Parameters of Gothic Literature

Literary/ Cultural Context Essay

Slobodan Sucur (University of Alberta)

The Literary Encyclopedia. WORLD HISTORY AND IDEAS: A CROSS-CULTURAL VOLUME.

Domains

Literature Topic

Dates

Date of occurrence 1764

Places

Genres and Modes

Fantastic / Grotesque
Gothic & Ghosts

Note: This essay is a continuation of the article on Gothic Literature.

III - Parameters of Gothic

Perhaps the only real constant in the idea of Gothic is intellectual tantalization, more than fear itself. Stripped of its close historical link with Romanticism (both in its broad cultural sense and more narrowly defined, literary form), and of its more tentative link with the Gothic revival in architecture of the later 18th and early 19th centuries, the Gothic can be visualized mentally in rather minimalist, aesthetic terms, so as to make obvious the psychological processes usually at work in readings of it: i.e., visualized as a long hallway with poor l…

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2175 words

Citation: Sucur, Slobodan. "Parameters of Gothic Literature". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 06 May 2007 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=1729, accessed 26 November 2024.]

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