Toward the end of the Eighteenth Century, writers and artists started rejecting the rationalism and adherence to form that had been Classicism. In its place, they turned to Romanticism. While Classicism used ancient Greece and Rome as models, Romanticism veered toward the Medieval. Romanticism was a movement that embraced the imaginations and emotions. This led to an exploration of the subjective and the darker side of things found in the Gothic.
"The Gothic is a cultural and aesthetic mode associated with and expressive of darkness and death, irrationality and obsession, sensuality and disorder, the past and its mysteries. The Gothic is always dressed in black...There is...something about the Gothic--a transgression of aesthetic propriety or social responsibility, an overpowering of emotion, an obsession with madness, the unconscious and extreme psychological states" (Jones, p.6).
During this period, there grew a deep concern with the afterlife that led to the Spiritualist movement. Poe especially made death a theme in his writing. That and the fear of being buried alive.
As part of this movement, there was a growing unease with Science. While Jules Verne advocated the wonders of scientific discovery, Mary Shelley in Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus and H. G. Wells were saying, "Now hold on. Let's not move too fast."
Portrait of Mary Shelley (1797-1851)
Used under Creative Commons public domain CC0 image.
Ken Russell's Gothic (1986): Fictionalized portrayal of Mary Shelley and how she came to write Frankenstein.
Cardin, M. (2017). Horror literature through history an encyclopedia of the stories that speak to our deepest fears (Kindle) Greenwood.
Jones, D. (2021). Horror a very short introduction. Oxford University Press.
King, S. (2010). Danse macabre. Gallery.
Landis, J. (2016). Monsters in the movies: 100 Years of Cinematic nightmares. DK.
Luckhurst, R. (2018). The Astounding Illustrated History of Fantasy & Horror. Flame Tree Publishing.
Skal, D. J. (2020). Fright favourites: 31 movies to haunt your Halloween and beyond. Running Press.
Turitz, N.,and Zimmerman, B. (2020). Horror: An illustrated history of vampires, zombies, monsters & more. Centennial Books, an imprint of Centennial Media, LLC.
