1. Late Gothic

3. Romantics: a reminder The Enlightenment Romaticism Reason
Passion/ emotion
Human Nature
Nature
Man over Nature
Nature over Man
Forward Looking
Backwards Looking/ Nostalgic
Satirises the Middle Ages
Embraces the Middle Ages

4. Think about/ research how each of these affected Gothic Literature
What historical, social and political factors would have changed perceptions and therefore literature in the mid-1800s?
The French Revolution
Mary Wollstoncraft’s Vindation of the Rights of Women
Romantic Revolution against the didactic role of art
Freud’s The Uncanny
The Industrial Revolution
Anything else?
Think about/ research how each of these affected Gothic Literature

5. 4. How do you think people felt about newfound knowledge in the mid 19th century?
1. What would people in the mid 19th Century have been afraid of? Why?
Fear
3. What knowledge was new in the 19th century?
2. What do you think Gothic writers’ responses to people’s fear would have been?
Remind yourself about the theme of forbidden knowledge in The Gothic

6. Late/ Early Victorian Gothic
Writers in this period often adopt the Gothic genre as a means to explore taboo subjects forbidden by ‘Victorian’ morality. Their texts explore the dark recesses of Georgian/Victorian society and the private desires, perversions and degeneration that lurk behind the façade of respectability.
Research late gothic writers such as Mary Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe and R.L. Stevenson. What taboo subjects do they tackle?

7. What do you know about Frankenstein?
Written as part of a short ghost story competition.
Built upon elements of the context, such as:
The electricity that brought a frog back to life…
The age of revolution… Europe/The-age-of-revolution
Paradise Lost (the monster reads the text, initially identifies with Adam and later identifies with Satan).
Classical myths: ‘The Modern Prometheus.’ and The story of Faust

8. The framing narrative:
Frame Narratives are often used in novels (particularly Gothic novels) of the mid and late 19th century.
This creates confusion over what is real/definite, piecing together rumour, folklore, local history, diaries, letters.
- Frankenstein is told from the narrative viewpoint of Dr Robert Walton, who meets Victor Frankenstein and hears his story.
- In Wuthering Heights Bronte also uses a framing narrative: Lockwood speaks to Nelly (Catherine’s nanny) and so the story is twice removed from the original.
SO LOOK OUT FOR FRAMING NARRATIVES IN GOTHIC EXTRACTS, ESPECIALLY FROM THE MID AND LATE 19TH CENTURY!

9. Why might Late and Victorian Gothic writers have used framing narratives?
As a device, the frame narrative reveals much about the Gothic storyteller. By this, I refer to those characters who claim a manuscript, who frame a tale, in order to allay their own anxieties by exerting a power over the truth and a control over those represented within and these Gothic characters are obsessed with containment as a means of establishing their own self-narratives.
D. Southward

10. As a class, annotate this extract from chapter 5 of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818)
....I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs. How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form? His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips.
In this extract, Victor Frankenstein first sees, and is terrified by, his creation – the monster.
Annotate this passage carefully. How does Shelley use features of The Gothic?
How does Shelley reference contextual factors in her writing?

11. Homework:
Using the full extract from Frankenstein (on the Learning Space) write a critical appreciation of this passage, relating your discussion to your reading of the Gothic.
Remember: AO1: 12.5% (argument/ interpretation), AO2: 75% (analysis/ discussion of the writer’s use of language, form and structure), AO3: 12.5% (links to the Gothic in context).

12. Women in Gothic Literature
What does Burns say about:
Women in early Gothic fiction?
Women in late Gothic fiction?
Can you think of any examples of women who are more than just ‘victims’ in Gothic texts?

13. Parody in late Gothic Literature
Look up plot summaries of Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey and Thomas Love Peacock’s Nightmare Abbey. What attitudes and insights do these novels reveal about:
a) the Gothic as a genre?
b) the readers of Gothic novels?
Do you think that Austen and Peacock saw the Gothic as a ‘serious’ genre? How would you describe the novels named above? Are they imitations, parodies or pastiches?
Read ‘The Comic Gothic’ (on The Learning Space).

14. Northanger Abbey (1818), Jane Austen
How does Austen use features of the early and high Gothic periods?
How does she use language to create a sense of parody?
What contextual features do you think would have influenced the ways in which Austen writes?

15. Now:
Read the extract from Northanger Abbey, annotating it for features of the Gothic.
In pairs, plan a critical appreciation of the extract.
Remember: AO1: 12.5% (argument/ interpretation), AO2: 75% (analysis/ discussion of the writer’s use of language, form and structure), AO3: 12.5% (links to the Gothic in context).

16. Homework:
Read the article ‘The Female Gothic: Then and Now.’ What more do you learn about the role of women in Gothic literature?
Extension: Read the article from emag on Northanger Abbey as a gothic text (on The Learning Space).