Genrefeatures of the English Gothic novel as exemplified by the works of M. G. Lewisand W. Godwin (and W. F. Odoevsky)
The Gothic novel is aspecific genre that emerged in England at the turn of the 18th and 19thcenturies, based on medieval romances of chivalry, as a way of aestheticallyunderstanding the world.
The nineteenth centurywas the period of the rise of social thought. Many questions, which hadpreviously worried people, began to be considered by the society in a new way.There is a renewed interest in history and folklore as a reflection of theancestors philosophical ideas. Against this background a new literary movementemerged — romanticism.
The very appearance ofthis trend is dictated by human desire to escape from the vanity of existencein the world of reverie and illusion, so such semantic aspects of this trend assensuality and architectonics, undergo changes: exalted passion ofsentimentalism (the previous genre), romanticism opposes the mystery of theorigin of feelings, human union with nature, characterized by everyday lifeforms, is replaced by a move to a foreign country or to the Middle Ages, theruins of ancient castles.
The Gothic novel is oneof the most popular genres of Romanticism, which redefines the human worldview: it proclaims agnosticism, which manifests itself in an awareness of theincognizability of the world. Thus, reality in the Romanticists wasmystified: it became inaccessible to either rational or sensualperception. The behaviour of the individual in such works was motivated by hismystical aspirations, an encounter with the world.
The mysterious, themiraculous, the inexplicable, in the genre of the horror novel become notonly obligatory, but also structure-forming factors. The basic pathos ofthe gothic novel is an awareness of the impossibility of comprehending themysteries of the world around us. The emergence of supernatural forces in thenarrative is foreshadowed by the introduction of the prophecy motif.
Unlike the Enlightenmentwriters, whose works do not take their chronotope beyond the authors owncountry and present-day realities, gothic writers often describeevents of the distant past. Moreover, the plot in such novels always has apoint of departure that occurred before the main events beingdescribed. Historicism in the Gothic novel is conditional: the setting isCatholic countries, hence the criticism of the Church.
The Gothic novel is alsocharacterized by relative didacticism, which is leveled by a fantasticalnarrative. The gradation is also characteristic: the division of heroes intonoble and non-noble, sinners and righteous.
Contemporaries opinionson the significance of the Gothic novel, despite the genres popularity, weredivided: some critics saw the horror novels as essential to the human mind,others perceived the Gothic novel as synonymous with the barbaric, the chaoticand the tasteless.
Despite mixed criticism,the genre of the gothic novel developed and was in great demand. The odiousscholar of mystical literature, Montegrew Summers, in his book The SupernaturalOmnimbus, created a classification of types of infernal phenomena: demonicforces and visitation with malicious purpose; ghostly apparitions andmysterious illness; afterlife manifestations; the living dead and return fromthe other world; an undead soul; and a mysterious prophecy. Each ofthese phenomena has its own place in the chronotope of the Gothic novel: whilethe mysterious prophecy begins the narrative, the afterlife completes it.
Not only literaryscholars, philosophers and philologists were interested in the Gothic genre andtried to classify and arrange its features. Modern Russian researchers of thisgenre (A. Butuzova, N.A. Solovyova), based on the study of such works,distinguish the following plot features:
1. Polarizationof heroes, providing for direct or indirect clash of heroes: therighteous engage in conditional or real confrontation with thesinners, characterizing the eternal New Testament conflict of goodand evil;
2. the image of theman of God, who is a person unable to resist infernal temptations.To enhance the emotional effect, such a character may be a person directlyassociated with the church;
3. The villain(anti-hero) is an integral part of the horror, designed to increase thesuffering of the protagonist, who is his opposite. However, his transcendentpower and strength, which is emphasised throughout the narrative, turns out tobe imaginary in the finale.
The key characteristic ofthe gothic novel is the space, which stands in opposition to the ordinary,everyday setting. It is characterized by confusion, mystery, and heterogeneity.
The gothic genre hasdeveloped a special philosophy based on fatalism and the impossibility ofchanging ones fate.
The author of the Gothicgenre, M. G. Lewis, in his novel Ambrosio, or the Monk, considers thephenomenal, the otherworldly as a way of revealing the psychology of theprotagonist: Ambrosio, under the oppression of external circumstances, commitsa sin, Lewis, reflecting on the motives behind the actions of his Monk, triesto analyse the root cause of the criminal mind.
In the Gothic novelsplot system, it is important to pay particular attention to the choice ofcharacter. Some writers, like Lewis, who turned to this genre, choose asupporter of the church, the monk, as their protagonist.
On the one hand, such achoice is dictated by a particular aesthetic, since monasticism for mostreaders of the Gothic novel represented a special caste of people who chose tolive apart from society, observe strict monastic rules and exist in communionwith a higher power. Such an image is indeed mysterious and interesting becausemonastic cells are hidden from the eyes of outsiders, and the secludedlifestyle of these people is fertile ground for fantasy.
On the other hand, theimage of the monk in a Gothic novel is an allusion to the philosophical andreligious views of the author himself. In such works, the monastic order oftenappears as a satire on the orthodox dogmatic ideas of the Church, and thesanctity of the holy fathers is questioned.
The faith-disbeliefantithesis is demonstrative in Lewiss novel. Raising such a theme allows theauthor to open up the idea: on the one hand he criticises the institution ofmonasteries, on the other he raises the question of the power of faith in thehuman spirit and the desire to observe the vows laid upon oneself.
Another English writer,William Godwin, who wrote the novel Caleb Williams, occupies a special place inthe history of British literature. The work, written for an elitist public totell them about the life of the common people, proved very popular.
The genre of the novel«Kaley Williams» is defined by literary scholars in different ways: on the onehand, it gravitates towards the realist novel and, on the other hand, towardsthe Gothic. The Gothic tradition is reflected in the motif of crime andpunishment.
Gothic ispresent in the novel only in some purely external signs and forms (the presenceof mystery, crime, persecution, the villain secluded in the castle, the feudalcolour itself), but the treatment of the problems raised by Godwin, thoughdistinctive and specific, is closer to the Romantic vision of the world.
The novelSaint-Leon also has a distinctly gothic edge to it, which hasallowed a number of researchers to classify it as a gothic novel,and Godwin himself as a pre-Romantic writer. However, we cannot call Saint-Leona gothic novel. From the Gothic in it present only flavor and plotmotif, while the images, the treatment of the various peripeteias, the courseof reasoning, philosophical framework, ethical coloring of eventshave a pronounced romantic coloring, and in many respects anticipate theemerging aesthetic and imaginative system of Romanticism.
In Russian literature,the genre of the Gothic novel was not in demand among writers. However, thedevelopment of Romanticism in Russian culture created a special genre — thehorror stories. Having absorbed the traditions of the European literary school,domestic romanticism took its own path of development and identified severalartistic methods.
The ideas of domestic Romanticismwere reflected in mans relationship with the world around him. From the pointof view of the Romanticists philosophy, the personality is characterised byabsolute spiritual freedom and everything that begs its will is perceived withhostility. This idea formed one of the main concepts of domestic Romanticism:in a collision with the external world, a person may perish, but not lose hisfreedom.
One of therepresentatives of domestic romanticism includes one of the best storytellersof the 19th century Vladimir Fedorovich Odoevsky.
V.F. Odoevsky created anumber of mystical works. The narration in these works is based on twoprinciples: the first — the romantic principle of twomirium (The DeadMans Mocking, The Sylphide, Igosha, etc.), thesecond — the didactic principle in which the supernatural is conditional(The Old Men, or Panhai Island, The Tale of How Dangerous ItIs for the Girls to Walk in Crowds along Nevsky Prospect etc.).
In his novels Odoevskyembodied his own ideas that human instincts develop from folk legends and superstitions,and the mystical doctrines of the Middle Ages — alchemy and kabbalism — arepoetized by the author in the novels La Sylphide and TheSalamander.
Some of Odoevskysmystical stories are based on folklore traditions (Igosha).Odoevsky anticipates the satire of N.V. Gogol and writes The Tale of theDead Body, Who Does Not Know Who Belongs, making fun of officialdom. Inthe didactic and allegorical Tale of how dangerous it is for a girl towalk in a crowd along Nevsky Prospect one can guess the motif ofdepersonalisation and the pernicious influence of the culture alien to theRussian personality.
Thus, the Gothic novelcan be rightly considered a genre that not only absorbed the historicalrealities of the 18th and 19th centuries, but also served as a cultural andaesthetic point of reference for all subsequent world literature, reflectingthe pathos of the clash between the real and the otherworldly. Emerged as anexperiment, as a reaction to the rejection of Enlightenment ideas, the Gothicnovel, on the one hand, continued the ideas of the incognizability of being, onthe other hand, stood in opposition to them.
But although the Gothicnovel reflects a number of important social and aesthetic ideas, it hasprimarily developed as an entertainment genre in which the adventurous plotserved as a way of assimilating moral truths.
