Question- What do you know about the Gothic novel?

Or
What is Gothic Novel? Discuss a few Gothic novelists and their works. Or
Discuss the chief characteristics of Gothic novel. Which element dominates in it?

Answer-

The name 'Gothic' is applied in literature to the terror school of writing, particularly that of eighteenth century. The earliest productions of this school were Leland's "Longwood' (1762) and Walpole's "The Castle of Otranto" (1764) became so popular that the second half of the eighteenth century saw the publication of numerous long novels of a similar nature. They were characterised by gloom, terror, mystery, violence and an interest in the supernatural. Dickens "Edwin Drood" and Doyle's "The Hound of the Baskervilles" have the Gothic quality. The Gothic castle or abbey or its ruined remains-fully equipped with haunted wings, underground passages, and owl- infested towers was the customary setting of the Gothic Romance. This species of novel-exploited in various ways by Horace Walpole, Clara Reve, Ann Radcliffe, Mork Lewis, Charles Maturin and Marry Shelly were dominant in English fiction from 1764 to 1820.

In such novels, horror, violence, death and the supernatural predominates. There are Gothic elements in Edward Young's "Night Thoughts", Scott's "Bride of Lammermoor" and Emily Bronte's "Wuthering Heights". The Gothic Revival was one phase of the romantic Movement.

"The Gothic fiction has some intrinsic merits. The plots of these novels are fictitious. The characters are unreal. The sentiments, they excise are morbid. The Gothic fiction spanned the years between 1764 and 1820. Gothic fiction is a profound reaction against the long domination of reason and authority. It is an extreme reaction against Hanoverian grossness and smugness. In fiction, the function of Gothic was to open horizons beyond social patterns, rational decisions and institutionally approved emotions. The Gothic novelists enlarged the sense of reality and its impact on the human beings. It became a great liberator of feeling. It acknowledged the non-rational-in the world of things and events. The Gothic novel is characterised by a setting which consists of castles, monastries, ruined houses of suitably picturesque surroundings by characters who are, or seem to be the quintessence of god or evil. Sanity and chastity are contomtly threatened.

The Gothicness of the eighteenth century Gothic novels consists in an uncanny atmosphere of wilderness, gloom and horror based on the supernatural. Imagination inspires the Gothic mind to carry itself back to far off distant lands' and faery lands forlorn and observe the artistic effect of the truly mysterious. Horace Walpole is known as the pioneer in Gothic fiction. Smallet gave way to the romantic method of dealing with the superstitious.

The influence of Gothic fiction passed through both the victorian and the modern fiction. Bulwer Lyffon, Wilkie Collins and Stevenson experimented with new themes in guest ingenious sources of mystery and terror. These novels of mystery excite awe and fear. The Bronte sisters luxuriantly used the suggestive method of Mrs. Radcliff's novels. The modern detective fiction also shows the impress of Gothic novel. In the modern age the mysterious has become more scientific and for this reason, even more frightening, Charles Brockden Brown, the first Gothic novelist of America wrote novels in the suggestive and psychological technique of Mrs. Radcliff. Hawthorne and Edgar Poe are Gothic in their treatment of the supernatural.

Gothic Novelists and their works - Horace Walpole (1717-1797) is worldly acknowledged the father of the Gothic novels, the novel of mystery and terror. His novel The Castle of Otranto' (1764), it strikes one today as an almost purely intellectual construction, a monstrous mechanism built to the specifications of a carefully thoughtout blue-print.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein' (1818), this novel of scientific transgression and the dangers of not taking responsibility for your actions is a dazzling mixture of the sublime, the meloncholy and the terryfying. 'Charles Dickens' Bleak House (1853), Bleak House contains scenes set in rat-infested city churchyard, decaying urban slums, country houses which resemble giant mausoleums and junk shops full of macabre bric-a-brac. Bram Staker's 'Dracula' (1897), it has transcended its origin in literature and entered the realm of myth. Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca' (1938), it is a ghost story without an actual ghost Manderley, the classic gothic house is haunted by the psychological impression of Rebecca, Maxim de Winter's first wife.

These are the five most famous Novelists with their famous works. Summarising the contribution of Gothic novelists, Hudson writes, "There is little in the production of either of these writers to interest us much today. But we must note the historical significance of their return to the romantic middle ages and of their appeal to the imagination by the free use of the mysterious and the supernatural and we must remember that they did much to stimulate and fertilise the genius of Scott."

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