ENG 1120 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Horror Fiction, Gothic Art, Jane Austen

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: English
• Course: ENG 1120
• Professor: Rosemary Daniels

Document Summary

We start with gothic and horror fiction in the late 18th century in england leading into the 19th century, in the enlightenment years. Gothic novels were and are highly symbolic and stimulated the imagination in a way that had yet been discovered. It sparked the romantic period, in which people would escape in gothic or horror fiction novels and get the same kind of thrills as being in the scenario. The gothic externalized the very real psychological fear that people had. This was before freud and there had not been much if any talk about psychology. For the people, the stories fictionalised their real fear, and ultimately felt some sort of escape. Edgar allan poe is one of the most famous horror writers of that period. He provided what is (cid:272)alled (cid:862)the u(cid:374)relia(cid:271)le (cid:374)arrator(cid:863). That last (cid:271)ei(cid:374)g that the narrator, more often than not, came across as psychologically damaged and quite bias.