Sinister:
This means evil, relentless or corrupt which comes from the Italian word ‘sinistra’ meaning left. Reason being is when someone, in particular children touched an item with their left hand they were punished as it was believed left handedness was to be a sign of the devil.
Supernatural:
‘A liking for the strangely eccentric, the magical, and the sublime, sometimes subtly intermingled with the realistic. Supernatural elements influenced the Gothic writing technique the same way it influences us; psychologically.
When a topic is deepened by a mystery, it automatically grasps the attention of the reader, as our minds always need closure. Yet, when you add to that deeper mysteries that involve life, death, fate, the nature of things, and other general questions we consistently pose to ourselves as parts of our existence, the Gothic element comes to life.
Supernatural elements satisfy that paradigm. They instil wonder, respect, fear, suspicion, and they are impossible to proof and to explain. Whether you’re sceptic or not, the influence of the ‘supernatural’ is worth the argument as there’s no evidence of whether it exists or not. That is the magic of it. It is one of those very few things that we cannot explain and allows our imagination to run wild.
Similarly, with Gothic literature, the element of supernatural mystery allowed the writers to let their imagination run wild, while enticing even further those of their readers. It’s a synergism made in supernatural heaven.’
When a topic is deepened by a mystery, it automatically grasps the attention of the reader, as our minds always need closure. Yet, when you add to that deeper mysteries that involve life, death, fate, the nature of things, and other general questions we consistently pose to ourselves as parts of our existence, the Gothic element comes to life.
Supernatural elements satisfy that paradigm. They instil wonder, respect, fear, suspicion, and they are impossible to proof and to explain. Whether you’re sceptic or not, the influence of the ‘supernatural’ is worth the argument as there’s no evidence of whether it exists or not. That is the magic of it. It is one of those very few things that we cannot explain and allows our imagination to run wild.
Similarly, with Gothic literature, the element of supernatural mystery allowed the writers to let their imagination run wild, while enticing even further those of their readers. It’s a synergism made in supernatural heaven.’
‘Many modern writers of horror exhibit considerable gothic sensibilities. Examples include the works of Anne Rice, as well as some of the sensationalist works of Stephen King. Gothic is said to be becoming horror, a term properly applied to the most famous late-Victorian example of gothic, Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The opening section of Dracula uses some familiar Gothic properties: the castle whose chambers contain the mystery that the protagonist must solve; the sublime scenery that emphasises his isolation.
Stoker learned from the vampire stories that had appeared earlier in the 19th century (notably Carmilla (1872) by Sheridan Le Fanu, who was his friend and collaborator) and exploited the narrative methods of Willkie Collins’s ‘sensation fiction’. Dracula is written in the form of journal entries and letters by various characters, caught up in the horror of events. The fear and uncertainty on which Gothic had always relied is enacted in the narration.’
Freedman, E. of B. (2014) The origins of the gothic. Available at:
http://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/the-origins-of-the-gothic (Accessed: 31 March 2016).
‘The various elements of gothic architecture emerged in a number of 11th and 12th century building projects, particularly in the Île de France area, but were first combined to form what we would now recognise as a distinctively Gothic style at the 12th century abbey church of Saint-Denis in Saint-Denis, near Paris. Verticality is emphasized in Gothic architecture, which features almost skeletal stone structures with great expanses of glass, pared-down wall surfaces supported by external flying buttresses, pointed arches using the ogive shape, ribbed stone vaults, clustered columns, pinnacles and sharply pointed spires. Windows contain stained glass, showing stories from the Bible and from lives of saints. Such advances in design allowed cathedrals to rise taller than ever, and it became something of an inter-regional contest to build a church as high as possible.’
We also got told the key motifs in Gothic:
- Strange places – ‘It is usual for characters in Gothic fiction to find themselves in a strange place; somewhere other, different, mysterious. It is often threatening or violent, sometimes sexually enticing, often a prison. In Bram Stoker’s 1897 Dracula, for example, Jonathan Harker, a young lawyer’s clerk, suddenly finds himself trapped within Castle Dracula. That scene occurs in Central Europe, but often in classic Gothic fiction – in the novels of Ann Radcliffe for example – it takes place in distant, marginal, mysterious southern Europe; and it could just as easily be somewhere like Sati’s House in Great Expectations, a decaying mansion just down the road.
- Clashing time periods – Just as places are often mysterious, lost, dark or secret in Gothic fiction, so too are its characteristic times. Gothics often take place at moments of transition (between the medieval period and the Renaissance, for example) or bring together radically different times. There is a strong opposition (but also a mysterious affinity) in the Gothic between the very modern and the ancient or archaic, as everything that characters and readers think that they’ve safely left behind comes back with a vengeance.
- Power and constraints – The gothic world is fascinated by violent differences in power, and its stories are full of constraint, entrapment and forced actions. Scenes of extreme threat and isolation – either physical or psychological – are always happening or about to happen. A young woman in danger, such as the orphan Emily St Aubert in Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) or Lucy Westenra in Dracula, is often at the centre of Gothic fiction. Against such vulnerable women are set the great criminals or transgressors, such as the villainous Montoni in The Mysteries of Udolpho or Count Dracula. Cursed, obscene or satanic, they seem able to break norms, laws and taboos at will. Sexual difference is thus at the heart of the Gothic, and its plots are often driven by the exploration of questions of sexual desire, pleasure, power and pain. It has a freedom that much realistic fiction does not, to speak about the erotic, particularly illegitimate or transgressive sexuality, and is full of same-sex desire, perversion, obsession, voyeurism and sexual violence. At times, as in Matthew Lewis’s The Monk (1796), Gothic can come close to pornography.’
http://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/gothic-motifs (Accessed: 31 March 2016).
- Sexual power
- The uncanny
- The sublime
- Crisis
- The supernatural and real
- Terror and wonder
Kat played a video from YouTube called ‘The Gothic’ by Professor John Bowen. In this video, he discusses the key motifs in gothic novels such as the uncanny, sublime and supernatural. This video was filmed at the Strawberry Hill House in Twickenham.
‘John Bowen is Professor of Nineteenth-Century Literature. He joined the Department in 2005 from Keele University, where he was Professor of Modern English Literature. He read English at Trinity Hall, Cambridge and then took an MA and PhD at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, University of Birmingham. His main research area is nineteenth-century fiction, in particular the work of Charles Dickens, but he has also written on modern poetry and fiction, as well as essays on literary theory. Some of his work includes:
- Other Dickens: Pickwick to Chuzzlewit (Oxford University Press, 2000) appeared in paperback in 2003.
- Dickens's Barnaby Rudge for Penguin
- Palgrave Advances in Charles Dickens Studies, co-edited with Professor Robert L. Patten of Rice University.
- Oxford Reader’s Companion to Dickens, the Cambridge Companion to Willkie Collins
- Victorian comic and satiric writing for the forthcoming Cambridge History of English Literature.
- Regular reviews for the Times ‘literary supplement’
- BBC Radio 4’s Front Row
- In Our Time
- Open Book
- Woman’s Hour
- BBC1’s Inside Out
- Dickens’s Secret Lover (Channel 4, 2008)
- Discussing ‘Dickens and debt’ on Radio 4
- ‘The Phenomenal Charles Dickens (at the British Library)’
I found this seminar to be quite confusing. I hadn’t researched into gothic horror beforehand therefore I didn’t exactly know what it’s all about. I knew of gothic horror as two separate things. I thought gothic was completely different to horror. I thought of both of them as genres in the film/book department. To be completely honest I was even more confused after watching the video Kat showed us. I’m not really a fan of gothic horror or special effects as I’ve always been more on the fashion and beauty side. It’s interesting to know, I mean it’s always important to learn new things however it’s not something I’d look into after leaving university. I like the whole period stuff, such as researching into the Victorian era as I have been doing so for a while. Looking back at the video, I sort of understand what John is talking about every now and then but in general the language he used and the topics he was discussing, just doesn’t really get into my head. I did some research, as shown above on the video we watched, and I felt like reading about it helped me a lot more to know where John is coming from.
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