Gothic as a means of Social Critique Riley Stephen Meachem College

When Horace Walpole wrote the first ever Gothic novel in 1764, the world had never seen anything quite like it before. In an age we now call the enlightenment, where knowledge, science and philosophy had made huge leaps forward, this book dared to be openly absurd; to feature magic, weird curses, phantoms and prophecies. But despite its incongruence with the era, Not only did Walpole’s Castle of Otronto, sell countless copies, but it spawned an entire genre of imitators, who tried to evoke this same sense of mystery and gloom. From “Wuthering Heights” to “Frankenstein,” “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” to “The Maltese Falcon,” books across the literary spectrum can trace their roots to gothic novels of the mid to late 18th century, or to literature from the “Gothic revival” era, which is more directly based on the Gothic. It may seem odd to find such a love of the supernatural and inexplicable emerge during times of enlightenment, when people were learning of Magic’s irrelevance, but it makes sense in a weird way. Even when the world began to make more sense, and belief in the weird and unknown was waning, there is, perhaps, an innately human desire to be fooled, to have something which is beyond comprehension.

Horace Walpole...