Gothic Horror
A Brief History
The birth of a genre
• The Gothic Novel is a genre of literature
• It combines elements of both horror and romance.
• It was ‘invented’ by Horace Walpole - The Castle of
Otranto (1764)
• It aimed for ‘a pleasing sort of terror’
• It combined melodrama and parody, and explored:
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the joys of extreme emotion,
the thrills of fearfulness and awe inherent in the sublime,
a quest for atmosphere,
and the inevitable decay and collapse of human creations
Religious Conflict
• English Protestants often linked old buildings with
what they saw as a dark and terrifying period in
history
• A period with harsh laws enforced by torture, and
with mysterious, fantastic and superstitious rituals.
• A period dominated by Catholicism, including
Roman Catholic excesses such as the Inquisition.
Key Ingredients
• Prominent features:
– terror (both psychological
and physical)
– mystery
– the supernatural
– ghosts
– haunted houses and Gothic
architecture (e.g. castles)
– darkness
– death and decay
– madness
– secrets
– hereditary curses.
• Stock characters:
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tyrants
villains
bandits
maniacs,
Byronic heroes
persecuted maidens,
madwomen
magicians
vampires and werewolves
monsters and demons
ghosts,
the Devil himself.
Gothic Architecture
• The term "Gothic" often applied to buildings
• Often spelled "Gothick", to highlight their
"medievalness”
• Castles, mansions, and monasteries, often remote,
crumbling, and ruined.
• This fascination inspired the first wave of gothic
novelists.
• Horace Walpole, whose The Castle of Otranto
(1764) is the first true gothic novel, was obsessed
with gothic architecture, and built his own house
in that style (as did Stephen King)
Radcliffe and Lewis
• Radcliffe made the gothic novel socially
acceptable
• She introduced the brooding figure of the gothic
villain, (which developed into the Byronic hero).
• Radcliffe's novels, above all The Mysteries of
Udolpho (1794), were best-sellers,
• Matthew Lewis - The Monk (1796).
• Highly influential tale of depraved monks, sadistic
inquisitors and spectral nuns (N.B. severe
criticism of the Catholic church)
European Gothic
• There were parallel Romantic literary
movements, e.g.:
– the roman noir ("black novel") in France,
– the Schauerroman ("shudder novel") in
Germany
• These works were often more horrific and
violent than the English gothic novel.
Byron
• The poetry, romantic adventures and character of
Lord Byron, described by a former lover as 'mad,
bad and dangerous to know' was another
inspiration for the Gothic.
• Byron was also the host of the celebrated ghoststory competition involving himself, Percy Bysshe
Shelley, Mary Shelley and John William Polidori
at the Villa Diodati on the banks of Lake Geneva
in the summer of 1816.
• This occasion produced both Mary Shelley's
Frankenstein (1818) and Polidori's The Vampyre
(1819)
American Gothic
• An important and innovative re-interpreter of the
Gothic in this period was Edgar Allan Poe
• He believed 'that terror is…of the soul’.
• His story "The Fall of the House of Usher" (1839)
explores these 'terrors of the soul' whilst revisiting
classic Gothic ingredients of decay, death and
madness.
• The legendary villainy of the Spanish Inquisition
is revisited in "The Pit and the Pendulum" (1842).
Victorian Gothic
• Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886)
• Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray
(1891),
• George du Maurier's Trilby (1894),
• Henry James's The Turn of the Screw (1898)
• Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897)
20th Century Gothic
• Many modern writers of horror borrow
gothic features:
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Anne Rice (e.g. Interview with a Vampire)
Stephen King
Susan Hill (e.g. The Woman in Black)
Patrick McGrath (e.g. The Grotesque)
Gothic Media
• The themes of the Gothic novel were
transferred into:
– Theatre
– Film (e.g. 1930s Universal Horror films,
Hammer Horror etc.)
– Music (e.g. Black Sabbath, Metallica, King
Diamond etc.)
Some questions:
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What was considered the first ever Gothic novel?
What religion was Gothic horror often criticising?
Name TWO each of the key FEATURES and CHARACTERS
in Gothic Horror.
Which 1796 book, by Matthew Lewis, heavily influenced all
Gothic Horror to follow?
What was the Gothic Novel called in a) France; and b)
Germany?
What important event happened near Lake Geneva in 1816?
Name one example of Victorian Gothic Horror.
Name one 20th Century Gothic Horror writer.
Name one group of Gothic Horror films.
Name one band heavily influenced by the Gothic movement.