ext_17274 ([identity profile] wahlee-98.livejournal.com) wrote in [personal profile] connielane 2003-10-05 11:13 am (UTC)

Dracula is an example, but think of any scary movie and you've basically got it. Specifically she'e talking about things by Ann Radcliffe-- "The Romance of the Forest" and "The Mysteries of Udolpho." If you want to have a quick read of the type of things she's talking about, try to find an e-text of "The Castle of Otranto" by Horace Walpole, which is considered to be the first Gothic romance. It's a novelette. I remember what my Jane Austen teacher told our class before we read it (we did a bit of Gothic background reading before we read NA). He said that in the first page, a boy runs into the castle and gasps out "The helmet, the helmet!", referring to a giant helmet that has just fallen in the courtyard and killed the son of the Prince. "And it goes downhill from there." :D

Anyway, our horror genre is almost entirely based on the Gothic of the late 1700's and early 1800's. Frankenstein is another good example. Modern-day examples would be Fear Street and Goosebumps.

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