Introduction
A Gothic novel is a work that evokes the reader’s pleasant feeling of horror, a romantic black novel in prose that incorporates elements of supernatural horror, mysterious adventure, fiction, mysticism, family curses, and ghosts. In the terminology of linguists and art historians, the Gothic style refers to one of the primary directions in the painting and architecture of medieval Western Europe. Many Catholic cathedrals were built in the Gothic style, and the altars and walls of famous churches were decorated with elaborate paintings. Thus, in its classical interpretation, Gothic is only one of the dominant art styles in the early Middle Ages, and the art is exclusively Christian. The gothic genre can be characterized by four main parameters: mystery, thrill, whirlwind, and general gloom.
Main Characteristics of the Gothic Genre
The Gothic novel has distinctive features: the plot is built around a mystery – for example, someone’s disappearance, an unknown origin, an unsolved crime, or disinheritance. Usually, not one such theme is used, but a combination of several pieces. The disclosure of the mystery is postponed until the very end (Draven, 2022).
Secondary and side secrets are usually added to the central mystery revealed in the finale. The narrative is shrouded in an atmosphere of fear and horror, unfolding in a continuous series of threats to the hero and heroine’s peace, security, and honor. The dark and sinister action scene maintains a general atmosphere of mystery and fear.
Most gothic novels are set in an ancient, abandoned, dilapidated castle or monastery, with dark corridors, forbidden rooms, the smell of decay, and snooping servants – spies. During a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country (Poe, 1839). The setting includes howling winds, stormy streams, dense forests, deserted wastelands, and open graves – in a word, everything that can increase the heroine’s fear and, therefore, the reader’s.
Gothic Literature of Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most talented authors of Gothic stories. His stories, such as “Ligeia” and “The Fall of the House of Usher,” are deservedly credited to the list of masterpieces of world literature. The work of Edgar Poe elevates Gothic literature to a qualitatively new level, modernizing it and dividing the Gothic genre into two distinct subgenres: thriller and detective (Draven, 2022).
A tradition of mystery remains in the detective genre, around which the plot is built and keeps the reader in suspense until the work’s denouement. The thriller continues the tradition of the terrible. Poe highlights the rejection of literary stereotypes, such as the happy ending, moralizing, the victory of good, and impersonal artistry. The author adopts the role of an attentive and skillful storyteller who refrains from expressing his attitude toward the events unfolding.
In the author’s descriptions, some properties create the effect of the sublime. For example, ambiguity – all phenomena occur in almost absolute darkness, and the contours of objects are outlined indistinctly (Williams, 2019). Creating an image of a whirlpool as an image of death, which inevitably draws in all living things, Poe adds another property – speed, and the pace is dizzying: this is the speed of rotation in the whirlpool and the speed of the last flight into the abyss.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the gothic tradition undoubtedly influenced Poe’s work. However, none of his short stories can be considered a synopsis of a Gothic novel, like those published during Poe’s lifetime. Poe created a qualitatively new genre in the mainstream of Gothic literature, replacing the outdated Gothic novel’s internal accumulation of horrors with an external poetics of horror. The subject of Poe’s attention was the human soul, horrified by a world in which no place was left for it.
References
Draven, J. R. (2022). Making a Monster: Queerness and Disability in Gothic Literature. Web.
Williams, G. S. (2019). Reading the transatlantic Gothic fiction of Walter Scott and Edgar Allan Poe. Doctoral dissertation, University of Dundee.
Poe E. A. (1839). The Fall of the House of Usher. Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine.