Moving from High Gothic to Late Gothic, ‘Social Activism accompanies the Gothic into its twilight years. Art gothic gives way to trade gothic as stories are repackaged and recycled for a mass audience.’

‘The first western historical novel, Waverley tells the story of a naive young man who goes to Scotland with his regiment. There he must choose to leave the world he has always known to embrace a more honorable way from the past. Scott’s novel challenged the Gothic view of history as barbaric and full of supernatural evil.’

‘In order to pinpoint the Gothic characteristics of Christabel it is critical to understand what Gothic literature is. Gothic settings commonly include dark and desolate areas, such as haunted castles, unknown regions, and the recesses of the human mind. These settings are often accompanied by ominous sounds, such as screeching animals, ticking noises, and other specific sound effects. Christabel uses many of these tactics. Scenes take place in darkened areas, while readers imagine the sounds of screeching owls, howling dogs, and ticking clocks.

Gothic plots generally entail robbed innocence for the purpose of money, lust or power. These plots frequently expanded upon by way of dreams. This is common in Gothic fiction, as the subconscious often knows more than the conscious. Dreams are effective in moving action forward because their meanings depend on their interpretation. In the case of Christabel Saith Bracy’s (the bard) dream cold have need Geraldine’s hold over Christabel, had Sir Leoline interpreted it properly. Since he did not, the dream serves no purpose other than to heighten the tension and make Christabel appear more powerless.’

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‘Byron’s supernatural poem was a closet drama that capitalised on the popularity of English Ghost stories. The protagonist struggles with guilt over an unknown crime and critics think this represents Byron’s psychological state after he fled England when it was discovered he was sleeping with his half sister.’

‘Northanger’s naive protagonist Catherine Morland sees herself as a heroine of a Radcliffean romance and imagines murder and villainy on every side after reading too much Gothic Fiction.’

(The novels mentioned were previously thought to be fabricated by Austen, but were found to be real in the 1920s, these novels have been listed under the entry for Northanger Abbey in the StoryGraph challenge I created called: Classic Gothic Fiction: Pre Gothic, Early Gothic and High Gothic).

‘The way Catherine sees herself is a critique of sentimentalism, or the reliance on feelings as a guide to truth, when those feelings override reason.’

‘This Gothic novella pokes fun at the Romantic movement and its obsession with morbid ideas and misanthropy.’

‘Frankenstein is inflused with elements of the Gothic novella pokes fun and the Romantic movement. It is also an early example of Science fiction. Frankenstein is an epistolary novel, or novel written as a series of documents, and begins with the frame story of Captain Walton who has set out to find an ocean passage across the North Pole and encounters Victor Frankenstein pursuing his creature.’

‘Mary Shelley’s manuscript draft of Frankenstein began at the Villa Diodati with marginal notes by Percey Shelley. The Ménage a Cinq was a gathering of Mary Shelley (then Godwin), her step sister Claire Clairmont, the Romantic poets Percey Shelly, and Lord Byron, and Byron’s travelling physician John William Polidori, at the Villa Diodati in Geneva, Switzerland.

A volcanic eruption created a gloomy, overcast atmosphere in Geneva and Shelley described the summer of 1816 as “a wet, undeniable summer, [where] incessant rain often continued us for days to the house”. The company told each other German ghost stories, which prompted Byron to propose that they each write one. Mary Shelley would later have a nightmare at the Villa that would inspire Frankenstein.’

‘John William Polidori was Lord Byron’s travelling physician and wrote “The Vampyre” based on Lord Byron’s unfinished “A Fragment”. Using Lord Byron as a template, Polidori created the familiar stereotype of the western vampire as young, aristocratic, brooding, and attractive.’

‘This American Gothic short story describes how the gawky schoolteacher Ichabod Crane meets his end on Halloween night after a frightening encounter with the Headless Horseman, the ghost of a Hessian mercenary whose head was shot off by a cannonball.’

‘The protagonist of Maturin’s novel has sold his soul to the devil for 150 years of life and searches the globe for someone to take over the pact and free him.’

‘Peace’s theatrical adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein influenced later adaptations by featuring a silent creature and inventing Victor’s servile assistant Igor.’

‘Radcliffe draws on Edmund Burke to distinguish between terror and horror in literature. Terror is characterised by obscurity that can lead the reader to the sublime. Conversely, horror annihilates the reader’s responsive capacity with unambiguous atrocities.’

Moving from Late Gothic to Victorian Gothic, following the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833 ‘the Victorian Period was a time of rapid economic prosperity and social change. Gothic works explored Victorian fears of racial mixing, reverse imperialism, duality of self, and changing gender roles.’

‘Poe revitalised the Gothic genre with his innovation of the Gothic short story. Poe’s Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque contain some of his most popular short tales including “Fall of the House of Usher” and “Ligeia”.

In his preface to the collection, Poe defended himself from critics who thought the gloom and darkness of his tales were a part of the tradition of Germanism. He counters “If in many of my productions terror has been the thesis, I maintain that terror is not of Germany but of the soul.” The “Grotesque and the Arabesque” of Poe’s title could refer to horror and terror respectively.’