OK, as soon as I said goth guys, I know you were immediately thinking about this…
But really, the men I’ll be talking about today were more like this…
Yeah, I’m talking about the guys in tights and powdered wigs mostly, because these are the men who first wrote the type of novel we now know as the gothic. The beginning of the 18th Century in England was steeped in the Age of Enlightenment, and so the modern novel was born as a morality tale, or a philosophical type of story meant to (yep) enlighten the reader on the pitfalls of evildoing. As the century closed, though, Romanticism was on the rise, and the gothic fit both of these perfectly.
Horace Walpole published the Castle of Otranto in 1764, and he was “fond of mediaval romance and mystery as a dilettante’s diversion” (HP Lovecraft). That was really how most people thought of novels at that time- as a non-academic pursuit. One that is probably better suited for the weak of mind (re: women). Anyways, Castle of Otranto is considered by most to be the first Gothic Novel. It is the story of Prince Manfred and his family- on his son’s wedding day, part of a giant suit of armor falls from the sky and crushes the groom. The remaining family returns to the dreary castle & then Manfred plots to divorce his wife and marry the girl his son was going to marry. Much intrigue and some death follows. Most importantly, it is spooky and there are some clearly supernatural elements.
A few years later, the most popular author writing in this new genre was Ann Radcliffe, who began publishing in 1789. Radcliffe marks the genesis of what some think is a different subgenre of the gothic altogether- the female gothic. It can be useful to note the differences between the masculine & feminine gothic, and it has helped me understand the genre more completely. Of course, I will be covering the ladies in a different post!
So to really understand the difference, I’ll actually use one of Radcliffe’s own definitions. We have to look at the difference between terror and horror. She says that terror is the feeling of dread at the possibility of something frightening. Horror is the feeling of revulsion & disgust at actually seeing that horrible thing.
Terror is the type of feeling that Radcliffe, and generally the female gothic after her, looked to evoke. Never quite showing what was behind the curtain, but building that tension so that we’re afraid to look behind it.
Now, Radcliffe would say that horror contracts the soul, by absolutely annihilating our ability to respond to the displays of atrocity. That once the curtain is pulled aside, we are essentially frozen, unable to feel. The male gothic doesn’t think that way, and that is how we get to the horror of today! You know how every modern horror movie shows us every damn thing? Usually with overdoses of CGI. That is horror.
One of the things that these “masculine” gothic novels do differently is they are more likely to have unexplained supernatural events. Like a giant suit of armor falling from the sky, or like you’ll see later- bloodsucking vampires and crazed monsters. Those stories came primarily from men(but not always-I would say that Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is in this category). The ladies tended to explain away the supernatural- like, oh, those noises? That’s just my crazy first wife up in the attic!
So those are the bad boys of the gothic novel! Here is a great list of books to read should you want to sink your teeth into some of these hotties:
Castle of Otranto, Horace Walpole
Vathek, William Beckford
Vampyre, John Polidori
Caleb Williams, William Godwin (Mary Shelley’s dad)
Carmilla, Sheridan le Fanu (birth of the lesbian vampire?)
Dracula, Bram Stoker
Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson
The Monk, Matthew Lewis (I love this one! It is slow at times, but worth it!)
Justine, or the Misfortunes of Virtue, Marquis de Sade (yes, he had a great deal of influence on the genre)
Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
Turn of the Screw, Henry James
I hope you enjoy these, and keep an eye out for the gothic ladies coming up next.
Read with the Bookmistress 