David Punter Notes

Question 1

The first wave of the gothic genre.

Answer 1

• Began in the 1760s.
• Horace Walpole’s ‘The Castle of Otranto’.
• Ann Radcliffe’s ‘The Mysteries of Udolpho’ and ‘The Italian’.
• Matthew Lewis’ ‘The Monk’.
• Genre criticized for lack of literary merit by popular writers like William Wordsworth.
• Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’ in 1818.

Question 2

The second wave of the gothic genre.

Answer 2

• Occurred in the late 19th century.
• Robert Louis Stevenson’s ‘The Strange. Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’.
• Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’.
• Oscar Wilde’s ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’.
• Age of decadence in literature and art.

Question 3

Terror vs Horror

Answer 3

• Early gothic fiction distinguished between terror and horror
• Terror is a psychological response, fear/anxiety.
• Horror is a physiological response, blood and gore
• Ann Radcliffe focused on terror, Matthew Lewis focused on horror
• Female writers favored terror, male writers favored horror.

Question 4

Gothic settings.

Answer 4

• Gothic novels set in castles, monasteries, or convents.
• Castles represent feudal or aristocratic past.
• Monasteries or convents represent.
• Catholic religion and opposition to British culture.
• Both settings are labyrinthine and claustrophobic.
• Themes of imprisonment and inability to escape.

Question 5

The threat of being buried alive.

Answer 5

• Obsession with being buried alive in gothic literature.
• Related to the fear of being trapped with no escape.
• Castle Dracula as a symbol of imprisonment and mystery.
• Angela Carter’s stories also feature similar scenarios.
• Themes of the persistence of the past and being locked inside oneself.

Question 6

The sublime.

Answer 6

• The sublime as something beyond comprehension.
• Edmund Burke’s treatise on the sublime imagined it as gazing up at a vast mountain scape as an example.
• The sublime is often associated with the gothic.
• It creates a sense of awe and fear.

Question 7

Forbidden Knowledge

Answer 7

• Forbidden knowledge is a main theme in gothic literature.
• Related to Illuminati and occult knowledge.
• Prometheus as a figure for the struggle of humanity.
• Victor Frankenstein and Dracula as examples of exploring forbidden knowledge.
• Fear of playing god and the consequences.

Question 8

The return of the oppressed.

Answer 8

• Freud’s concept of the return of repressed desires.
• Desires that society forbids but are repressed.
• May resurface under certain circumstances.
• Themes of desire and control in vampire stories.
• Vampires taking advantage of unfulfilled desires.

Question 9

Revenge and The Notion of Inheritance

Answer 9

• Revenge as a common theme in gothic literature.
• Related to troubled inheritance and desire for family goods.
• Haunting as a gothic motif.
• Relations between social classes and power struggles.
• Examples of this are seen in Shakespeare’s tragedies.

Question 10

Women in Gothic Literature

Answer 10

• Women portrayed as innocent, persecuted, or villainesses.
• Roles of nurses, medics, governesses.
• Themes of not knowing one’s place and desire for agency.
• Examples from ‘Wuthering Heights’, ‘The Woman in White’, ‘Dracula’, ‘Frankenstein’, ‘The Bloody Chamber’