#the castles of Athlin and Dunbayne

[familyromantic]

Gothic incest: Gender, sexuality and transgression by Jenny DiPlacidi

[saint-starflicker]

Happy Early Halloween, Chat!

By chat I mean @leiflitter (I know you're in output mode! You go, Leif's output mode; just courtesy-tagging 😁) @nbymop @rwoh @spacecasehobbit—and @wolfiso who might still be seeking out ghost stories.

I mentioned wanting to start a book club on the Fable app, and while I'm still discovering some stumbling blocks (app is sensitive to dropped connections so I often have to re-type and post twice after refreshing; the Book Quotes feature doesn't go beyond maybe 350 keystrokes; I never loved star ratings but the emoji rating is too limited and ambiguous too; only 10 tags allowed across so many different rubrics; filling out the Book Review form feels like being a research subject of a target demographic focus group, the Book Club thread-post format I think is less conducive to broader discussions about the books such as racism and disability representation and/or queer readings across a variety of works in the gothic novel "canon"...and then encouraging one another with writing, which was half my motivation for starting up a reading club in the first place, but there's not much wiggle room for customization...)

uh

maybe Fable's list function is better. Yeah. I'm gonna go with sharing my lists.

...I hope it doesn't force link-clickers to make an account before you get to see these lists, because what's the point of the list settings being Public if it's not going to be public Public?

And I don't put this up to imply that anyone reading must read all of them. This is more like, the book club could've been a wine cellar—so I appreciate recommendations because what I do have is still aggressively Anglo.

[screenshot of tweet by @MumblinDeafRo that says: "I said this before, but I try not to think of it as a TBR pile but more like a wine cellar. You try & time the right combination of mood, energy & interest, so that you pick a book when you have the best chance of getting along with it. That's what the writer prefers too." ]

Amontillado under Keep Reading cut.

Early Gothic — The Castle of Otranto (more inspired by medieval chivalric romances and I think the author even tried to pass it off as one; but in all my research everyone says this was the first gothic novel), The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne (I think was still low-key riding Otranto's coattails in addition to taking inspiration from it, not that that's a bad thing), The Castle of Wolfenbach (now we're getting somewhere), The Mysteries of Udolpho (oh Anne Radcliffe we're really in it now, and by it I mean a literary genre that was new in like 1790 CE), Glenarvon (the earliest instance of a "Byronic" character I could find that wasn't literally Lord George Gordon Byron's self-insert), The Monk (of all the gothic novels that stirred up controversy, this one was the most stirred up controversiest), Northanger Abbey (oh Jane Austen we're really in it now), Fantasmagoriana: Geschichten der Toten (translated from German to French by Jean-Baptiste Benoît Eyriès, not really on this list to read but rather to say oh George Gordon Byron we're really in it now), The Vampyre (the second instance of a "Byronic" character that I've heard about) and Frankenstein.

I elected to leave out a lot that was on Jane Austen's characters' reading lists in Northanger Abbey (Necromancer of the Black Forest, Carl Grosse's Horrid Mysteries, The Italian, The Mysterious Warning, Clermont, The Midnight Bell, and Orphan of the Rhine) because Northanger Abbey was already there, and to include some nonfiction such as Richard Hurd's "Letters on Chivalry and Romance" that was Hurd's observations on that genre's development, as well as Idée sur les Romans by Worst Human Being of the Century award-winner Marquis Donatien Alphonse François de Sade.

Midcentury and Victorian/Edwardian era Gothic — I didn't actually know whether to put The Last Man by Mary Shelley in the Early Gothic list or if 1826 can count as "midcentury". As it stands, this list begins with A Priest in 1839 by Jules Verne (written in the mid/late 1840s but not published until...1992? and unfinished), Notre-Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo, assorted novels by the Brontë sisters, The Marble Faun by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Carmilla, Dracula, Clemence Housman's Werewolf, Frances Hodgson Burnett's sort of cozy gothic kid lit, The Phantom of the Opera and The Picture of Dorian Gray.

I really wanted to add Moby Dick and Karl Heinrich Ulrichs's Manor to this list but I think "nautical gothic" could practically be its own thing.

[converse-with-air]

So in The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne by Ann Radcliffe, the villainous Malcolm captures the heroic but frankly useless Osbert and threatens to kill him if his sister, Mary, will not agree to marry him (Malcolm, I mean). There's much consternation; Mary bravely offers to sacrifice herself to save her brother. For whatever reason, when I got to this part of the book, my brain decided that it would be better if Mary was allowed to be bloodthirsty instead of virtuous--and mixed in that bit from the book of The Princess Bride where Westley tells Humperdinck that Buttercup might be his wife now, but she'll be his widow in ten minutes--and I imagined a very different book in which the heroine agrees to marry the villain and then murders him on their wedding night. Her brother arrives to find her still holding the bloody knife and they kiss. I think I had something there.

[saint-starflicker]

Yes!! OBC The Secret Garden! Also agreed on Murder on the Orient Express.

Right, so—gothic as a literary genre. My sources for qualifying and contextualizing this genre's formation is: Lauren Nixon's 2017 lecture at the University of Sheffield: “Exploring the Gothic in Contemporary Culture and Criticism.” and Jak Peake's 2013 lecture at the University of Essex: "Representing the Gothic".

Aesthetics and Sublime explanations under text cut:

When people say "gothic" the listener is just as likely to think they mean horror-rocker punk subculture or architecture.

The literary genre is not completely unrelated to architecture. In 1530 CE, Giorgio Vasari criticized medieval architecture as gothic to mean "monstrous", "barbarous", and "disordered" compared to the elegant neoclassical architecture. As Lauren Nixon says in the lecture linked above, the term gothic has necessarily had that derogatory element to it.

When Jak Peake speaks on the origin of gothic literature, it's more in how it emerged from the themes of Arthurian romances: lost heirs, succession crisis, mistaken identities, unrequited passions—and castles. All the gothic castles and churches and abbeys and convents, ever. The Castle of Otranto, The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne, The Castle of Wolfenbach, The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Cathedral), The Phantom of the Opera (House, With D.I.Y. Basement Torture Chamber), The Secret Garden (walled-up beside the mansion on the hill on the moors)—this genre loves architecture.

That's a big part of what I mean by aesthetics. When we take the same vibe to "a haunted house" as was in Wolfenbach or Udolpho then it sure helps lean into the genre-compliant campiness if it's a Victorian mansion that 20th century Americans considered so ugly, compared to progressive modern minimalist-efficient suburban housing.

Creepy eerie things sure can still happen in the suburbs—hello slasher horror movies from the 1970s/1980s—but what's gothic will still often announce itself by being barbarous, disordered, and ugly to look at, too ornate, embarrassingly outdated, cloyingly style over substance and I love it that way.

That's so far for gothic as an aesthetic. How it became a late 20th century fashion statement indicating a music genre preference, I have not researched but I definitely believe that's related. There's an aesthetic to gothic.

I want to move on to the Sublime. Again from my research, I think Nixon and Peake in the lectures agree on this point... Gothic as a literary genre was like an artistic response to the Enlightenment. While more and more people were agreeing that the scientific process of finding facts about the world were a better philosophy to live by than anything else, Romanticists asserted the side of humanity that was not logical or scientific. Gothic Romanticism was the shadow side of that: beauty is in the most intense, overwhelming emotions that a human life can curse a person with. Bereavement, wrath, yearning, breeches-soiling piss-yourself dread or pass-out fright etcetera, if it gets you behaving more stupidly than the best Western European scientists of 1800 then congratulations you're human. That's the Sublime emotion and melodrama of early gothic stories. (Burke, Edmund. A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. London, Vernor & Hood, 1798. Originally published in 1756. See also: Freud, Sigmund. The Uncanny, Penguin Books, New York, 2003. Originally published in 1919—and finally Kristeva, Julia. Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, translated by Leon Roudiez, Columbia University Press, New York, NY, 2010. Originally published in 1984.)

I bring up the Uncanny and Abjection too because while those are not necessarily the same thing as what's Sublime, those three elements—Sublime, Uncanny, and Abjection—can all contribute to the emotional palette/palate of what stories get categorized as gothic. Characters in gothic fiction can get "melodramatic" because the wildest things are happening to them and we would not cope better if that happened to us, and then that's Sublime, but also sometimes the characters or readers get more low-key emotional about the story like creeped out (by the Uncanny content) or grossed-out (Abjection).

Recommend Ghost Stories To Me!

Need book recommendations. I'm a weenie about horror movies, and get awful secondhand embarrassment. I'm also trying to work on a novel featuring a feral little blender mix of Lost Princess Anastasia/Julie of the Wolves/Stephen Maturin/Fanny Price protagonist. One of the things I'm struggling with is how her upbringing/history informs her personality. I figure it's part psychology and part Haunting the Narrative.

So! I think I need help from the Ghost Stories and Gothic Horror readers around here. I need recommendations please. I can handle harder material in reading than in film, and I generally can squeeze more reading time into my day anyway.

If it helps to understand my general literature tastes and who you're pitching to: I've been trying to work my way through Dostoyevksy's "The Brothers Karamazov" this summer and that's been an awful slog. By comparison I sped through Les Mis and the Tale of Genji years ago, so it's not the length that's a problem. I'm a massive fan of Shakespeare and Austen. I probably have to credit my most gruesome reading to Batman fanfiction though.

Ugh, this has been rambling.

TLDR: Need recommendations on what novels to dip my toes into Gothic Horror when People Choosing Cruelty is not usually my jam.

[greenhouseghost]

“There is a certain point of misery, beyond which the mind becomes callous, and acquires a sort of artificial calm. Excess of misery may be said to blast the vital powers of feeling, and by a natural consequence consumes its own principle.

Thus it was with Matilda: a long succession of trials had reduced her to a state of horrid tranquility, which followed the first shock of the present event.”

- The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne (1789) Ann Radcliffe

[apsalmoftreasonandreason]

A Psalm of Treason and Reason

Hello everyone!

Currently, I’m working on A Psalm of Treason and Reason is a secret history series with elements of historical fantasy, mashup, and gothic horror. 

It is also a queer retelling of classic literature like Sherlock Holmes, Dracula, The Jewel of the Seventh Star, Frankenstein, The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne, The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo, etc.

In addition, A Psalm of Treason and Reason will have intersex and LGBT+ characters along with non-binary characters.

[themoderngothicheroine]

A Biography of Ann Radcliffe

Ann Radcliffe, born July 9th, 1764 in London, is one of the most important writers in the history of Gothic literature, and her works are considered the codifiers of the genre - the absolute examples. Her most famous novels are The Romance of the Forest, The Mysteries of Udolpho, and The Italian.

She grew up in Bath as Ann Ward, but became a Radcliffe upon her marriage to William Radcliffe in 1787. Mr. Radcliffe was a journalist who spent much time out of the home, which led to the beginnings of Radcliffe’s horror writings.

When Radcliffe began writing, the Gothic was considered tasteless and sensational, with no literary importance. But her writings would begin to change the perception of the horror novel among the literary circles of the day with her handling of the supernatural and the torment of her beautiful heroines. As Walter Scott wrote in 1824:

“Mrs Radcliffe, as an author, has the most decided claim to take her place among the favoured few, who have been distinguished as the founders of a class, or school. She led the way in a peculiar style of composition, affecting powerfully the mind of the reader, which has since been attempted by many, but in which no one has attained or approached the excellencies of the original inventor…”

Her first novel took place in the Scottish Highlands, The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne. It involved the typical tropes of the romances: a beautiful young woman, a vow of vengeance, a cruel man lusting after power and the maiden, and young virtuous men. In fact, the novel even begins with a line calling out to these tropes:

“On the north-east coast of Scotland, in the most romantic part of the Highlands, stood the Castle of Athlin….”

When she published The Castles and her next novel A Sicilian Romance, she did so without her name attached, whether for her reputation as a woman of good regard, or as a writer in an age where the Gothic was ridiculed. When these novels did well, she attached her name to her next publication, The Romance of the Forest, and to her most famous work The Mysteries of Udolpho.

The Mysteries of Udolpho was a great success, so much so that became a featured plot point in the work of a contemporary of Radcliffe, Jane Austen. Mysteries of Udolpho followed the tragic misadventures of Emily St. Aubert, an orphan taken in by her cold aunt and subjected to cruelty and plots by her aunt’s villainous husband. Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey parodied the Gothic works, subjecting them to her wry wit via her naive and easily impressed upon heroine.

An imagined meeting between Jane Austen (Anne Hathaway) and Ann Radcliffe (Helen McCrory) in the movie Becoming Jane (2007).

Radcliffe inspired many new works in the Gothic genre, from the parody of Northanger Abbey to Matthew Gregory Lewis’ novel The Monk. In turn, The Monk would inspire Radcliffe’s last work published in her lifetime, The Italian, said to be not her most popular novel, but her best. While Lewis’ novel was far more sensational, full of illicit passions and demons, Radcliffe preferred more realistic and psychological motives for her characters.

After the publication of The Italian, having earned herself a nice living off of them, Radcliffe left the world of writing. She settled into a quiet life with her husband, writing in her off time, but never publishing. One novel of her’s was published three years after her death in 1823, Gaston de Blondeville, but it never became as well known as her other works.

Ann Radcliffe led a quiet life, with little of it being known, as she had no interest in being part of society. Many biographers have been frustrated by lack of known facts, but it adds an air of mystery to the woman who was the creator of the Gothic romance genre.

Ann Radcliffe’s Works:

The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne

A Sicilian Romance

The Romance of the Forest

The Mysteries of Udolpho

The Italian

Gaston de Blondeville

Audio Books

What is your favourite novel of Ann Radcliffe’s?

Your doting

Miss A

[yes-divine-ruler]

shower sex with tate 😉

Every Inch - Tate Langdon

wc: 1107

"Are you coming?" 

You poked your head around the corner of the door frame to see Tate with his nose in a book, supporting the back of his head with his bicep as he lay cross-legged on the bed. 

"Hm?" He barely even noticed the shower was running, not enough for it to excite him anyway. 

"I said, are you coming to shower?" you step out from behind the doorframe, your arms crossed over your bare chest in amusement. Tate would normally never pass up the opportunity to shower with you, let alone gawk at you naked, but this book had him absolutely enamoured. 

When he didn't respond, you sauntered to the edge of the bed, sitting by his side. 

"Byron?" you ask, as Tate shakes the cover with its torn dust jacket at you, "The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne," he mutters, flicking the page. 

Beginning to become frustrated, you place your overstretched hand on the tanned pages of the book, Tate finally averting his gaze from the book to your face. He looked irritated at first, until his eyes raked over your bare breasts, and then the book was almost flung across the room. 

"Are we having a shower?" he asks excitedly, rising from the bed and kicking off his shoes. 

"Yes, I asked you like a million times," you exaggerate, watching as he stripped off the rest of his clothes. 

"Fuck yeah," he reaches out to grab a hold of your hips, his fingers digging into your skin as he pulls you into his chest. 

"Okay come on, we're wasting water," you giggle as his lips tickle the skin at the crook of your neck. 

"Race ya," he shoots you a cheeky smile, before disappearing into the bathroom, forcing you to follow.

You stand by the hob step of the shower as you admire Tate, his eyes squeezed shut and his hands running through his blonde curls as he soaks under the shower head. Stepping in quietly, you suddenly wrap your arms around his waist, causing him to jump in surprise. 

"Shit! You scared me," his eyes open, and he chuckles, before leaning down and kissing you. 

 “Loofah?” you ask him, holding out your hand so he can fulfil your request. He reaches behind him to retrieve the loofah hung on the cold-water tap, and then hands it to you with his bar of soap. 

“Tate, I told you- I’m not using your soap,” you whine. He pouts at your rejection of his soap bar but puts in back in the soap dish anyway. 

“I’m not getting my hair wet either,” you warn him, pointing an accusing finger at his chest. He liked to fully submerge you under the running water even when you weren’t washing your hair just to annoy you, but today, you weren’t up for any of his mischief. 

“Yes ma’am, I promise,” he placed a hand sincerely on his chest as if he was taking an oath, until they both reached down to rest back on your hips. He watched with his bottom lip between his teeth as you lathered your loofah in body wash and handed it back to him. He enjoyed washing you because it made him feel like he was taking care of you, but it also meant he could fondle your naked, wet body, which happened to feel like heaven to his senses. 

He started at your neck, lathering to your shoulders, and then to your breasts, his tongue poking out between his teeth as he concentrated on scrubbing every single square inch of your body.  He paid extra close attention to your chest, his hand that wasn’t using the loofah coming up to give your breast a quick squeeze. You couldn’t help but let out a small moan; his wet hand sliding against your sensitive skin left your head feeling foggy.  

Showering with Tate was never just a shower. He always got so fully immersed in the intricacies of your body that he couldn’t help but press his lips to almost every piece of exposed skin. His kisses had your head falling back to rest on the shower wall, as his fingers and the loofah only descended further down your body. He washed your stomach, your thighs, your legs, and when he’d finally dropped the loofah in a lustful haze, both of his hands continued to explore, until his fingertips found your already throbbing clit. Your hands shot up to grasp onto his shoulders as his chin rested on one of yours. 

His fingers gently slotted between your slick folds, lathering the soap on his hands from one end to the other, finishing on your clit, where he began to rub slow, steady circles. Your back arched to press your dripping chest to his as he lets out a low moan into your shoulder, his teeth leaving a small bite mark in your smooth skin. Nothing turned him on more than pleasuring you. 

“Do you like how my fingers feel?” the mood changed from playful to lustful when he continued his sweet assault on your sensitive bundle of nerves with one hand, his other coming up to knead the tissue of your breast. 

“Oh my god- yes, Tate,” you couldn’t muster out a sentence, as your arousal builds unbearably, overstimulating all of your senses. Tate reads your body language and chooses the right time to slip his fingers from your clit to your entrance. You moan in sync as two of his fingers enter you to the knuckle, stretching out your pulsing walls blissfully as he backs you against the tiled backsplash. 

You lift a leg to hook around his hip as his fingers begin thrusting in and out of you, this thumb resting back against your clit deliciously.  You melt into a mewling mess as Tate expertly curls his fingers inside you, the repeated action forcing you to dig your nails into his shoulders for some kind of leverage. His pace quickens, every vigorous dig into your sweet spot chasing you closer to your undoing. 

“Tate please, I’m cumming,” you felt Tate smile against your skin and plant a gentle kiss on your neck before intense waves of pleasure coursed through your body, your thigh quivering as it tried to stay hooked against Tate’s hip. Coming down from your orgasm, Tate’s fingers abandon you, and you couldn’t help but feel the dreaded longing for them to return. 

But Tate was quick to change the subject, even with his erection, throbbing, and flush against his stomach, he went to grab the shampoo bottle from the ledge. 

“Wash my hair?” he asks with a bright smile. 

[virgoantendencies7]

As we advance in life, imagination is compelled to relinquish a part of her sweet delirium; we are led reluctantly to truth through the paths of experience; and the objects of our fond attention are viewed with a severer eye.

—Ann Radcliffe, The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne (1789)

[dameronalone]

IT was at this period, that, one stormy evening, the Countess HOW DOES SHEKNOWYOULOVEHER was sitting with her family in a room, the windows HOWDOESSHEKNOWSHE’SYOURS of which looked upon the sea. The winds HOWDOYOUSHOWYOULOVEHER burst in sudden squalls over the deep, and HOW DOES  SHE KNOW  YOU REALLY REALLY TRULY LOVEHER dashed the foaming waves against the rocks with inconceivable fury HOW DOES SHEKNOWYOULOVEHER

[schooloffeminism]

#Herstory #UnDiaComoHoy #AnnRadcliffe (9 de julio de 1764 – 7 de febrero de 1823), #novelista británica, #pionera de la llamada #novelagótica de terror. Publicó The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne en 1789. Ambientada en Escocia, esta obra recibió escasa atención por parte de la crítica y el público, sin embargo fijó el tono que predominaría en el resto de su producción, en la cual siempre aparece alguna inocente y heroica joven en el marco de un tétrico y misterioso castillo en manos de un aún más misterioso señor de oscuro pasado. En los años siguientes escribió otras cuatro novelas, ambientadas en lugares que resultaban exóticos para sus lectores. Sus novelas fueron tremendamente populares entre la clase alta y media alta, y eran devoradas por las jóvenes señoritas que se sentían identificadas con sus intrépidas heroínas. Así, escribió: A Sicilian Romance (1790), The Romance of the Forest (1791), Los misterios de Udolfo (The Mysteries of Udolpho) (1794) y The Italian (1796). Igualmente, escribió un volumen describiendo sus viajes a Holanda, Alemania y el Lake District. El éxito de The Romance of the Forest colocó a su autora como máxima exponente de la novela histórica. Sus últimas novelas despertaron aún mayor interés, lo que trajo consigo un gran número de imitaciones de todo tipo. #JaneAusten parodió Los misterios de Udolfo de Radcliffe, a la cual conocía y admiraba, en su obra La abadía de Northanger. Radcliffe influyó también, entre otros, en el gran novelista escocés Sir Walter Scott y en la pensadora #MaryWollstonecraft. Aluden a Radcliffe en sus obras otros importantes escritores como Maria Edgeworth, Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Dickens, Henry James, Honoré de Balzac y Victor Hugo, entre otros. — Wikipedia 👀 https://lasoga.org/ann-radcliffe-la-dama-del-terror-gotico/ #efemerides #escritoras #educarenigualdad #educarenfeminismo #schooloffeminism https://www.instagram.com/p/CZr7VfeKGlc/?utm_medium=tumblr

[booksfriendsnews]

[SGESTÕES - PARTE II] A @pedrazuleditora pediu... então vamos dar umas dicas... FRANCES BURNEY: Camilla; Cecília ELIZABETH GASKELL: Mary Barton; Ruth; Sylvia's Lovers; My Lady Ludlow MARIA EDGEWORTH: Castle Rackrent; Helen WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY: Vanity Fair; The Book of Snobs; The Newcomes; As Memórias de Barry Lyndon GEORGES OHNET: O Grande Industrial; La Conquérante ANN RADCLIFFE: The Italian; The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne; A Sicilian Romance Credit from @pedrazuleditora (@get_regrann) - Vamos conversar. Queremos ouvir você. Quais livros desses autores você gostaria de receber em sua caixinha? Quais deles você ainda não conhece? Você sabe quais nunca foram lançados no Brasil? Em sua opinião, qual a razão para esse déficit cultural? - #regrann https://www.instagram.com/p/B2CYPCtDUUC/?igshid=18355nkejzsls

[saint-starflicker]

Overview and Criteria for Gothic Fiction

Gothic as a genre of fiction novel emerged in the late 18th century and early 19th century. Modern scholars frame these works as part of a Romanticist pushback against the Enlightenment era of calculated, scientific rationalism. In English literature, these may also have been artistic expressions of the collective anxieties of British people regarding the French Revolution. The term hearkens back to the destruction of the Roman Empire in the 5th century CE at the effect of Gothic peoples, an event that marks the beginning of the medieval era. As early as the year 1530 CE, Giorgio Vasari criticized medieval architecture as gothic, that is "monstrous", "barbarous", and "disordered" contrasted against the elegant and progressive neoclassical architecture reconstructions. In the late 20th century, a subculture of post-punk horror rockers began to be described as Gothic as well. This subcultural goth variation characterized itself by an aesthetic of counter-cultural macabre and "enjoyable fear".

Notable early works of what would become the gothic literary "canon" are listed as follows: The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole (1764), The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne by Ann Radcliffe (1789), The Castle of Wolfenbach by Eliza Parsons (1793), and The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe (1794). Udolpho is the name of a castle. Early gothic literature was intertwined with an admiration for gothic architecture, sorry to Vasari Giorgio who hated that sort of thing so much but is an outlier and should not be counted.

One example of French gothic literature in this vein is Notre-Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo, published in 1831 although the story is set in 1482 and it was about a gothic cathedral rather than a gothic castle. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen is an affectionate parody of the gothic literature genre and a staunch defense of the gothic novels' artistic merits. It was completed in 1803 but not published until 1818 after the author's death.

In Northanger Abbey, a character recommends to her friend a list of books in this genre, all the titles of which were publications contemporary to the time the author was writing about them: The Italian by Ann Radcliffe, Clermont by Regina Maria Roche, The Mysterious Warning by Eliza Parsons, Necromancer of the Black Forest by Lawrence Flammenberg, The Midnight Bell by Francis Lathorn, Orphan of the Rhine by Eleanor Sleath, and Horrid Mysteries by Carl Grosse.

The appeal of these stories was less the architecture itself and more the emotions evoked by being haunted by the past, threatened by unknown histories, frightened by misunderstood monsters, and in awe of wilderness and nature. All of this would be set at or relative to a location: a gothic building. Heroines in gothic stories would commonly be abducted from convents that they sought refuge in, or confined to convents or other locations against their will when they try to exercise their freedoms. Other common tropes became the journey of a gothic heroine in an unfamiliar country, and the horrors of being made to rely on guardians who make impositions against her wishes or best interests. In other cases, the gothic horror mixed with gothic infatuation would be shown by an invasion of sorts by a foreigner in the heroine's home country, person of color, or the occupation of a disabled person. These works frequently lend themselves to queer readings.

The common and notable qualities of what works came to be considered gothic literature between the 1819 publication of The Vampyre by John William Polidori and the 1896 publication of The Werewolf by Clemence Housman, naturally expanded and evolved with the inclusion of more works within this genre. Even now in the 21st century the continued recognizability of the gothic applies to new additions to the genre. The criteria for what qualifies a gothic story follows:

Ill-Reputed Work. The story is accused of being degrading to high culture, bad for society, immoral, populist or counter-cultural. At the very least, it's considered bad art and ugly.

Haunted by the Past. This can be found in a work framed accordingly in the cultural context that inspired the authors, such as early 19th century English literature of this genre as a response to the French Revolution. Works emblematic of the Southern Gothic in the United States could be framed in the context of the anxieties surrounding the Civil War. More often, however, it is personal history that haunts a gothic character.

Architecture. This is not necessarily mere mention of a building, or even a lush description of literally gothic architecture. This is more a sense of location. While it stands to reason that confined locations are buildings, the narrative function of architecture can be served by themes of isolation and confinement. Social consensus that is impossible to navigate or escape is a gothic sentiment. This is, of course, more clearly qualified if the architecture is literally a building.

Wilderness. This is not necessarily natural environments, but rather situations that are unpredictable and overwhelming. Storms can be similarly admired, those "dark and stormy night"s. The anxiety invoked by nautical horror emerges from the contrast between a human being made to feel small and out of control when situated on the open ocean and all its depths and mysteries. The gothic simplicity of fairy tales relies on the inhospitable and chaotic woods full of bandits, wolves, and maybe even witches. Logically, a city should be more architecture than wilderness, but if the narrative purpose is chaotic unpredictable vastness horror rather than confinement horror then the city can become a gothic wilderness. This is, of course, more clearly qualified if the wilderness is literally the weather.

Big Mood Energy. This is what I call a collection of emotions evoked by the design of gothic literature. The sense of vulnerability in the face of grandeur, or overwhelming emotion, is known as Sublime. The betrayal of that which is supposed to be familiar is known as the Uncanny. A disruption or disrespect of identity, order, or security is known as the Abject. Gothic literature often evokes disgust and discomfort with ambiguity, or showcases melodramatic sentimentality, or includes heavyhanded symbolism. Gothic literature explores boundaries and deconstructs the rules that keep readers comfortable.

Optionally, Supernatural. As a response to Enlightenment-era science and rationalism, the supernatural found new importance in gothic literature, symbolically and in the evocative emotions it wrought.

The growing edge of genre gothic I think can be found in genre overlap with picaresque stories, detective mysteries, works of libertine sensationalism, science fiction, fairy tales, and dark academia. Quaint tropes are subverted or transformed, and new ones can emerge in the symbolic conversation that works of fiction can strike up with one another. I hope the above criteria remains a useful guide.

Sources:

Peake, Jak. “Representing the Gothic.” 30 April 2013, University of Essex. Lecture. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B51o-1KTJhw

Nixon, Lauren. “Exploring the Gothic in Contemporary Culture and Criticism.” 4 August 2017, University of Sheffield. Lecture. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZP4g0eZmo8

"Why Are Goths? History of the Gothic 18th Century to Now". Wright, Carrie. 17 December 2022. www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrIK6pBj4f8

"8 Aspects of Gothic Books". Teed, Tristan. 19 June 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NULLOYGiSDI

Burke, Edmund. A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. London, Vernor & Hood, etc., 1798. Originally published in 1756.

Freud, Sigmund. The Uncanny, Penguin Books, New York, 2003. Originally published in 1919.

Kristeva, Julia. Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, translated by Leon Roudiez, Columbia University Press, New York, NY, 2010. Originally published in 1984.

Commentary and reading list under Read More.

Commentary

I owe to Tristan Teed the idea of framing emergent gothic literature as countercultural to Enlightenment rationalism and science, and this pushback symbolized by wilderness; Dr. Jak Peake for contextualizing gothic literature as an artistic response to civic unrest in general, and highlighting the fear of seductive immigrants in Bram Stroker's Dracula more specifically; Carrie Wright for the feminist readings of the literary references in Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey, and Dr. Lauren Nixon framing the term gothic as originally meaning bad art—the lattermost aspect I personally consider integral to the genre as it must remain a constant interrogation of what artistic expression we as a society consider "bad art" and why. Both Wright and Teed inspired the aspects list applied to an otherwise categorization-defiant genre that gothic literature is. Critical Race Theory readings and Queer Theory readings of works considered part of gothic literature canon, I would say are informed by the works themselves being very suggestive of these readings. Sheridan Le Fanu's 1872 Carmilla influenced Rachel Klein's 2002 The Moth Diaries that blurred the lines between the homosocial and the homoerotic at a girl's boarding school. Florian Tacorian (not listed in these citations, but go watch his videos) highlighted Romani presence in adaptations of Victor Hugo's Notre-Dame de Paris, as well as Emily Brontë's 1847 novel Wuthering Heights. The work of another Brontë sister, Charlotte Brontë, is more often mentioned as though closer to the core canon gothic literature, and the eponymous Jane Eyre contends with a Creole woman confined to the attic of her new home (this was written in 1847, the race issue was made explicit in Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys published in 1966 that was a retelling of Jane Eyre.)

Notes on the works of gothic literature mentioned: As of this writing, I have read Northanger Abbey, The Vampyre, Carmilla, Dracula, and only half of Notre-Dame de Paris. I have only watched a movie adaptation of The Moth Diaries. (Update as of the 8th of October 2023: I finished reading The Moth Diaries by Rachel Klein. This whole essay was posted on the 1st of October 2023.) (Update as of December 2023: I finished reading Jane Eyre.) Despite taking the internet handle Poe, American gothic literature is pretty much completely alien to me. I might have read a handful of other works that might be arguably gothic, but have not mentioned them here so I would not count them in a list of works that are mentioned in this essay and that I have personally read. The initial list was a semi-facetious argument for the presence of gothic architecture in gothic literature based on the titles alone. Note also my focus on gothic literature from the British Isles, with a mention of only two titles from Germany (Der Genius by Carl Grosse, translated into the English The Horrid Mysteries by Peter Will; and Der Geisterbanner: Eine Wundergeschichte aus mündlichen und schriftlichen Traditionen by Karl Friedrich Kahlert under the pen name Lawrence Flammenberg, translated into the English Necromancer of the Black Forest by Peter Teuthold that was first published in 1794) and only one from France (Notre-Dame de Paris 1482 by Victor Hugo). This is not to say that there was little to no Romanticist movement in Germany or France in the 18th and 19th centuries compared to Britain. Friedrich Maximilian Klinger's stageplay Sturm und Drang premiered in 1777 and lent its name to a proto-Romantic artistic era that was supremely Sublime and Big Mood Energy. The earliest French gothic novel I could find via a cursory search engine search was Jacques Cazotte's Le Diable Amoureux, 1772, and I deliberately selected Notre-Dame de Paris for mention instead to demonstrate the continued theme of architecture and variety in architecture: churches as well as castles, and to affirm the representation of disability in gothic literature because Quasimodo (a character in the book) is deaf and according to John Green had contacted spinal tuburculosis that left the character hunchbacked. I have not read any of Le Diable Amoureux, let alone the half that gave me the temerity to list Notre-Dame de Paris among these gothic works.

This sparseness is due to my own interest in the emergence of English-language gothic literature focused on Britain between the years 1789 and 1830, in keeping with Ian Mortimer's definition of the Regency era in Britain. That, and the information from the sources I have cited, are what I based the criteria that I offer for what makes a novel genre-compliant to gothic. The narrative psychology and historicist analyses of The Castle of Otranto as an outlier published earlier than the timeframe I confine myself to, is for another essay perhaps written by somebody else. Similarly, my argument for the lineage of picaresque heroes from Paul Clifford to The Scarlet Pimpernel, Don Diego "Zorro" de la Vega, and ultimately the angst-filled cinematic version of Bruce Wayne as overlapping the picaresque with the gothic is a blog post for another time. I have read some works by the Maquis Donatien Alphonse François de Sade and I utterly and unutterably abhor all of it, will the spectre of his abysmal depravity ever cease to haunt me—but I think I can make an argument for his works being gothic even as he argued for himself that they were not; I have no plans of doing so.

My main intention in writing this overview and criteria is to lay the groundwork for examining the overlap between Gothic as a genre and Dark Academia as a genre, which I aim to evaluate in future essays by using this criteria.

List of Works Mentioned Above

The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole (1764)

Le Diable Amoureux by Jacques Cazotte (1772)

The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne by Ann Radcliffe (1789)

The Castle of Wolfenbach by Eliza Parsons (1793)

The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe (1794)

Necromancer of the Black Forest by Lawrence Flammenberg (translated by Peter Teuthold, 1794)

The Horrid Mysteries by Carl Grosse (translated by Peter Will, 1796)

The Italian by Ann Radcliffe (1796)

The Mysterious Warning by Eliza Parsons (1796)

Clermont by Regina Maria Roche (1798)

The Midnight Bell by Francis Lathorn (1798)

Orphan of the Rhine by Eleanor Sleath (1798)

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen (1818)

The Vampyre by John William Polidori (1819)

Paul Clifford by Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1830)

Notre-Dame de Paris 1482 by Victor Hugo (1831)

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (1847)

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (1847)

Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu (1872)

Dracula by Bram Stroker (1897)

The Werewolf by Clemence Housman (1896)

The Scarlet Pimpernel by Emma Orczy (1905)

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys (1966)

The Moth Diaries by Rachel Klein (2002)

[itsfreeaudiobook]

Ann Radcliffe is the founder of the gothic novel. This novel is no exception. The wicked baron murdered the good earl's father twelve years before the novel began. Only twelve years later, free from his mother's wishes, can the earl seek revenge. Meanwhile, Mary, the earl's beautiful sister is falling in love with a peasant. Yet her brother was abducted by the baron and he wants to marry her. She may have to wed him in order to secure his return. We see Mary's conflict along with a description of her brother's captivity. This book has everything: murder, revenge, battles, damsels in distress, aristocrats, captives, secrets, and, most of all, love. It is a love story in every sense: the love to the Scottish highlands in which it is set, the family love that binds almost above all else, and of course the love between men and women. This short work would later influence Radcliffe's other works. Radcliffe had an influence on Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, and many others who wrote popular gothic novels. - Summary by Stav Nisser and Wikipedia via Libricox

[nanshe-of-nina]

Gothic Fiction ❧ The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne (1789)