|
Eighteenth-century Gothic Novel
The eighteenth-century Gothic novel is a genre of Gothic fiction published between 1764 and roughly 1820, which had the greatest period of popularity in the 1790s. These works originated the term "Gothic" to refer to stories which evoked the sentimental and supernatural qualities of medieval romance with the new genre of the novel. After 1820, the eighteenth-century Gothic novel receded in popularity, largely overtaken by the related genre of historical fiction as pioneered by Walter Scott. The eighteenth-century Gothic was also followed by new genres of Gothic fiction like the Victorian penny dreadful. Historical development The rise of the Gothic The first work to call itself "Gothic" was Horace Walpole's '' The Castle of Otranto'' (1764). Walpole's declared aim was to combine elements of the medieval romance, which he deemed too fanciful, and the modern novel, which he considered to be too confined to strict realism. Walpole's novel was popular but did not initially prompt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gothic Fiction
Gothic fiction, sometimes called Gothic horror in the 20th century, is a loose literary aesthetic of fear and haunting. The name is a reference to Gothic architecture of the European Middle Ages, which was characteristic of the settings of early Gothic novels. The first work to call itself Gothic was Horace Walpole's 1764 novel ''The Castle of Otranto'', later subtitled "A Gothic Story". Subsequent 18th century contributors included Clara Reeve, Ann Radcliffe, William Beckford (novelist), William Thomas Beckford, and Matthew Gregory Lewis, Matthew Lewis. The Gothic influence continued into the early 19th century, works by the Romantic poetry, Romantic poets, and novelists such as Mary Shelley, Charles Maturin, Walter Scott and E. T. A. Hoffmann frequently drew upon gothic motifs in their works. The early Victorian literature, Victorian period continued the use of gothic, in novels by Charles Dickens and the Brontë family, Brontë sisters, as well as works by the American ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Mysteries Of Udolpho
''The Mysteries of Udolpho'', by Ann Radcliffe, appeared in four volumes on 8 May 1794 from G. G. and J. Robinson of London. Her fourth and most popular novel, ''The Mysteries of Udolpho'' tells of Emily St. Aubert, who suffers misadventures that include the death of her mother and father, supernatural terrors in a gloomy castle, and machinations of an Italian brigand. Often cited as the archetypal Gothic novel, ''The Mysteries of Udolpho'' appears prominently in Jane Austen's 1817 novel ''Northanger Abbey'', where an impressionable young woman reader comes to see friends and acquaintances as Gothic villains and victims, with amusing results. Plot ''The Mysteries of Udolpho'' is a quintessential Gothic romance, replete with incidents of physical and psychological terror: remote crumbling castles, seemingly supernatural events, a brooding, scheming villain and a persecuted heroine. Modern editors note that only about a third of the novel is set in the eponymous Gothic castle, wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ludwig Tieck
Johann Ludwig Tieck (; ; 31 May 177328 April 1853) was a German poet, fiction writer, translator, and critic. He was one of the founding fathers of the Romantic movement in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Early life Tieck was born in Berlin, the son of a rope-maker. His siblings were the sculptor Christian Friedrich Tieck and the poet Sophie Tieck. He was educated at the , where he learned Greek and Latin, as required in most preparatory schools. He also began learning Italian at a very young age, from a grenadier with whom he became acquainted. Through this friendship, Tieck was given a first-hand look at the poor, which could be linked to his work as a Romanticist. He later attended the universities of Halle, Göttingen, and Erlangen. At Göttingen, he studied Shakespeare and Elizabethan drama. On returning to Berlin in 1794, Tieck attempted to make a living by writing. He contributed a number of short stories (1795–98) to the series ''Straussfedern'', published ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heinrich Von Kleist
Bernd Heinrich Wilhelm von Kleist (18 October 177721 November 1811) was a German poet, dramatist, novelist, short story writer and journalist. His best known works are the theatre plays ''Das Käthchen von Heilbronn'', ''The Broken Jug'', ''Amphitryon'' and ''Penthesilea'', and the novellas ''Michael Kohlhaas'' and '' The Marquise of O.'' Kleist died by suicide together with a close female friend who was terminally ill. The Kleist Prize, a prestigious prize for German literature, is named after him, as was the Kleist Theater in his birthplace Frankfurt an der Oder. Life Kleist was born into the von Kleist family in Frankfurt an der Oder in the Margraviate of Brandenburg, a province of the Kingdom of Prussia. After a scanty education, he entered the Prussian Army in 1792, served in the Rhine campaign of 1796, and retired from the service in 1799 with the rank of lieutenant. He studied law and philosophy at the Viadrina University, and in 1800, received a subordinate post in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christian Heinrich Spiess
Christian Heinrich Spiess (4 April 1755 – 17 August 1799) was a German writer of romances and later pulp fiction, horror stories. Life He was born in Freiberg in Saxony. For a time an actor, he was appointed in 1788 controller on the estate of Count Caspar Hermann von Künigl at Besdiekau in Bohemia, where he died, almost insane, the result of his weird fancies, on 17 August 1799. Spiess, in his ''Ritter-'', ''Räuber-'' and ''Geister-Romane'', as they are called—stories of knights, robbers and ghosts of the "dark" ages—the idea of which he borrowed from Goethe's '' Götz von Berlichingen'' and Schiller's '' Die Räuber'' and ''Der Geisterseher'', was the founder of the German ''Schauerroman'' (shocker), a style of writing continued, though in a finer vein, by Carl Gottlob Cramer (1758–1817) and by Goethe's brother-in-law, Christian August Vulpius. These stories, appealing largely to the vulgar taste, made Spiess one of the most widely read authors of his day. The m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Benedikte Naubert
Benedikte Naubert (born Christiana Benedicta Hebenstreit; 13 September 1756 – 12 January 1819) was a German writer who anonymously published more than 50 historical novels and is considered a pioneer of the genre in the 1780s. Naubert wrote under the pseudonyms Verfasser des Walther von Montbarry, Verfasser der Alme, Verfasserin des Walther von Montbarry, and Fontanges. Today she is largely unknown, even in Germany. Biography She was born in Leipzig, the daughter of professor of medicine, Johann Ernst Hebenstreit, who died in December 1757. From her step-brother, a professor of theology, Naubert received a thorough education in philosophy, history, Latin, and Greek. She also learned to play the piano and harp and taught herself Italian, English, and French. She began writing and published her first book in her mid-twenties, ''Heerfort und Klärchen'', published anonymously. From there she wrote a novel per year and often more. Several men were suspected to have written Nau ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heinrich Zschokke
Johann Heinrich Daniel Zschokke (22 March 177127 June 1848) was a German, later Swiss, author and reformer. Most of his life was spent, and most of his reputation earned, in Switzerland. He had an extensive civil service career, and wrote histories, fiction and other works which were widely known. Biography Youth and early career in Prussia Born in Magdeburg, Prussia, he was educated at the monasterial (Kloster) school and at the Altstädter Gymnasium there. He ran away from school at 17, and spent some time as playwright with a company of strolling actors. Later, he studied philosophy, theology and history at the University of Frankfurt (Oder), where in 1792 he established himself as a Privatdozent. While a Privatdozent, Zschokke created a sensation by publishing the extravagant novel, ''Abällino, der grosse Bandit'' (1793; subsequently also dramatized), modelled on Schiller's '' Die Räuber'', and the melodramatic tragedy ''Julius von Sassen'' (1796). Move to Switzerl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Robbers
''The Robbers'' (', ) is the first drama by German playwright Friedrich Schiller. The play was published in 1781 and premiered on 13 January 1782 in Mannheim, Germany, and was inspired by Leisewitz' earlier play ''Julius of Taranto''. It was written towards the end of the German ''Sturm und Drang'' ("Storm and Stress") movement, and many critics, such as Peter Brooks, consider it very influential in the development of European melodrama. The play astounded its Mannheim audience and made Schiller an overnight sensation. It later became the basis for Verdi's opera of the same name, '' I masnadieri''. Plot and description The plot revolves around the conflict between two aristocratic brothers, Karl and Franz Moor. The charismatic but rebellious student Karl is deeply loved by his father. The younger brother, Franz, who appears as a cold, calculating villain, plots to wrest away Karl's inheritance. As the play unfolds, both Franz's motives and Karl's innocence and heroism are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chivalric Romance
As a literary genre, the chivalric romance is a type of prose and verse narrative that was popular in the noble courts of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about marvel-filled adventures, often of a chivalric knight-errant portrayed as having heroic qualities, who goes on a quest. It developed further from the epics as time went on; in particular, "the emphasis on love and courtly manners distinguishes it from the ''chanson de geste'' and other kinds of epic, in which masculine military heroism predominates." Popular literature also drew on themes of romance, but with ironic, satiric, or burlesque intent. Romances reworked legends, fairy tales, and history to suit the readers' and hearers' tastes, but by c. 1600 they were out of fashion, and Miguel de Cervantes famously burlesqued them in his novel ''Don Quixote''. Still, the modern image of "medieval" is more influenced by the romance than by any other medieval genre, and the word ''medieva ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christian August Vulpius
Christian August Vulpius (23 January 1762 – 25 June 1827) was a German novelist and dramatist. His sister married the noted German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Biography He was born at Weimar, and was educated at Jena and Erlangen. In 1790, he returned to Weimar, where Goethe obtained employment for him. Here, since 1788, Goethe had been contentedly living quasi-maritally with Vulpius's sister Christiane. In Weimar, Vulpius began, in imitation of Christian Heinrich Spiess, to write a series of romantic narratives: operas, dramas and tales. Of these (about sixty in number), his ''Rinaldo Rinaldini, the Robber Captain'' (1797), is the most notorious. A typical "penny dreadful" of the period, it was often translated and much imitated, but unrivaled in its bad eminence. Its scene was laid in Italy during the Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Horrid Mysteries
''The Horrid Mysteries'', subtitled "A Story From the German Of The Marquis Of Grosse" is a translation by Peter Will of the German Gothic novel ''Der Genius'' by Carl Grosse. It was listed as one of the seven "horrid novels" by Jane Austen in her ''Northanger Abbey'' and also mentioned by Thomas Love Peacock in '' Nightmare Abbey''. It was first published by the sensationalist Minerva Press in 1796. A later, two-volume edition published by Robert Holden and Co., Ltd. in 1927 includes a new introductory essay by Montague Summers. The books were bound in pictorial boards, and feature a period-style " advertisement" for Pears' Soap on the rear cover. The hero of the tale, the Marquis of Grosse, finds himself embroiled in a secret revolutionary society which advocates murder and mayhem in pursuit of an early form of communism. He creates a rival society to combat them and finds himself hopelessly trapped between the two antagonistic forces. The book has been both praised an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carl Grosse
Carl Friedrich August Grosse (5 June 1768 – 15 March 1847) also known as Edouard Romeo Vargas-Bedemar was a German author, translator, aesthetic philosopher, and mineralogist. He is best known for his gothic novel ''Der Genius'', which was translated into English by Peter Will as ''Horrid Mysteries,'' subtitled "A Story From the German Of The Marquis Of Grosse" and subsequently referenced by Jane Austen as one of the seven 'horrid novels' in ''Northanger Abbey''. His philosophy focused on the aesthetics of sublimity, following the work of Friedrich Schiller, and provided one of the first philosophical treatments of imagination. Biography Grosse was born in Magdeburg, Germany on 5 June 1768, the son of Erenst Grosse, a successful doctor, and Dorothea Elizabeth Amalia Schröder. In 1786, he enrolled at the University of Göttingen to study medicine, and began his literary career there with essays on the sublime and transmigration of the soul, as well as engaging in translation o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
_Heinrich_von_Kleist_1.jpg "Click for more on -> Heinrich Von Kleist")
