"It was a dark and stormy night…"

"At this moment, the terrible spectacle, which Emily had witnessed in a chamber of that castle, occurred to her, and she shuddered, while she looked upon the nun--and recollected her late words--that 'years of prayer and penitence could not wash out the foulness of murder.' She was now compelled to attribute these to another cause, than that of delirium. With a degree of horror, that almost deprived her of sense, she now believed she looked upon a murderer; all the recollected behaviour of Laurentini seemed to confirm the supposition, yet Emily was still lost in a labyrinth of perplexities, and, not knowing how to ask the questions, which might lead to truth, she could only hint them in broken sentences."

--Mysteries of Udolpho, Ann Radcliffe

As mentioned earlier, the Romantics took great interest in the supernatural. From their fascination with horror and mystery and their rebellion against the Age of Reason, the Gothic novel took form. Mysteries, ghosts, Gothic castles, violence, vampires, terrors, monstrosities, secret passageways-these were the recurring motifs of Gothic literature. This sub-genre of the Romantic movement was largely inspired by German ghost stories and graveyard poetry, especially that of Romantic-forerunners Thomas Gray and James Thomson. In 1750, Gray wrote "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" and sent it his friend Horace Walpole.

Then, on a dark and stormy night in 1764, Horace Walpole published The Castle of Otranto. It was not long before other writers, mystified by his work, began to write Gothic novels of their own. These included Ann Radcliffe, Clara Reeve, Matthew Gregory Lewis, Charles Robert Maturin, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, and the American novelist Charles Brockden Brown. Even traditional Romantics could not resist writing a bit of Gothic literature. Jane Austen completed Northanger Abbey in 1799 as a satire on the superfluity of the Gothic writers: "She had reached the age of seventeen without having seen on amiable youth who could call forth her sensibility: without having inspired one real passion, and without having excited even any admiration but what was very moderate and very transient… But when a young lady is to be a heroine, the perverseness of forty surrounding families cannot prevent her. Something must and will happen to throw a hero her way (Austen 360)." The Brontë sisters contributed a number of Gothic novels, including Anne Brontë's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre (1847), and Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights (1847). Lord Byron, who was more well known for his poetry, contributed the figure of the Byronic hero, a man doomed and constantly struggling with dark emotions and guilt, in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812) and Manfred (1815). Byron has also been credited (mistakenly) with the creation of the vampire. John Keats, another British Romantic poet, also included some Gothicism in The Eve of St. Agnes.

Many critics at the time claimed that Gothic literature had no moral or philosophical value. However, Gothic literature is often tainted with symbolism. Danger and destruction come from the house, the family, or from oneself (Norton). In Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, Jane discovers that Rochester has locked away his wife Bertha, a murderous madwoman, in the far-away rooms of Thornfield hall. Loud, careless laughs, the fire in Rochester's room, Mason's wound-the only evidence of her existence that Jane encounters is rather puzzling, yet all elements are purely Gothic. Dangers within the family, seen in families plotting against each other, culminate in the modern mystery novel. Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" is a prime example. Madeleine Usher strangles her own brother Roderick to death as the house crumbles and falls. The concept of the dangers seen within oneself stems from the blueprint of the closely-related Byronic, Satanic and Promethean heroes, and is seen in countless Gothic romances.

Along with Romanticism, Gothic literature died with the emergence of Realism. However, it has a lasting legacy in modern literature. The modern mystery and horror novels seen on the shelves of today's bookstores have been inspired by the Gothic novel. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would never have written the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892) the same way without some Gothic influence. Nor would Stephen King or Anne Rice write book after book of horror stories, nor Hollywood produce as many horror movies. Therefore, it is evident that remnants of the Gothic literary age still float about and haunt us today.

Sources:

Potter, Franz. The Gothic Literature Page. 27 June 2001 <http://members.aol.com/iamudolpho/basic.html>

Voller, Jack G. The Literary Gothic. 25 June 2001
<http://www.litgothic.com/>

"The Gothic Novel," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2001
http://encarta.msn.com © 1997-2001 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Norton Topics Online. W. W. Norton & Company. 27 Nov 2000 <http://www.wwnorton.com/nael/nto/romantic.htm>

Austen, Jane. The Complete Novels of Jane Austen Volume II. New York: The Modern Library, 1992.