Weeks seven - eight
Weeks 7-9
1. How is the Romantic notion of the Sublime reflected in the ideological, conceptual and linguistic construction of the texts under consideration in this Romanticism reader? Discuss one or two examples...
2. Go online and see if you can find out anything about what really happened at the Villa Diodati that fateful summer in 1816...
3. How many fictional accounts (film and other narrative media) can you find about that? Provide some useful links, including Youtube clips (hint: for a start try Ken Russel Gothic on Youtube).
4. Discuss the links between the Villa Diodati "brat-pack" and the birth of Gothic as a modern genre with reference to specific texts by the authors who gathered there and subsequent texts (e.g. The Vampire >> Dracula, etc).
3. How many fictional accounts (film and other narrative media) can you find about that? Provide some useful links, including Youtube clips (hint: for a start try Ken Russel Gothic on Youtube).
4. Discuss the links between the Villa Diodati "brat-pack" and the birth of Gothic as a modern genre with reference to specific texts by the authors who gathered there and subsequent texts (e.g. The Vampire >> Dracula, etc).
1. Pateman (1991) discusses discusses ‘The Sublime’ and suggests several interpretations and manifestations of this concept. One manifestation of the sublime that is suggested is the fear of pain (Pateman, 1991). William Blake's poem ‘The Little Boy lost’ reflects this idea of sublime, wherein a boy pleads for his father to slow down because he is afraid of being lost. However, the boy did become lost. The second half of this work reflects this well:
ReplyDelete“The night was dark no father was there
The child was wet with dew.
The mire was deep, & the child did weep
And away the vapour flew.”
Another manifestation of the sublime is work that elevates our spirits, unlocking a feeling of pride and joy. This is work that is thought to be accomplished through competence, inspired thought and a strong emotional drive (Pateman, 1991). An example of this occurring is in Burkes work ‘The Little Boy Found’. In it’s own right, the work presents a joyful sense of love and bond however, as a continuation from ‘The Little Boy Lost’, the work builds off the fear of pain and despair into a resolute release where the boy is found. This is an example of sublime, as an uplifting force.
References:
Pateman, T. (2004, 1991) ‘The Sublime’ in Key Concepts: A Guide to Aesthetics, Criticism and the Arts in Education.London: Falmer Press, pp 169 - 171.
Byron decided to go abroad with the completion of this formality. He left on the fourteenth of April, Easter Sunday. On his trip he was accompanied by Fletcher the valet, his personal physician, Dr. John Polidori ("Pollydolly"), Robert Rushton, and a Swiss servant. He also traveled with a huge coach, copied from one Napoléon captured at Genappe. On the twenty-fifth they sailed from Dover bound for Ostend. Byron would never see England again.
ReplyDeleteThe group reached Geneva on 25 May 1816. Byron was unaware that waiting for him were Claire Clairmont, pregnant with his child, Shelley, and Mary Godwin. A genuine friendship and mutual high regard flourished between the two poets. They passed the time agreeably by boating on Lake Leman and conversing at the Villa Diodati, which Byron had rented, Since the weather was very poor, the party stayed inside the Villa Diodati and decided a plan that each person was to create and read ghost stories to each other. In this environment Mary wrote Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus,and ‘The Vampyre’ (Vampire), the first romantic vampire genre, was written by Polidori in 1819.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete3. How many fictional accounts (film and other narrative media) can you find about that? Provide some useful links, including Youtube clips (hint: for a start try Ken Russel Gothic on Youtube).
ReplyDeleteThe fictional media are countless. Fictional media or narrative media is a media that tells a fictional or fictionalized story, (Wikipedia. n.d).
e.g)
The Castle of Otranto (1764) by Horace Walpole is regarded as the first Gothic novel
Frankenstein -- Mary Shelley
Confessions of an English Opium-Eater -- Thomas de Quincey
Wuthering Heights -- Emily Bronte
Gothic Tales -- Elizabeth Gaskell
The Picture of Dorian Gray -- Oscar Wilde
Dracula -- Bram Stoker
The Turn of the Screw -- Henry James
The Phantom of the Opera -- Gaston Leroux
Rebecca -- Daphne du Maurier
Other Voices, Other Rooms -- Truman Capote
The Haunting of Hill House -- Shirley Jackson
Rosemary's Baby -- Ira Levin
My Heart Laid Bare -- Joyce Carol Oates
Heart-Shaped Box -- Joe Hill
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde -- Robert Louis Stevenson
Zeluco -- John Moore
As you can see the list is continuous.
Reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gothic_fiction_works
Answer 3:
ReplyDeleteAs the aforementioned comments have clearly shown, Ken Russell's Gothic from 1986 would be an obvious choice for a form of media that was influenced, and thus dedicated to the birthing of modern horror literature, because it exactly portrays the decisions made by Mary Shelly and others to set out to write their infamous works like Frankenstein and The Vampyre, which is the actual inspiration for Bram Stoker's Dracula. We should not forget the fact that Stoker then influenced German filmmaker F.W.Murnau to direct his classic expressionistic vampire story Nosferatu, which is based on the events of Stoker's novel and remains an important cultural artifact to this day. Having made this connection, we can now see that all the traditional monster movies from Universal Pictures (Dracula, The Wolfman, Frankenstein and such) pay a great debt to the dark events from the summer of 1816, because they all have the stark, almost eerie black and white imagery, that conjures nightmarish images and characters, all that are deeply ingrained to the archetypical visions of terror and alienation that originate from one fateful night in 1816. Therefore, technically speaking, any form of expressionistic horror and even music, such as the titular Gothic Rock music genre originating in the late 70s with the classic example of Bauhaus and their hit single: 'Bela Lugosi's Dead' (note that Bela Lugosi was the original actor for the character of Dracula) are accounts of the night of madness in an indirect way, since they are still forms of media that are referencing the old days of horror.
Examples:
Gothic trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haS7s4MI0mI
Nosferatu:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcyzubFvBsA
Universal Horror:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmAjM0s9Kk4
Bauhaus 'Bela Lugosi's Dead':
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKRJfIPiJGY