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Gothic fiction |
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... It sought to break up the patches of darkness that blocked the light, eliminate the shadowy areas of society, demolish the unlit chambers where arbitrary political acts, monarchical caprice…and the illusions of ignorance were fomented“(Michel Foucault) How well in your opinion, does this comment help in understanding eighteenth-century Gothic fiction? Gothic fiction was once described by Elizabeth MacAndrew as a “literature of nightmare” (MacAndrew, 1979, p. ... Many critics have argued that gothic fiction is essentially paranoid fantasy, and above all a mode of revealing the unconscious. ... Therefore in this essay, I shall be taking the historical approach, in whereby gothic horror is seen to reflect real terror and consist of the “here and now “. While taking this view, I shall be focusing on William Godwin’s Caleb Williams, and Walpole’s Castle of Otranto, emphasising that Gothic fiction is also essentially about political tyranny and unjust rule, as well as repressed fantasy. In order to understand Gothic fiction, it is helpful to actually define the word “gothic “and the history of the word itself. In the eighteenth century the word “gothic “was used to describe anything old or outdated. As David Punter explains: “ Gothic stood for the old-fashioned as opposed to the modern; the barbaric as opposed to the civilised; crudity as opposed to elegance;…Gothic was the archaic, the pagan, that which was prior to, or was opposed to, or resisted the establishment of civilised values and a well-regulated society. ... 6) 1 Later on, Gothic was applied to a new literary form that appeared from the 1760’s to the 1820’s, with writers such as Horace Walpole and Ann Radcliffe setting a mould of characteristic tropes. It is important to note that “it was an extremely copious And popular form of fiction during the 1790’s, it virtually dominated the novel market “. ... What is interesting however is the fact that a Gothic craze arose in the year 1790, significantly a year after the French Revolution. The Marquis de Sade argued that Gothic fiction arose from the Revolution, maintaining that: “ the bloody horrors of the revolution pushed novelists to new extremes of imaginary violence, as they strove to compete with the shocking reality…the Gothic novels were the necessary fruits of the revolutionary tremors felt by the whole of Europe “. |
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Title: Gothic fiction
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