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The Gothic: Introduction and Key Terms

The Gothic: Introduction and Key Terms. What is “Gothic” ?. A term loosely associated with all things spooky, macabre, darkly supernatural, and ancient Often associated with its effects upon readers such as shivers of terror, a sense of revulsion, or an uneasy feeling of the uncanny

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The Gothic: Introduction and Key Terms

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  1. The Gothic: Introduction and Key Terms

  2. What is “Gothic” ? • A term loosely associated with all things spooky, macabre, darkly supernatural, and ancient • Often associated with its effects upon readers such as shivers of terror, a sense of revulsion, or an uneasy feeling of the uncanny • Writings seem to become increasingly popular at times of great social stress and economic uncertainty

  3. History of the gothic • First Gothic novel – Castle of Otranto • Appealed to women readers and writers • Feminine and masculine tradition of Gothic writing • Female Gothic focuses on the distress, perils, and victimization of women who are under the control of unscrupulous men • Very popular during the Romantic Period until today

  4. Key conventions of the Gothic • Set in decayed or haunted structures (castles, graveyards, tombs, abbeys) • Obsessed with the past, particularly in terms of family lineage and ancient curses • The gothic heroine is often trapped or confined either physically or psychologically

  5. Key conventions of the Gothic cont. • unreliable or compulsive narrators • nightmares • doubled figures • dopplegängers • supernatural events • circular or convoluted plots • multiple embedded or inset tales

  6. Key Terms • Doppelganger (doublegoer) • double, evil twin, alter ego, or ghostly counterpart of a character • Typically possesses the qualities that a given character is attempting to repress • The Uncanny (Unheimlich) • Something is familiar to us but also foreign and disturbing at the same time

  7. Key Terms Terror- • associated with higher forms of literature and the Romantic sublime • create a sense of suspense and arouse an obscure dread and anxiety • causes the reader to struggle to make sense of the cause of the fear • “expands the soul, and awakens the faculties to a high degree of life”

  8. Key Terms Horror- • lower form of writing in which readers feel shock, revulsion, or disgust • appeals to lower mental faculties, such as curiosity and voyeurism • “contracts, freezes, and nearly annihilates” a reader’s faculties

  9. Key Terms • The Sublime • moments in which a human experiences a pleasing sense of terror that is aroused by being confronted with violent or enormous natural scenes • Ideas of pain, fear, and supernatural danger displace or dismantle reason • ACTUAL pain does not cause a sublime experience

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