The Use of History in Gothic Literature
How History was "Rewritten" for the Gothic Novel
Jun 4, 2009
Typically in Gothic literature, “the use of the past is more atmospheric than historical” (Albright 50). The actual historical context of the time in which the novel took place was less important to the readers and writers of Gothic than reading about “exotic settings in the historical past” (49). In an essay that examines Ann Radcliffe’s 1794 novel The Mysteries of Udolpho, Richard Albright examines how the novel is set in the sixteenth century; however, he notes that not only does Radcliffe introduce elements to that century that are actually only common to seventeenth-century and later Europeans (he gives examples such as drinking coffee and using forks), but he says that she also “ignores references to particular historical events of the period” (50). From this example, we might be able to assume that historical context wasn’t important to the Gothic novel.
How History was Used in Gothic Literature
Punter and Byron concur with this notion, but they also insist that, in the Gothic, “history [is] written according to a certain logic” (55). History is seen in the Gothic in the form of “ruins” (56). Specifically, they say “that the past can never be left behind, that it will reappear and exact a necessary price.” In other words, the past will always peek through this literature because it is “a ‘time after’.” The authors state that the Gothic novel can be thought of as Post colonial and note the novel’s “impossibility of escape from history” (55).
However, while glimpses of history may be found in the Gothic, it appears that, for the most part, accurate accounts of history were not as important as the stories and the terror or horror elements in them. Massimiliano Demata notes that “[c]ritics have often dismissed [Horace] Walpole’s version of Italy presented in [The Castle of ] Otranto as hardly realistic in terms of historical or geographical accuracy” (2). Demata, in his essay, explains how Italy became a common background of the Gothic novel, even though its historical and geographical representation might not have been precise.
An Early Historical Novel
Sophia Lee’s The Recess, written in 1783, appears to be an exception. “The novel is one of the earliest examples of a historical novel as well as one of the first Gothic romances” (Garwood 1-2). Not only did Lee incorporate actual historical elements in The Recess, she seems to have been one of few Gothic writers who did so. However, there seems to be a debate as to whether she is a “quasi-Gothic . . . or . . . fully Gothic” author (Voller).
Why History wasn't "Important" to Early Gothic Readers
Ultimately, Demata notes that “Italy was, of course, an actual landscape, which Gothic novelists often turned into an imaginary, fictionalised one” (3); just as we can read of an “imaginary Italy” in the Gothic novel, so can we read of an “imaginary” history. Readers weren’t necessarily reading these novels for historical content, but rather to have their senses titillated by other things, such as a sense of terror, that the Gothic novel offered.
Resources:
Albright, Richard S. “No Time Like the Present: The Mysteries of Udolpho.” The Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies 5 (2005): 49-75.
Demata, Massimiliano. “Italy and the Gothic.” Gothic Studies 8 (2006): 1-8.
Garwood, Rebecca. “Sophia Lee (1750-1824) and Harriet Lee (1757-1851).” Library and Early Women’s Writing: Women Writers. Chawton House Library. 22 Oct. 2007. http://www.chawton.org/library/biographies/files/lee.pdf.
Punter, David and Glennis Byron. The Gothic. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2004.
Voller, Jack G. "Sophia Lee." The Literary Gothic. 18 Jan. 2008. http://www.litgothic.com/Authors/sophia_lee.html.
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