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Date Posted: 05:12:52 05/30/07 Wed
Author: Arlete Silva da Costa (Peer editing task3)
Subject: Peer editing to Martinelly Martins

Gothic Literature: A brief history

The word gothic itself can have many implications nowadays and it can refer to areas such as: architecture, history, literature, arts in general. Yet the word gothic has been used since XVIII century to refer to a genre of literature related to stories of ghosts, haunted castles, mysteries, supernatural events, old prophecies, curses, and so on…
The Origin of Gothic literature has its origin( REWRITE. HERE, YOU REPEATS THE WORDS “ ORIGIN”) simultaneously to the Romantic Movement in the XVIII Century. Both of them are considered, for many scholars, as an artistic attitude against the Age of Reason which dominated that time. And specifically, the gothic literature came out as the opposite of the rationalism in arts and thoughts, besides it was the dark side of Romanticism and it meant a come back to the middle Ages when gothic elements were very presented, but it was basically related to architecture. As Punter stated:
Gothic stood for the old-fashioned as opposed to the modern; the barbaric as opposed to the civilized; crudity as opposed to elegance; old English barons as opposed to the cosmopolitan gentry; indeed, often for the English and provincial as opposed to the European or Frenchified. Gothic was the archaic, the pagan, that which was prior to or was opposed to, or resisted the establishment of civilized values and a well-regulated society. (PUNTER, p. 5) ( I BELIEVE THAT THIS WORDS MUST BE BETWEEN QUOTATIONS MARKS)

The first gothic literary work was “The Castle of Otranto” by Horace Wallpole in 1764. Although the story is considered to be mediocre and unconvinced , it was the first one to present gothic elements such as a threatening mystery, an ancestral curse, hidden passages in a castle and frightened heroines. Another remarkable novel from the XVIII century was “Mysteries of Udolfo” by Ann Radcliffe in 1794; this novel presented a gothic formula which is still presented in the modern literature. Radcliffe, for example, introduced the figure of the gothic villain, which developed to the Byronic hero later . These two novels became very popular and spread out all over the world and their style was very imitated by many writers in the next centuries.
In the XIX century, we had very important writers in Europe who wrote relevant gothic stories such as: Mary Shelley with “Frankenstein”, Edgar Allan Poe with “The tell-Tale heart”, “The fall of the House of Usher” and others, Emily Bronte with “Wuthering Heights”, Robert Louis Stevenson with “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”, Charlotte Perkins Gilman with “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Oscar Wilde with “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, Bram Stocker with “Dracula”, Henry James with “The Turn of the Screw” and many others. Most of these works are still known nowadays, and many of them were adapted for cinema in the XX century increasing their popularity.
Then, in the XX century, the gothic did not loose its strength, but it gained new references for the modern literature through new Medias like cinema, drama, television and even music. That’s the reason why, it was renamed for just “horror fiction”, still a term very common nowadays. Then, we had “The Phantom of the Opera” by Gaston Leroux, “Psycho” by Robert Bloch and “Rosemary’s baby” by Ira Levin. Moreover, there are still well-known authors like Anne Rice and Stephen King.
As for our current century, gothic is still presented and cannot be considered just an obscure manifestation of art, but a new reference to explain modern events related to the nature of evil; for example the gothic can be related to the events of September 11th, terrorists acts in general, modern paranoia, the cruelty of capitalism, the urban tribes, human obsessions… in other words, all the oppression of modern times. As we can see, gothic is not only referred to literature but also to a wide concept of thoughts and feelings.
On the whole, gothic literary works have always had the tradition of being very recurrent in many events of history as a kind of contestation against the current establishment. And then, we can see it in its own origin against the Englighment in the XVIII century; in England, against the imposition of Victorian Age; in the XX century, against the hypocrisy and passivity before, during and after the war times. And now, when the gothic is still a young rebel, against the consumerism culture and the paradoxes of Globalization. Therefore, all ages undertake to make its monsters and myths and the gothic literature undertakes to manifest them.

Comments:

Martinelly, in my humble opinion your text is very well written.
The steps are apropriately separated . You wrote an informational text wasn´t?
The thesis statement is not so clear to me, I think that is good you write in the introduction that you are going to tell the gothic literature history, you now what I mean?
The conclusion is so intersting and involving. I did only two observations on your text.
Congratulations!!!

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