
ardent compulsion that actually killed them!
 “Coleridge was well aware the ghosts that tortured him were of his own
imagining, but he was equally aware that this in no way lessened their
potency” (Punter and Byron 16).
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Works Cited
Punter, David, and Glennis Byron. The Gothic. Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2004. Print.
Shelley, Mar. Frankenstein.New York: Signet Classics, 2013. Print.