Gothic Fiction Lecture

Hello lovelies,

I've finally got around to typing up the notes from the gothic lecture I went to the other day. It might not be useful for what you want to write about but it's quite interesting anyway as I learned a bit about Gothic history, stories and the structure they're written in, in which I recognized a lot of our play.

First - a few words and ideas that the students in the class thought of when asked about what the word gothic means...
gloomy, anti-Christian, magical, mysterious, medieval, grotesque, satanic... shows a darker side of personality.

Gothic stories in general tend to have stock-characters and settings (a bit like in commedia, if you remember) which normally consist of: a despotic, untrusty and sexually aggressive nob leman(blatantly sexy Kev) who gains power over the girl and is responsible for schemeing ; a beautiful young girl without parental protection, virginal; a castle as it has a reputation of being mysterious, silent, lonely, sublime etc because it is ancient/decaying; and is a strong contrast to the natural world. In the castle there is always a tower/winding passages/secret chambers/dungeons = imprisoned/irrational spaces which serve as a metaphor for the unconscious.

Anne Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho was the first gothic novel (1794). The setting is a large sublime landscape which evokes feelings of awe, wonder and terror. There is a mysterious castle, a beautiful girl without protection and a dangerous male. The inanimate nature/ pathetic phallacy (often a form of writing used by romantic poets) throws the girl's feelings back at her through nature. The girl is led to lose self-control due to overpowering surroundings. The girl is an emotional character. (As I am not familiar with the story, you might want to look into it if you're interested and make your own connections.Lucy sent me an email the teacher forwarded her which has a short extract from the play if anyone wants it I can get it printed for you.) Other connections she made to gothic where to Darwin and the idea of humans as animals/apes and how this has an effect on modern day as people are anxious about going back to where they had come from. Also, different views on death: the beautiful death vs medicalised death (science verus religion) and where gothic fits in? Some things we could possibly also consider for the actual play? What kind of mood we want to portray in certain parts, such as the opening scene where the Marquis is dead and how the other characters behave.

The next point I think is very interesting and useful for Catia's character (The Countess). Vampirism is very significant in Gothic history because it is associated with sexuality. In a 19th century novel Carmilla, the woman is a lesbian vampire. (Link for story-line: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmilla ) It also might be a good idea to research or rent out Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Bram Stoker Dracula (1897) - there is also a lecture on this in week 7 but that might be too late. Also The Vampyre (1819) - John Polidori.

The following may not be relevant for the procution, but they're ideas you might want include in your essay. At the turn of the century dead bodies became in demand because of advances in anatomy which often lead to body-snatching and murder in order to obtain them. Britain had earlier advances in modernisation, industralisation and urban culture...
19th century also sees growth in knowledge and interest in magic, hypnotism (Freud tried to legitemise it as a medical procedure), mesmerisation (voices of the dead speaking through people, which makes me think of the film Ghost a bit), spiritualism...

typing that out ended my life so I hope at least someone took the time to read it. See you all tomorrow. x