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Literary Gothicism The Satanic/Byronic Hero. Wwwnorton.com/nael/nto/romantic. Late 18 th century Literary Gothic. Pleasurably terrifying experiences Set in ancient castles, dungeons, secret passageways, graveyards Flickering lamps Screams, moans Ghosts.
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Literary GothicismThe Satanic/Byronic Hero Wwwnorton.com/nael/nto/romantic
Late 18th century Literary Gothic • Pleasurably terrifying experiences • Set in ancient castles, dungeons, secret passageways, graveyards • Flickering lamps • Screams, moans • Ghosts
Precursors to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein • Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto • Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho • Matthew Gregory Lewis’s The Monk • Frankenstein inspired by the reading of German ghost stories
The Satanic Hero • Revised readings of Milton’s Paradise Lost • Only in the 19th century did readers begin to sympathize with Satan • See Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell • Shelley wrote that Satan rightly rebels against a tyrannical God. (But admits that Satan is flawed by the need for vengeance and pride)
Some famous Byronic heroes • Heathcliff in Bronte’s Wuthering Heights • Ahab in Melville’s Moby Dick • Victor Frankenstein in Shelley’s Frankenstein
Byron’s heroes (from “Lara” • “In him inexplicably mix’d appeared Much to be loved and hated, sought and feared” • “There was in him a vital scorn of all: As if the worst had fall’n which could befall He stood a stranger in this breathing world:, An erring spirit from another hurled; A thing of dark imaginings. . . “ “His madness was not of the head, but heart;”