I Feel Clever Now
So, up until two days ago, my experience of Gothic novels had been entirely limited to Northanger Abbey and the first few pages of The Castle of Otranto (read before my roommate yanked it from my protesting hands and told me very firmly that it was her book, which she was reading for her class). I suppose it makes sense that my knowledge was consequently, mm, a bit skewed. Northanger Abbey is of course a parody of the genre. The Castle of Otranto is the first English novel in this vein, written as an experiment by Horace Walpole, and the second paragraph includes someone squished by a giant helmet (not lying). Neither one can be said to embody the genre, really, and neither one of them is, as Catherine Morland put it, 'very shocking indeed', 'more horrible than anything we have met with yet', or 'uncommonly dreadful'.
Thanks to these helpful books and general misinformation about what exactly was common reading at the time, I had the notion in my head that these books were fairly tame, all told, and certainly couldn't compare to the excesses of several Greek writers (looking at you, Euripides), Shakespeare (Titus Andronicus), or more modern works of horror. After all, young ladies of quality were allowed to read them!
As it turns out, a number of these supposedly tame books actually fit Catherine's description fairly accurately. Apart from 'that incest play' by Walpole (such an innovator, Walpole), there are a number of books in the genre which are genuinely appalling and unsettling. Usually the authors were a little more restrained, but there's the one where the villain rapes his sister and... it really doesn't get any better. There's also the one that's obviously referring to Marie Antoinette, which ends with her being crucified instead of guillotined, after any number of nasty things happen.
To be fair, the first mentioned is technically a parody itself. It's The Monk, by Lewis. He was ignoring the more subtle intentions of Gothic literature and going straight for spectacle. I will no doubt write about the subtle intentions of Gothic literature at a later date. Right now I am just being shocked at the level of graphic description included in these books. Sex, violence, whatever, they were detailed.
I am going to pretend I didn't think there was a period in history where the fiction released was manifestly not graphic and their descriptions of horror were laughable at best (as per giant squishing helmets). *wanders off to a corner and whistles vaguely*
Thanks to these helpful books and general misinformation about what exactly was common reading at the time, I had the notion in my head that these books were fairly tame, all told, and certainly couldn't compare to the excesses of several Greek writers (looking at you, Euripides), Shakespeare (Titus Andronicus), or more modern works of horror. After all, young ladies of quality were allowed to read them!
As it turns out, a number of these supposedly tame books actually fit Catherine's description fairly accurately. Apart from 'that incest play' by Walpole (such an innovator, Walpole), there are a number of books in the genre which are genuinely appalling and unsettling. Usually the authors were a little more restrained, but there's the one where the villain rapes his sister and... it really doesn't get any better. There's also the one that's obviously referring to Marie Antoinette, which ends with her being crucified instead of guillotined, after any number of nasty things happen.
To be fair, the first mentioned is technically a parody itself. It's The Monk, by Lewis. He was ignoring the more subtle intentions of Gothic literature and going straight for spectacle. I will no doubt write about the subtle intentions of Gothic literature at a later date. Right now I am just being shocked at the level of graphic description included in these books. Sex, violence, whatever, they were detailed.
I am going to pretend I didn't think there was a period in history where the fiction released was manifestly not graphic and their descriptions of horror were laughable at best (as per giant squishing helmets). *wanders off to a corner and whistles vaguely*