Romantic and Gothic Genres

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Romantic and Gothic Genres

• In Frankenstein

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Romanticism

• Definition
• A movement of the eighteenth and nineteenth
  centuries
• Marked the reaction in literature, philosophy,
  art, religion, and politics to the formalism of
  the preceding (Neoclassic) period.
• The Neoclassic period valued reason, formal
  rules, and demanded order in beauty.

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Romanticism

• Victor Hugo called Romanticism liberalism in
  literature. It freed the artist and writer from
  restraints and rules.
• A current definition a psychological desire to
  escape from unpleasant realities.

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Romanticism

• Characteristics
• The predominance of imagination over reason and
  formal rules
• Primitivism
• Love of nature
• An interest in the past
• Mysticism

• Individualism
• Idealization of rural life
• Enthusiasm for the wild, irregular, or grotesque
  in nature
• Enthusiasm for the uncivilized or natural

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Romanticism

• More Characteristics
• Interest in human rights
• Sentimentality
• Melancholy
• Interest in the gothic

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Gothic Cathedrals

• Cathedrals with vaulting arches and spires
• reach wildly to the sky - trying to grasp the
  heavens
• covered with wild carvings depicting humanity in
  conflict with supernatural forces
• demons, angels, gargoyles, and monsters.

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• Humanitys division between a finite, physical
  identity and the often terrifying and bizarre
  forces of the infinite.
• The Gothic aesthetic also embodies an ambition to
  transcend earthly human limitations and reach the
  divine.

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Gothic Genre

• Late eighteenth-century
• devoted primarily to stories of horror
• the fantastic, "darker" supernatural forces.
• Frankenstein belongs specifically to the Gothic
  genre.

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Gothic Literature

• Focuses on humanitys fascination with the
  grotesque, the unknown, and the frightening,
  inexplicable aspects of the universe and the
  human soul.
• Creates horror
• Portraying humans in confrontation with the
  terrifying forces found in the cosmos and within
  themselves.
• Human condition as an ambiguous mixture of good
  and evil powers
• cannot be understood completely by human reason.

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Gothic Literature

• Human condition as a paradox
• Dualityhumans are divided in the conflict
  between opposing forces in the world and in
  themselves.
• The Gothic themes in Frankenstein
• human natures depravity
• struggle between good and evil in the human soul,
• The existence of unexplainable elements in
  humanity and the cosmos

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The Double or Doppelganger (German for
"double-goer")

• a second self or alternate identity, sometimes,
  but not always, a physical twin
• Gothic doppelgangers often haunt and threaten the
  rational psyche of the victim to whom they become
  attached

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The Double Motif

• Comparison or contrast between two characters or
  sets of characters within a work to represent
  opposing forces in human nature.
• Suggesting that humans are burdened with a dual
  nature, a soul forever divided.
• Double characters are often paired in common
  relationships
• twins, siblings, husband/wife, parent/child,
  hero/villain, creator/creature, etc.

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Forbidden Knowledge or Power/ Faust Motif
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Forbidden Knowledge or Power

• Gothic protagonists goal.
• The Gothic "hero" questions the universes
  ambiguous nature
• Tries to comprehend and control those
  supernatural powers that mortals cannot
  understand.
• He tries to overcome human limitations and make
  himself into a "god."
• This ambition usually leads to the heros "fall"
  or destruction
• Sometimes this will evoke admiration because
  individuals have the courage to defy fate and
  cosmic forces

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Dreams and Visions

• Terrible truths are often revealed to characters
  through dreams or visions.
• The hidden knowledge of the universe and of human
  nature emerges through dreams
• when the person sleeps, reason sleeps, and the
  supernatural, unreasonable world can break
  through.
• Dreams in Gothic literature express the dark,
  
  unconscious depths of the psyche that are
  
  repressed by reason
• truths that are too terrible to be comprehended
  by the conscious mind.

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Signs and Omens

• Reveal the intervention of cosmic forces
• Often represent psychological or spiritual
  conflict
• (e.g., flashes of lightning and violent storms
  might parallel some turmoil within a characters
  mind).

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Framed Narrative

• A story within a story, within sometimes yet
  another story
• different individual often narrates the events of
  a story in each frame.
• unlike an omniscient narrative perspective, the
  teller of the story becomes an actual character
  with concomitant shortcomings, limitations,
  prejudices, and motives.

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