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Gothic literature of gothic fiction is a genre of writing that merges elements of horror as well as romance. It has been believed to be first introduced by the famous English author, Horace Walpole. The many elements of Gothic Literature help make this genre successful and pleasing to the readers. Elements of Gothic Literature The many elements of a Gothic Novel help make the novel much more appealing. A few of these elements are: 1. Setting: The setting off Gothic is one of the most important elements of a novel.
The story is usually set in a large castle, great country manors, an old rundown building or in an abandoned house. The structure usually has many trapdoors, rooms, hidden secret passages and dungeons. 2. Environment: This is the surrounding features of the setting. There may be huge storms. Or the environment might be near imposing mountains or areas very tar away from collocation. 3. Atmosphere: Gothic literature stresses an atmosphere of mystery, horror and dread. The plot Involves hidden secrets which threaten the protagonist. The atmosphere is usually mysterious and filled with a lot of suspense.
The work Is pervaded by a threatening feeling, a fear enhanced by the unknown. Often the plot itself is built around a mystery, such as a disappearance, or some other inexplicable event. 4. Omens, visions and prophecies: A Gothic novel usually revolves around these. These play a huge role in the entire plot of the story. 5. Protagonist: The protagonists of Gothic literature are isolated or alone. That isolation could be physical (trapped in a house far from civilization) or emotional (cut off from he people around her), and may either be self-imposed or a result of circumstances beyond her control. . Vocabulary: This consists of all the literary devices used such as imagery, personification and symbolism. The main theme of the vocabulary is suspense and foreshadowing. Ann Radcliff was born on the 9th of July in 1764 in London, England. She was an English author and a pioneer of the Gothic novel. Her style is romantic in its vivid descriptions of landscapes and long travel scenes, yet the Gothic element is obvious through her use of the supernatural.
It was her technique of explained Gothic, the final revelation of Inexplicable phenomena, that helped the Gothic novel achieve respectability In the asses. Radcliff was the only child of William Ward and Anne Totes Ward. It is said that she was quite shy, and reclusive In her later years. At the of The English Chronicle. The couple did not have any children. Radcliff published six novels in all. These are (listed alphabetically): The Castles of Italian and Dunbar, Gaston De Belleville, The Italian, The Mysteries of Adolph, The Romance of the Forest, and A Sicilian Romance.
She also published a book of poetry, but her talent for prose far exceeded her poetic ability. She also authored a work based on her one excursion to the Continent, A Journey Made in the Summer of 1794, through Holland and the Western Frontier of Germany… To Which Are Added Observations of a Tour to the Lakes (1795). Radcliff is considered one of the founders of Gothic literature. While there were others that preceded her, Radcliff was the one that legitimated the genre. Sir Walter Scott called her the “founder of a lass or school”.
Jane Austin parodied Radcliff novel The Mysteries of Adolph in Northerner Abbey. Radcliff did not like where Gothic literature was headed, and her final novel, The Italian, was written in response to Matthew Gregory Lexis’s The Monk. It is assumed that this frustration is what caused Radcliff to cease writing. After Radcliff death, her husband released her unfinished essay “On the Supernatural in Poetry,” which details the difference between the sensation of terror her works aimed to achieve and the horror Lewis sought to evoke. Ann
Radcliff had influenced many later authors, including the Marquis De Eased (1740- 1814), Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), and star waiter Scott (1771-1832). Scott interspersed his work with poems, as did Radcliff. In one assessment: “Scott himself said that her prose was poetry and her poetry was prose. She was, indeed, a prose poet, in both the best and the worst senses of the phrase. The romantic landscape, the background, is the best thing in all her books; the characters are two dimensional, the plots far-fetched and improbable, with ‘elaboration of meaner and futility of result. ‘”