2007, 1). This definition, while still maintaining the
18th century essence of Gothicism, allows more texts
to ascribe to the genre and does not pigeon-hole the
Gothic by insisting it exists within the stereotypical
setting or convention of the earlier texts.
Many Gothic novels were part of the publication
group later known as the Penny Dreadfuls. While
Penny Dreadfuls can be categorized as grim and
gruesome tales of horror and sensation, they were
first a business opportunity rather than a literary
grouping. After the invention of the rotary steam
printing press, publishers were able to, for the first
time, mass produce literature. As literacy rates rose,
publishers began to produce penny papers - cheap
newspapers that could be bought on a lower-class
wage that were densely packed with text and some
contained serialized publications of novels. These
novels generally were poorly written, unplanned and,
sometimes, plagiarized from other works of fiction.
Gothic fiction was one genre that was heavily copied
within this movement. These Penny Dreadfuls, as
well as the original Gothic texts, were seen to be for
a lower-class readership who did not wish to read the
highbrow literature of the time but who wanted to be
entertained by tales of horror.
While contemporaries of the first Gothic movement
viewed Gothic as cheap literature, the Gothic genre is
one that is perhaps the most in tune to wider society.
Fred Botting writes that “Gothic works and their
disturbing ambivalence can thus be seen as an effect
of fear and anxiety, as attempts to account for or deal
with the uncertainty of these shifts [between religion
and Enlightenment]” (Botting, 2014, 22). Gothic, then,
takes these real fears of its readership and transforms
them into mystical, sometimes mythical, monsters
that allows the reader to channel their real fear into
the literary creation. It can be a lot easier to be afraid
of a fictional vampire (Dracula, for example) than
something that could really affect you.
Gothic is therefore a reflection upon the fears of
society which makes the Gothic genre both of its
time but also transcendent of its time as many fears
are not restricted to time periods. Frankenstein is a
brilliant example of a fictionalization of the fear of
the lack of limits of modern science and these fears
are just as prevalent today as they were in 1818.
However, while Gothic fears may transcend their time
period, early Gothic texts are constrained by their
geographical, and sometimes historical, setting.
As I have previously stated, The Castle of Otranto can
be epitomized through its conventional Gothic setting
of the castle. The whole plot of the novel is centred
around Manfred’s need to maintain his princely
status and thus his dominion over the castle. But in
such emphasis upon the Castle, it also emphasises
the physicality of this particular castle. The castle of
Otranto can only exist in one place. In real life the
castle of Otranto exists in Southern Italy – and, at the
time of publication, this place would have been most
certainly removed from the English readership.
Angela Wright speaks on this text:
“Note how the work was allegedly discovered ‘in the
library of an ancient catholic family in the north of
England’. This immediate specificity is not accidental.
Whilst the discovery of the work is in Britain, it
is distanced – the ‘north of England’ is far from
Walpole’s residence to the west of London. This locale
enables Walpole to accredit the work’s ownership
to an ‘ancient Catholic family’ far removed from the
Protestant modernities of metropolitan London”
(Wright, 1980, 8).
Not only can The Caslte of Otranto be placed away
from Walpole, as Wright suggests here, but the
medieval setting places is away from every reader.
While Walpole seeks to make the horror of the
novel real by maintaining it came from a medieval
manuscript, it only places it as horror that has
already occurred, thus it has no real effect upon
the reader. Not only is it significant then, that the
Walpole distances himself from the discovery of the
manuscript, as Wright argues, but it is important
to note that Walpole allows for several layers of
distancing in order to for the horror to exist away
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