Ghosts in English Fiction

1. Ghosts in English Fiction The Gothic Tradition

2. Gothic Novels • Flourishes in the latter half of the 18th century • Reacts against neoclassical art • Values “sensibility” over “sense” • Engages readers’ imaginative sympathies through the device of terror • Connects to Romantic literature (broadly)—the emphasis on emotion and imagination rather than reason

3. Influences on the Gothic Tradition

4. “Romance” • Genre in poetry and prose that arose in reaction against the “realist” mode that was prevalent in the first half of the 18th c. • Common genre in the medieval period and up to late 1600s, e.g. King Arthur tales • Considered outdated by the neoclassicist novel writers: Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson, and Henry Fielding

5. Antiquarianism • Interest in medieval history • Arose out of a new found respect for medieval art • Contextualized romance literature in terms of its historical position • Teased out the use of allegory and symbolism to criticize power structures.

6. Religion • Catholicism dominated during the medieval period; Anglican Protestantism dominated during 18th c. onward • A way to denigrate the romance was to suggest its adherence to Catholic-like superstition. • The realist novel was considered a more appropriate fictional form for an “enlightened” Protestant culture. • Anne Radcliffe introduced the “explained supernatural” in order to accommodate both Protestant moderation and readers’ fascination with terror.

7. “Graveyard School” of poetry • Used elements from superstitious beliefs to meditate on mortality (most popular in 1740s) • Is influenced by concept of “sublime” by Longinus A.D. 50 • Is characterized by nobility and grandeur, impressive, exalted, raised above ordinary human qualities)

8. Edmund Burke’s A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757) • Mental and intellectual laziness occurs when we expose ourselves only to the familiar. • Beauty, which produces positive pleasure, helps but is limited in its effectiveness. • The Sublime is more effective: painful emotion mixed with delight when distanced through the aesthetic. It’s the apprehension of danger in nature or art without the immediate risk of destruction (terror). • The Sublime is produced by high mountains, violent storms, ruins, vast foreboding castles.

9. PiranesiImaginary Prisons-1750

10. Piranesiroman ruins

11. Henry FuseliThe Nightmare-1781

12. Hubert robertLouvre in ruins-1796

13. Philip James De Loutherbourgcoalbrookdale by Night-1801

14. Shakespeare • Macbeth-banquet scene, vision of the dagger, visit to the cave of the witches • Richard III-dream scene in tent on battle field • Hamlet-ghost scenes of Hamlet’s father*

15. Conventions of the Gothic Novel

16. Setting • “Exotic” locales e.g. Italy • Antiquated spaces—most often castles • Wild landscape • Catholic or feudal society

17. Characterization • Heroine that possesses strong “sensibility” • Impetuous lover • Tyrannical older man • Garrulous servants

18. Form • Discontinuous and intricately plotted • Use of framing devices e.g. incorporating tales within tales, changes of narrators, found manuscripts

19. Themes and Tropes • supernatural elements • priesthood and monastic institutions • sleeplike and deathlike states • subterranean spaces and live burial • doubles • discovery of obscure family ties • affinities between narrative and pictorial art • possibilities of incest • unnatural echoes and silences • unintelligible writings, and the unspeakable • poisonous effects of guilt and shame • nocturnal landscapes and dreams • apparitions from the past • Faust- and Wandering Jew-like figures • civil insurrections and fires • effects of the madhouse