Anglo-American Romanticism

Nov 24 2009

Stefanie Krüger

Task for Session 7

23 responses so far

23 Responses to “Task for Session 7”

1. lespelagon 25 Nov 2009 at 01:59 1

   Edgar Allen Poe (1809-1849) is often referred to as the „Father of American Gothic“. He was strongly influenced by European writers such as Byron, Shelley, Keats, E.T.A. Hoffmann or Alexander von Humboldt as well as Horace Walpole.
   He criticised transcendentalism as “provincial” culture, had an overall pessimistic view on romanticism and was not quite influential at his time. However, he was one of the first to acknowledge the talents of writers such as Nathaniel Hawthorne.
   To Poe, there seems to have been nothing more beautiful than a dead woman for the loss of beauty to death causes the most moving effects in humans. So, Poe’s idea was to mix the beautiful with the tragic, the sad or with loss.
   According to Poe, reaching the “unity of expression” (the impression you want to improve) and the “unity of effect” (effect you want to focus on) is the most challenging demand for a writer; especially because only the reader can feel whether the writer has achieved his aim or not (–>The Poetic Principle, 1848). The basis for aesthetic effect was in Poe’s case provided by mental or psychological conflicts such as perception v. hallucination, reason v. madness, control v. excess or observation v. imagination. As Poe was trying so hard to create the “unity of impression” and the “unity if effect”, his literature gained a somewhat mechanical aspect.
   Poe was most famous for his short stories; his most famous collection is called “Tales of the Grotesque and Arabeske” (1839/40). The central motifs in this work are death, violence and desire; the artist is described as freak and criminal. By creating figures that are half men and half animals or plants, Poe mixes categories and thereby creates a mixture of irritation and visual pleasure in the reader. Poe created a variety of forms of symbolist terror using new techniques and structures and creating new forms of narrative tone. Due to this he is not only called the “Father of Gothic” but also described as “modernist before modernism” who paved the way for later writers.

   Some of Poe’s other works: The Fall of the House of Usher (1839); The Raven (1845); The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841) –> Tales of Ratiocination; Poe as “father” of detective story; Eureka (1848)

   Sources: http://www.newi.ac.uk/rdover/other/edgar_al.htm, 25.11.2009.
   (as well as notes from former seminars.)

2. Ada Auston 25 Nov 2009 at 14:35 2

   In the following I would like to concentrate on Edmund Burke and the Sublime.
   Edmund Burke (1729-1797) was an Irish writer. He is also often referred to as a political philosopher, writer on politics and aesthetics as well as a political thinker.
   In his work ‘A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origins of Our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful’ (1757, rev. 1759) he outlined his idea about the Sublime and the Beautiful. Burke took the basic idea from the antique author Longinus. The idea of the beauty was close to that of W. Hogarth, a painter, who proposed his idea in ‘The Analysis of Beauty’ (1753). But Burkes particularly analysis was original. Worth mentioning is that Burke begun writing this treatise before he was nineteen (!!!). This essay was widely read and played a significant role. Kant used the ideas for his work ‘Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime’ (1764), which was the basis of his famous work ‘The Critique of Judgement’ (1790). Furthermore it had great influence on later writers, especially on William Wordsworth.
   According to Edmund Burke, the Sublime: “anticipates our reasoning, and hurries us on by an irresistible force. Astonishment (…) is the effect of the sublime in its highest degree, the inferior effects are admiration, reverence and respect” (Burke, 54). Therefore, the sublime arises one the one side passion and the feeling of sublimity is powerful. On the other side, Burke states that: “The passion caused by the great and sublime in nature, when those causes operate most powerfully, is astonishment; and astonishment is that state of the soul, in which all its motions are suspended, with some degree of horror“ (Burke, 53). Hence, the sublime is not only passion; fear is also an experience of the sublime. The sublime also suggests infinity, vastness, darkness, solitude and –as Burke said – horror. Additionally the sublime concerns the solitary individual. Moreover: “whatever is fitted to produce such a tension must be productive of a passion similar to terror; and consequently must be a source of the sublime, though it should have no idea of danger connected with it“ (Burke, 139). Hence the Sublime is produced by a passion, which is close to terror. For Burke the essential principle of the sublime is terror (Burke, 55). But Burke states also, that the Sublime can only be applied to those that are of purely aesthetic character, namely as a term of art.
   The idea of Burke about the Sublime gave the Gothic novel some legitimacy, because Burke emphasises on the power of terror (and all emotions connected to it), which also is an essential character of the Gothic novel. Supplementary, Burke justified in his argumentation that terror is essential to reach sublime, that it is more than a worth acquirable feeling and outlined techniques to those feeling associated with the Gothic.

   Sources:

   • Ballantyne, Andrew. “The Picturesque and its Development.” A Companion to Art Theory. Smith, Paul and Carolyn Wilde (eds). Blackwell Publishing, 2002. Blackwell Reference Online. 25 November 2009 http://www.blackwellreference.com/subscriber/tocnode?id=g9780631207627_chunk_g978063120762712
   • Anne Janowitz “The Sublime” The Oxford Encyclopedia of British Literature. David Scott Kastan. Oxford University Press 2005. Universitatsbibliothek Osnabrück. 25 November 2009 http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t198.e0453
   • “Sublime and Beautiful” The Oxford Companion to English Literature. Edited by Dinah Birch. Oxford University Press Inc. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. Universitatsbibliothek Osnabrück. 25 November 2009
   • Haggerty, George E. “Queer Gothic.” A Companion to the Eighteenth-Century English Novel and Culture. BACKSCHEIDER, PAULA R. and CATHERINE INGRASSIA (eds). Blackwell Publishing, 2005. Blackwell Reference Online. 25 November 2009 http://www.blackwellreference.com/subscriber/tocnode?id=g9781405101578_chunk_g978140510157820
   • Burke, Edmund. A philosophical inquiry into the origin of our ideas of the sublime and beautiful. Google E-Book. Printed for N. Hailes, 1824.

3. shoffrogon 25 Nov 2009 at 16:40 3

   The Gothic flourished in America from the turn to the 18th into the 19th century.
   At first sight, its cultural role seems to be paradoxical, because on the one hand there is the optimistic country that has its base on the Enlightment principles of liberty and the “pursuit of happiness”. But on the other hand there is a rise of literature “that is haunted by an insistent, undead past and fascinated by the strange beauty of sorrow” (Savoy 167).The most common response to this contradiction is the assumption that the Gothic “embodies and gives voice to the dark nightmare that is underside of ‘the American dream’” (167).
   The writers were deeply influenced by the narrative situations, conflicts, settings and motifs that made British Gothic so popular, but there are also certain features that make it distinctively American. Two distinctive features are its “formal adaptability” and its “innovative energy” (168). They become evident in the “strange tropes, figures and rhetorical techniques [which are] so strikingly central in American Gothic” (168). They express a “profound anxiety about historical crimes and they also preserve human desires that cast their shadow over what many would like to be the sunny American republic” (168). It becomes obvious that the American Gothic novel (as well as the ordinary Gothic novel) has a certain effect on the reader, because it can change the ordinary positive view of the world into a certain fear.
   The stylistic device of personification is used to present abstract figures in a body: in the figure of a ghost. It “enables the dead to rise, the ghostly voice to materialize out of nowhere, and objects to assume a menacing pseudo-life” (168). Thus, it achieves the effect of the haunted, the weird and the return of the repressed.

   I think two of the most prominent American Gothic writers during the Romantic movement were Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne.

   Source:
   Jerrold E. Hogle (ed.): The Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction, Cambridge University Press 2002.

4. iwojciecon 25 Nov 2009 at 17:40 4

   Charles Brockden Brown: Wieland

   Wieland: or, The Transformation: An American Tale is a gothic novel by Charles Brockden Brown (1771 – 1810).
   It was first published 1798 and it tells the story about Theodore Wieland who became a murderer because of madness. This novel is considered as the first gothic novel written by an American author. It is written in an epistolary form including both Gothic and sentimental novels.

   Plot:
   Theodore Wieland’s father lived on an estate near Philadelphia. After Wieland’s father – an immigrant from Germany – died because of spontaneous combustion (a myth where a body starts burning without any external reason), Theodore inherits his father’s estate as well as his land.
   He lives there in a rural idyll he shares with his wife, children, sister and his best friend until a mysterious ventriloquist (Bauchredner) named Carwin appears. Carwin has moved to Philadelphia after living an undercover life of deception in Europe.
   After the ventriloquist’s arrival and his trickery Wieland starts to kill his wife and his children. He starts murdering to show his obedience to a “divine voice” which in reality Carwin himself.
   In court Wieland shows no remorse for his deeds. Later he escapes from prison and tries to kill his sister. He is stopped by the “divine voice” which told him not to kill her. Wieland in the end commits suicide.

   Source:
   http://www.enotes.com/nineteenth-century-criticism/wieland-charles-brockden-brown

5. sawortmaon 26 Nov 2009 at 15:48 5

   I will give some information on “British Gothic”. First of all I would like to link our new topic to what we have worked on so far. In how far the Gothic (also with the background of the last session and the slides on Gothic) is a new develepment can be described with the following quotation:
   “The Gothic (or Gothick) taste in eighteenth-century England illustrates a binary division in Enlightenment thought. The metaphor that associated light, proportion, and classical order with reason, scientific method, progress, and liberty had its antithesis in the asymmetrical, ruinous, and gloomy Gothic, which provided an architectural model for ignorance, superstition, barbarism, and tyranny.” I think, this idea has not only been taken up in architecture but in literature as well. Gothic fiction tries to combine romance and horror. Typical features of gothic writing can be a combination of these elements:
   - a castle, ruined or intact, haunted or not, – ruined buildings which are sinister or which arouse a pleasing melancholy,
   - dungeons, underground passages, crypts, and catacombs which, in modern houses, become spooky basements or attics,
   - shadows, a beam of moonlight in the blackness, a flickering candle, or the only source of light failing (a candle blown out or an electric failure),
   - extreme landscapes, like rugged mountains, thick forests, or icy wastes, and extreme weather,
   - omens and ancestral curses,
   - magic, supernatural manifestations, or the suggestion of the supernatural,
   - a passion-driven, wilful villain-hero or villain,
   - a curious heroine with a tendency to faint and a need to be rescued–frequently,
   - a hero whose true identity is revealed by the end of the novel,
   - horrifying (or terrifying) events or the threat of such happening
   Of course these elements can occur in other writing than gothic, but what is truly characteristic is that it creates feelings of gloom, mystery, and suspense and tends to the dramatic and the sensational, like incest, diabolism, and nameless terrors
   To name some prominent authors: William Beckford, Matthew Lewis, Horace Walpole, Ann Radcliffe.
   Walpole’s “The Castle of Otranto” (1764) is one of the most famous British Gothic writings and can be seen as the first important example of the genre.
   Gothic writing became popular in the 18th century and early 19th century. The full flourishing of the Gothic novel occurred in Britain and Ireland in the three decades after 1790.

   Sources:
   Barbara C. Morden “Gothic” Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment. Ed. Alan Charles Kors. Oxford University Press 2003. Universitatsbibliothek Osnabrück. 26 November 2009

   http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/gothic/gothic.html, 26. November 2009.

   Chris Baldick “Gothic Novel” The Oxford Companion to Crime and Mystery Writing. Rosemary Herbert. Oxford University Press 1999. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. Universitatsbibliothek Osnabrück. 26 November 2009

6. Kathrin Schmidton 27 Nov 2009 at 11:17 6

   Sigmund Freud and the idea of the uncanny:

   In the following, I would like to write about the austrian neuropsychologist Sigmund Freud and his idea of the uncanny.
   Sigmund Freud (1868- 1939) was the founder of psychoanalysis and one of the major intellectual figures of the 20th century. He studied the human psyche and for instance, he developed the idea that mental disorders might be caused “purely by psychological rather than organic factors.” Continuing with further studies on hysteria, he developed some of the key pschoanalytic concepts and techniques, including ideas about “free association”, “the unconscious”, “resistance” and “neurosis”.
   In his “Interpretation of Dreams” in 1899, he analyzed the complex symbolic processes “underlying dream formation” and came to the conclusion that dreams are the expression of unconscious wishes.
   Freud elaborated the concept of the Uncanny in the essay “The Uncanny” in 1919. In this essay, the figured out that the uncanny is an instance, where something is familiar, yet strange at the same time. The experiencer feels attraction and repulsion in the same moment and because of this coincidence, he feels uncomfortable and becomes lost. In many cases, this specific moment furthermore “creates cognitive dissonance”.

   Source:
   http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/219848/Sigmund-Freud# 27.11.2009

7. jokemperon 27 Nov 2009 at 12:44 7

   Horace Walpole (1717 – 1797) was an English historian, politician and novelist best known for his Gothic novel ‘The Castle of Otranto’. Walpole was born in September 1717 in London as the 4th son of the 1st Earl of Orford Sir Robert Walpole, a Whig politician. He was educated at home until he entered Eton College in 1827. Later he attended King’s College in Cambridge but did not finish his studies, maybe due to the death of his beloved mother in 1737. His father married his mistress only six month later. Horace decided to go away on a trip to France and Italy with his friend Thomas Grey and returned after two years. Then, in 1741, he became a Member of Parliament successively for Callington in Cornwall. In 1745 his father, Robert Walpole died and Horace finally settled in Twickenham where he rebuilt a huge estate as a Gothic castle which became known as Strawberry Hill. In 1757 he established an own printing press at Strawberry Hill. 1764, inspired by his new home he wrote, what is often said to be the first Gothic novel, ‘The Castle of Otranto’ which was also subtitled ‘A Gothic Story’. This novel “established several key Gothic conventions: ghosts, vaults, living statues, mysterious appearances, and a psychology of extreme emotion”. In the preface to the second edition of the ‘Castle of Otranto’ Walpole stated that “it was an attempt to blend the two kinds of romance: the ancient and the modern.” Furthermore he defined the ancient as “imagination and improbability” whereas the modern tries to copy nature but locks up fancy as it refers to common life. In his novel, Walpole tried to “reconcile the two kinds”. He wanted to create an interesting situation and wanted to conduct the mortal agents in his drama according to the rules of probability”. He intended to show how authentic people react in “extraordinary positions“, what they say, think and feel “under the dispensation of miracles” and when they observe “stupendous phenomena”. Walpole says “the actors seem to lose their senses, the moment the laws of nature have lost their tone”.
   Four years later in 1768, his work “Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third” was published. He also printed a tragedy “The Mysterious Mother” but did not publish it. Several other works, also on topics like gardening, followed.
   Sources:
   “Walpole, Horace” The Oxford Companion to English Literature. Edited by Dinah Birch. Oxford University Press Inc. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. Universitatsbibliothek Osnabrückck. 25 November 2009

   “Castle of Otranto, The” The Oxford Companion to English Literature. Edited by Dinah Birch. Oxford University Press Inc. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. Universitatsbibliothek Osnabrückck. 25 November 2009

8. ehabermaon 27 Nov 2009 at 18:52 8

   Charles Brockden Brown, born in Philadelphia, 17 January, 1771, died 22 February, 1810. Her was a novelist and journalist as well as the first professional American writer and the first American writer to develop an international reputation.
   Before he was ten years old he was thoroughly acquainted with geography, his favorite study, and had read every book he could obtain. From his eleventh tilt his sixteenth year he was at the school of Robert Proud, the historian, then a noted teacher, and studied so assiduously that he was often obliged to leave his books for a walking trip through the country. He was always physically weak, and, in a letter written just before his death, said that he never had been in perfect health for more than half an hour at a time.
   He had tested his powers as a writer by contributing to the ” Columbus Magazine,” by a carefully kept diary, and by numerous essays read before a “Belles-Lettres Club,” of which he had been the leader. He was the first American to adopt literature as a profession. Soon after making this decision he visited his friend, Dr. Smith, of New York, and, becoming acquainted with many literary and scientific men of that City, virtually made it his residence after that time. In 1797 he wrote a work entitled “The Dialogue of Alcuin,” discussing with some boldness the topic of divorce, but it attracted little attention. Soon after this he projected a new magazine, which never appeared, and in 1798 he contributed to the “Weekly Magazine” a series of reflections on men and society, entitled “The Man at Home.” In this year he also began the publication of his novels, which are his best-known works. Between 1798 and 1801 he published six novels, which attained immediate success, and were the finest American fictions until the appearance of Cooper’s novels.
   In 1798 he wrote his famous piece “Wieland” or ” The Transformation”. “Wieland” is widely considered the first gothic novel produced by an American. Written in epistolary form, the work draws on the traditions of both Gothic and sentimental novels, and includes such narrative elements as murder, suicide, seduction, and insanity.
   Charles Brockden Brown contracted tuberculosis during 1809 and died during February 1810 at the age of 39.

   Sources:

   http://www.enotes.com/nineteenth-century-criticism/
   http://www.litgothic.com/Authors/cbbrown.html
   http://www.famousamericans.net/
   http://library.bowdoin.edu/
   http://selfknowledge.com/welnd10.htm

9. athumannon 29 Nov 2009 at 16:00 9

   In the following I will concentrate on Julia Kristeva and the theory of abjection:

   Kristeva, born in 1941, is a philosopher, authoress and psychoanalyst. Since 1965, she has been living and working in Paris. In 1982, she published Powers of Horror. An essay on abjection, in which she introduces her view on abjection.
   In Julia Kristeva and literary theory Megan Becker-Leckrone tries to provide a definition of the term abjection. Right at the beginning she states that “abjection demonstrates its most crucial feature: its resistance to definition, its objectless negativity.” It is hard to define that term. In Powers of Horror Kristeva explores the dynamics of the subject-object-abject relation by considering radical instances in which subjective distinction becomes most precarious. In her view, “the abject has only one quality of the object-that of being opposed to I.” Abjection threatens the perceiving subject to a borderland of horror. It really manifests itself in the most exceptional instances of human horror. When feeling abjection, we, the subjects, feel a sense of helplessness. We try to exclude the abject but it still exists. We are both drawn to and repelled by the abject. Kristeva borrowed the term form Georges Bataille, who regarded abjection as the squalid, hypocritical. She however connects abjection to an extreme state of subjectivity. It is a crisis in which the borders of self and other radically break down. Abjection is more than a mere developmental account of infantile separation. It refers to an infantile, originary moment in the subject’s individual history, as well as to something the subject might experience throughout its existence at moments of extreme crisis and to a collective condition of our humanity. Consequently it is a manipulator, and as such subverts boundaries, laws, and conventions.

   Source:
   Becker-Leckrine, Megan: Julia Kristeva and literary theory, Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.
   http://www.otago.ac.nz/DeepSouth/vol2no3/pentony.html (Stand: 29.11.09)

10. ntimphauon 30 Nov 2009 at 00:41 10

    In the following I would like to talk about Edgar Allan Poe.

    Edgar Allan Poe was born in 1809 in Boston and died in 1849 in Baltimore. He was a famous American writer and is connected to Gothic writing. Poe’s stature as a major figure in world literature is based on his highly acclaimed poems, critical theories and short stories, which established an influential rationale for the short form in poetry and fiction. His poetry and short stories influenced the French Symbolists of the late nineteenth century. Poe himself was influenced by the British Romantics like Coleridge, Shelley and Keats. He saw part of his task as a writer to explore the world of imagination and was therefore called the “Father” of American gothic. Edgar Allan Poe had a remarkable influence on American and European writing. He was seen as an important and innovative reinterpreter of the Gothic. His story “The Fall of the House of Usher” (1839) explores the ‘terrors of the soul’ whilst revisiting classic Gothic tropes of aristocratic decay, death, and madness.
    Poe used Gothic, his best known fiction works, to appease the public taste. In his poems and stories he deals with issues like death and mourning and the reanimation of the dead. Poe is seen as one of the foremost progenitors of modern literature, and of the Gothic style in particular. Some of his works are ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’, ‘The Masque of Red Death’, ‘The Pit and the Pendulum’, ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’, ‘The Black Cat’ and ‘The Murders of the Rue Morgue’.

    I think that Edgar Allan Poe can be compared to some of the protagonists in his stories because his works mostly contain mentally disturbed persons who suffer from a difficult life, as you can see in ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’, in which a mad person kills another one because of his eye. Edgar Allan Poe himself had a hard life because he was addicted to alcohol and had often problems with money.

    http://www.enotes.com/gothic-literature/poe-edgar-allan (29.11.2009).
    http://www.newi.ac.uk/rdover/other/edgar_al.htm (29.11.2009).
    http://poestories.com/biography.php (29.11.2009).
    Lexikon-Institut Bertelsmann, Das moderne Lexikon, 413.

11. ehasson 30 Nov 2009 at 14:08 11

    In the following I would like to concentrate on the American writer, poet, short story writer and critic Edgar Allan Poe. ( I just noticed that 2 persons have already dealt with Poe, as I started my work yesterday evening).
    Edgar Allan Poe was born in 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts. Both of his parents were actors,
    Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins (1787-1811) and David Poe (1784-1810). Edgar, his older brother William Henry and his sister became orphans at very early age.
    He was adopted by John Allan, a tobacco merchant in Richmond, Virginia, and was sent to a boarding school in London, England.
    He returned to the United States a few years later, in 1820, and attended the University of Virginia for a year. Being displeased by Edgar´s drinking and gambling his foster father refused to pay Edgar´s debts and forced him to work as a clerk.
    Poe died in October 1849 in Baltimore at the age of 40. It is not sure what circumstances led to his dead, but it seems clear that his death can be attributed to the effects of alcoholism.
    Edgar Allan Poe was the creator of the American Gothic tale and detective fiction and contributed greatly to the genres of horror and science fiction.
    He was greatly influenced by romantic writers such as Shelley from Europe, where the romantic period had started much earlier than in the United States.
    His poems and stories deal with the supernatural, the horrifying and the Grotesque, exploring the darker side of the Romantic imagination and examining the human psyche.
    He made use of gothic methods, for example macabre, suspense and mystery, and psychology, to depict the dark feeling in the characters.
    .His stories involve settings that featuring dark, medieval castles and decaying, ancient estates and the setting is used to paint a dark and gloomy picture in the reader´s mind.
    The male characters in his stories are insane and behave bizarrely and the female are beautiful and mostly dead or dying. The narrator, who has committed a crime, often leads others to discover their crime (for example the tell tale heart).
    As lespelag already pointed out Edgar is famous for his literary theory; the unity of effect and the unity of expression.

    Sources:
    http://www.horrorstew.com/Edgar-Allan-Poes-Famous.html
    http://www.online-literature.com/poe/
    http://www.mysterynet.com/edgar-allan-poe/

12. JSibbingon 30 Nov 2009 at 14:29 12

    In the following I want to give some more information about Edgar Allan Poe. Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) was very much influenced by American romantic literature. He lost his parents at an early age and married his 14-year-old cousin. Through his lifetime he did everything to become famous and to earn enough money to make a living. Now, he is known as a “tragic” genius, who is in complete contrast to society. He lived a dramatic life and moreover he was interested in psychological depths. In his literature the narrative perspective is often radical and subjective; one cannot rely on the narrator. He also uses mental, psychological conflicts as a foundation for aesthetic effects (Perception vs. Hallucination; Reason vs. Madness; Control vs. Excess; Observation vs. Imagination). In his horror literature he uses these things and is now known as pessimistic dark romanticist.
    As my previous speakers already said, he had a big influence on Gothic writing.
    Sources:
    W.Martynkewicz: Edgar Allan Poe; Rowohlt Tb.; Auflage: 1 (Juli 2003)
    (and notes from other seminars)

13. Martin Brunson 30 Nov 2009 at 15:00 13

    I would like to give some information about Sigmund Freud and “the uncanny”.

    Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) was an Austrian doctor of Medicine who established the psychoanalysis.
    His “[...]theories emphasized the importance of the subconscious, infantile sexuality, and the development of sexuality at the onset of neuroses”.
    His books were very important for psychotherapy and
    still “the Freudian theory, Freudianism, is now a major system of psychoanalysis, and its adherents are known as Freudians.”

    “The uncanny” is a term used by Freud to express a feeling of unease or even horror. It is invoked by a “cognitive dissonance” that develops out of the conflicting feelings of attraction and repulsion at the same time.
    In fact, the ” apparently strange is a disguised representation of what is in fact familiar.”

    Sources:
    Blackwell Referance Online:
    http://www.blackwellreference.com/subscriber/uid=1030/tocnode?query=freud&widen=1&result_number=1&from=search&fuzzy=0&type=std&id=g9780631207535_chunk_g97806312075359_ss1-24&slop=1

    http://www.blackwellreference.com/subscriber/uid=1030/tocnode?query=uncanny&widen=1&result_number=1&from=search&id=g9780631207535_chunk_g978063120753524_ss1-1&type=std&fuzzy=0&slop=1

    Oxford Reference Online:
    http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?entry=t31.e140&srn=2&ssid=1084143545#FIRSTHIT

    http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?entry=t56.e1182&srn=1&ssid=236461105#FIRSTHIT

14. kriddebron 30 Nov 2009 at 17:18 14

    I would like to concentrate on the novel “The Castle of Otranto”, written by Horace Walpole in 1764. First, I will give some information on the content of the story and then, the focus will be on the gothic set piece of Walpole’s story.

    “The Castle of Otranto” tells the story of Manfred, lord of a castle, and his family. One day before his son Conrad’s wedding with Isabella, Manfred’s successor dies under inexplicable and supernatural circumstances. Because Manfred terrifies the beginning of the end for his line, he wants to marry Isabella. So he divorces his current wife Hippolita. But his attempts to get Isabella are disrupted by a series of supernatural events. Theodore, a prince, saves and later marries Isabella, although his true love is the dead Mathilda.

    With this story, Walpole wrote the first novel, which can be described as gothic novel. Typical for a gothic novel are several elements, which can be found in this story. The first element is the feeling of mystery and suspense. Part of this is for example the setting in a castle, which stresses the dark atmosphere. Emotions like fear and the unknown belong to this, too. Furthermore, the occurrences of supernatural or inexplicable events also belong to the features of gothic novels. This can definitely be found in “The Castle of Otranto”. As an example can be taken the mysterious death of Conrad, Manfred’s son. Additionally, emotions like gloom and horror are part of gothic novels. The characters of “The Castle of Otranto” are overcome by terror, anger, sorrow and surprise. Their emotions can even be described as overwrought and the narration is highly sentimental. As a last element of gothic novels, a lonely, pensive and oppressed heroine can be mentioned. In our story, Isabella is threatened by her father- in- law and finds herself in distress and despair.

    Sources:
    Horace Walpole: The Critical Heritage, edited by Peter Sabor, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1987.

    http://www.virtualsalt.com/gothic.htm

15. cbardenhon 30 Nov 2009 at 19:58 15

    In my blog entry I deal with Charles Brockden Brown and espacially his work “Wieland” and the role he plays for the American Gothic.
    Charles Brockden Brown was born in 1771 and is regarded to be the first American novelist or at least “one of America’s earliest gothic writers”. He had kind of an imagery style by using typical European Gothic Parts like castles in his stories (which were set in America), that did not exist in America.
    Brown saw himself as a “story-telling moralist”, which might be the best suiting term, because he wrote his novels at a time, when the American constitution was ratified an social fears came up, that the new constitution would not be able to form an American society as it should.
    His first novel “Wieland”, published in 1798, subtitled “An American Tale”, deals with this anxiety. The tale tells the story of the ventiloquist Carwin who projects his voice to Theodore Wieland telling him, he is the voice of god an Wieland has to kill his family. In the next step he tells Henry Pleyel pretending to be his beloved Clara, that she cheated on him with Carwin. This is like a judgement to death for the Wieland family.
    Within this novel Brown questiones the whole system of democracy, because if human’s “senses are so unreliable that they can be brought to believe that their beloved is cheating on them or that God has told them to slaughter their families, then how can a democracy possibly work?” How could people run a country, if they are not able to handle their own emotions?
    Brown shows this fear of the people towards a democratic government due to the use of his ventiloquist Carwin and this is why i think the term “story-telling moralist” suits perfectly on Charles Brockden Brown.

    Sources:
    Blackwell Reference Online:
    http://www.blackwellreference.com/subscriber/uid=1030/tocnode?query=wieland&widen=0&result_number=2&fields=content&from=search&id=g9780631234227_chunk_g978063123422717&type=proximity&slop=0

    Encyclopædia Britannica:
    http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/81492/Charles-Brockden-Brown

    The Literary Gothic:
    http://www.litgothic.com/Authors/cbbrown.html

16. strompeton 30 Nov 2009 at 20:15 16

    Charles Brockden Brown was born in January 17th, 1771 in Philadelphia and died in February 22nd, 1810 in Philadelphia.
    Brown, as the son of Quaker parents, had the chance to study early. In 1787 he became a lawyer, but he still had “(…) a strong interest in writing (…)”, so he founded a literary society. In 1793 he chose to concentrate completely on his literary career in Philadelphia and New York, so he assigned his job as a lawyer.

    He is considered “(…) as the father of the American novel.”, for he was the first author who composed gothic romances in American settings and they “(…) were the first in a tradition adapted by two of the greatest early American authors, Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne.”
    Brown rated himself as a “story-telling moralist”, because on the one hand his works create horror and terror, but on the other hand “(…) they reflect a thoughtful liberalism.”

    Wieland, the first novel Brown wrote in 1789, shows “(…) the ease with which mental balance is lost when the test of common sense is not applied to strange experiences.”

    The plot is about Theodore Wieland, whose father died of spontaneous combustion because he “(…) violated a vow to God.”
    Wieland, as a religious enthusiast, seeks the direct communication with divinity, but wrongly presumes a ventriloquist’s utterances as divine.
    As a result, he goes insane, just listens to his “inner voice” and “(…) murders his wife and children.”
    As he becomes aware of his mistake, he kills himself.

    Brown also wrote a book “(…) on the rights of women.”.

    Source:
    “Charles Brockden Brown.” Encyclopædia Britannica. 2009. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 30 Nov. 2009 .

17. tharsmanon 30 Nov 2009 at 21:12 17

    In the following I will be trying to give a brief overview over the reception of gothic writings in the Romantic movement which shall contribute to both questions: Why were gothic writings famous, and why where they perhaps not very popular?
    Gothic Fiction in the late 18th century united a broad diversity of cultural influences, “from Shakespeare to ‘Ossian’, from medievalism to Celtic nationalism” (Gamer, 27). There were both, passive and active reception of these influences around that time, David Punter states that W. Blake, S. T. Coleridge, P. B. Shelley and others helped to create images of terror – which were characteristic of Gothic literature and poetry – which strongly influenced the following literature, too.
    It is not easy to spot the true reasons for the popularity of the Gothic in the Romantic movement – it has mostly been ascribed to political reasons like the French Revolution or the “authority … gone mad”, “the recurring madness of George III” (Gamer 30). Gothic literature was threatening the social and political order. But as Gamer points out, there is an economic reason, too. Readers are defined to be influencial on literary changes, and (roughly) around 1790, there was a shift in the desire of British readers: they did not read for information anymore, but they saw reading as an escape. The ‚damnation’ of Gothic came in 1795 and was emphasized by (and comparable to) the fear of invasions from the continent. In times of political unrests it is not adjuvant for a literary genre to be unsettling by means of terror and horror.

    Source:

    Gamer, Michael. Romanticism and the Gothic. Genre, Reception and Canon Formation. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge 2000.

18. Norbert Löscheron 30 Nov 2009 at 23:13 18

    In his essay on “Das Unheimliche”, Freud explores several “works of Art that provoke feelings of unease, dread, or horror”. (Macey) Throughout the first part of the text he focuses on the semantics and etymology of the German words ‘unheimlich’ and ‘heimlich’. He concludes that both words are interdependent; so that the uncanny actually refers to an experience which is both uncanny and familiar at the same time: “Unheimlich ist irgendwie eine Art von heimlich.” (Freud 250)
    For the second part of the text he then focuses his analysis on literature, including E.T.A. Hoffmann’s “Der Sandmann”. Here the points of interest for Freud are elements that relate to or resemble the fear of castration: The sandman, who threw sand in the eyes of children who wouldn’t sleep, so that the eyes fell out, collected those eyes to take them to his nest on the moon and feed them to his children. While Nathaniel – the protagonist of the story – was old enough to know that this nightmarish creature was merely made up, he still was full of fear: He identified the sandman as the advocate Coppelius, who called “Augen her, Augen her!”, demanding the eyes of the child. (Freud 252)
    Some sort of deal is arranged, so that the boy can keep his eyes, but the father is killed in explosion a year later. Throughout the story the sandman haunts Nathaniel, who in the end goes mad and kills himself. Freud now argues that the fear of losing your eyes is merely a substitute for the fear of castration. (Freud 254)
    In “Der Sandmann”, the sandman acts as destroyer of love, and even Nathaniel’s fear of the losing his eyes is connected to the death of his father: While the father usually represents the threat of castration, we find a split “Vater-Imago” in “Der Sandmann”. The death of the “good father” is nothing more than the wish for the death of the father figure as a whole, but at the same time it allows Nathanial to project his deathwish on the “evil father”, Coppelius. (Freud 255)
    So, according to Freud, the uncanny as well as every other aspects that evokes fear can be traced back to psychological conditions that have been repressed, therefore giving a new level of meaning to the interdependence of ‘heimlich’ and ‘unheimlich’: What seems ‘unheimlich’ roots in the depths of the human (un-)consciousness, be it the fear of death, the fear of castration or even the fear of having a doppelgänger.

    Sources:
    FREUD, SIGMUND. Das Unheimliche.1919. Psychologische Schriften. Band IV. Frankfurt: S. Fischer, 1970. 241- 274.

    MACEY, DAVID. “uncanny, the.” Dictionary of Cultural and Critical Theory. Payne, Michael (ed). Blackwell Publishing, 1997. Blackwell Reference Online. 27 November 2009

19. kschitowon 30 Nov 2009 at 23:42 19

    The following entry deals with the idea of “the uncanny” and Freud’s definition of this term.

    A general definition of “the uncanny” describes the term as a “disturbing strangeness” evoked in horror stories and fictions. The idea deals with strange feelings, not concentrating on beauty and more positive emotions, but on something fearful and frightening.
    Furthermore it is important to mention that there are two meanings, embodied by this term. Having a closer look at the German translation “unheimlich”, one can say that there are two different ways of interpreting this word. On the one hand the variant “unheimlich”, which describes sth. unfamiliar, uncomfortable and weird. But on the other hand there is also the less common variant “un-heimlich”, which describes sth. unsecret, what is supposed to be kept secret but is revealed.

    The term was also influenced by Sigmund Freud’s article “The Uncanny” (1919). Freud’s defines “the uncanny” as “the class of frightening things that leads us back to what is known and familiar”. The “uncanny” reveals “what is private and concealed, what is hidden; hidden not only from others, but also from the self”.
    Freud’s general thesis claims that “the uncanny” is “anything we experience in adulthood that reminds us of earlier psychic stages, of aspects of our unconscious life, or of the primitive experience of the human species”.
    Freud’s aim was to demonstrate psychoanalytically, why frightening things lead us back to what is known and familiar.

    Sources:

    -The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. Chris Baldick. Oxford University Press, 2008. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. Universitatsbibliothek Osnabrück. 30 November 2009

    -The Oxford Companion to English Literature. Edited by Dinah Birch. Oxford University Press Inc. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. Universitatsbibliothek Osnabrück. 30 November 2009

    -http://courses.washington.edu/freudlit/Uncanny.Notes.html, 11/30/09

20. marlkleion 01 Dec 2009 at 00:47 20

    In the following, I would like to concentrate on the “Uncanny”.
    which is a psychologcal essay of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) which was published in 1919. Sigmund Freud is ofen called the father of psycoanalysis and many of his theories and works are still practiced and used today.
    The phenomenon of the “Uncanny” describes a feeling of fear and horror which is not limited to the field of aesthetic experience. Freud added that something “uncanny” could also be familiar and strange at the same time. This is one reason why he distinguished between an “uncanny” experience and an “uncanny” idea or conecpt, this is why he pointed out that the use of the term “uncanny” is not clearly defined.

    -http://people.emich.edu/acoykenda/uncanny1.htm
    -http://www.yourdictionary.com/community/forums/viewthread/5896
    -blogs.nyu.edu/blogs/dnm232/nycinfilm/freud_uncanny.pdf

21. Benno Hilwerlingon 01 Dec 2009 at 01:53 21

    Criticism of (some) Romantic writers on the Gothic

    There was a lot of criticism passed on the Gothic by many Romantic writers, one of which being William Wordsworth. As an example I would like to quote a short extract from his Preface to „Lyrical Ballads“, which can be found in our reader:

    “The invaluable works of elder writers […] are driven into neglect by frantic novels, sickly and stupid German tragedies, and deluges of idle and extravagant stories in verse.”

    In this sentence Wordsworth obviously refers to the Gothic novel being idle and void of any kind of meaning to society. Two paragraphs down the page he starts with “Having dwelt thus long on the subjects and aim of these poems, …”, which shows again that he believes a certain purpose to be in his writings and Romantic writings in general.
    I think that this is the main aspect of the criticism on the Gothic, stated by many Romantic writers. While Romantic writers, though their novels and poems are also fanciful and unrealistic, seek a greater truth/enlightenment and thus, criticize the modern and industrialized society, Gothic writings were often seen as blunt and of a lesser meaning.
    On the other hand, like “tharsman” already wrote in his entry, this was probably the key to the success and the popularity of Gothic novels. In times of political conflicts and huge, rapid changes in society, clearly unrealistic, superstitious stories without too much of an educational and socio-critical intention might have been a more-than-welcome escape from everyday life for many people. In the eyes of Wordsworth and many of his fellow Romantic writers however, the Gothic genre must have seemed to be a step back into the direction of social immaturity (in a philosophical sense like Immanuel Kant uses it).

    Sources:
    Peck, J. & Coyle, M.: Literary Terms and Criticism (2002).
    Wordsworth, William: Lyrical Ballads (1798) (“Preface” Composed 1800, revised 1802.)

22. Irina Brittneron 01 Dec 2009 at 02:09 22

    I will try to deal with Frankenstein and Julia Kristeva`s Theory of Abjection and I will therefore concentrate on the passage of Frankenstein we have in our reader.

    In this passage Frankenstein gives life to his creature, but as soon as he recognizes its animation, he feels repulsion against it and refuses the creature by running away and hiding in his bedroom. He abandons it, exactly in the same moment he “gives birth to it”, although he has undergone a lot of effort to create it. In his bedroom he has a dream: first he sees his girlfriend Elizabeth, who transforms into the dead body of his mother. When he wakes up he “[beholds] the wretch- the miserable monster whom [he ] has created” (Shelley, 1823, p. 100). According to Kristeva,” abjection [is] a process of ejecting or displacing preconscious multiplicities in the self into an externalized alter ego through which what is preconscious, already quite disguised, is “thrown under” the eventual dominance of sanctioned cultural discourses and other forms of social control” (Hogle,7). So Frankenstein wants to transfer his own characteristic traits, which are not approved by society or social control, his abnormalities to another person/creature to escape the punishment of society. Perhaps one of these abnormalities is his obsession with the decaying body or his longing for the god-like ability to give birth, which is given to women by nature. This view is reinforced by the allusion to his dead mother, whom he originally wanted to restore by his creation. The figure of a dead mother embodies both in his dream: life and death. As a mother she has given life to him, but on the other hand her dead body embraces him. So Frankenstein is confronted with life and death at the same time, even though he wanted to overcome death, which represents the human physical limits. That is why “[he] felt the bitterness of disappointment” when he looks at his monster. The transfer of these abnormalities to the creature, makes it the abject itself, and as athumann has explained that although Frankenstein tries to exclude the abject, it still exists and that he is both repelled and drawn to the creature. Later in the story, Frankenstein even tries to create a female counterpart to his monster, so that they can mate.

    Sources:
    Shelley, Wollstonecraft Mary. Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus, 1823, Chapter 4 (Extract).
    Haggerty, George E. “ Dung, Guts and Blood: Sodomy, Abjection and Gothic Fiction in the Early Nineteenth Century”. Gothic Studies, November 2006, p.35-51
    Hogle, E. Jarrold. “Frankenstein`s Dream. An Introduction”. Frankenstein`s Dream, edited by Jarrold E. Hogle. Romantic Circles Praxis Series. Available at: http://www.rc.umd.edu/praxis/frankenstein/hogle/hogle.html

23. Stefanie Krügeron 01 Dec 2009 at 14:31 23

    Poe seemingly is one of your favourite topics as four students commented on him and his Gothic writing. Lisa, Nina, Elisa and Julia, you correctly state that Poe is often seen as the “father of American Gothic” particularly because he set up certain characteristics concerning the short story which, above everything else, should aim at a certain effect which is achieved through the unity of effect and the unity of expression. As some of you observe he influenced much American writing, for example Nathaniel Hawthorne.
    Ada speaks about Edmund Burke’s interesting “Enquiry” on the Sublime and the Beautiful. In your very good entry you correctly observe that the basic principle to a sublime experience is terror (at least in Burke’s understanding).
    Sarah comments on American Gothic. As we just found out in our seminar, there are indeed certain parallels between the establishment of the Gothic in Britain and America and that of Romanticim. What I like about your comment is that you draw attention to the political aspect of Gothic writing in America which was much more important than in Britian.
    Ina, Eike and Sandra chose Charles Brockdon Brown’s Wieland as the topic of their entries. Wieland is indeed the first Gothic novel in America (there, of course, were some Gothic stories before that, for example by Washington Irving). Eike, take a bit more care of your sources as those you used are not necessarily the best possible.
    Sandra (Wortmann) you gave a very good introduction in general to Gothic fiction and already name some conventional characteristics that were, for example, established in Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto. I like the way you link your knowledge with what we just learned in our seminar, namely that the Gothic combines two very different ideas and that it aims at a certain effect which is mainly connected with negative feelings like terror or fear and is yet pleasurable.
    Freud seems to be another favourite of yours as Kathrin, Martin, Norbert, Katharina and Marlon have commented on the Austrian psychoanalyst and his essay on “The Uncanny”. Marlon and Martin, try to make your entries a bit more productive as they are very short. If you can’t find anything else on the topic because it has already been said by others choose another topic (thus nobody wrote about Frankenstein and abjection).
    Josephine and Kristina concentrated on the first gothic novel ever and Josephine correctly explained Walpole’s approach to the then new genre of Gothic writing.
    Anja and Irina (as you can see, Irina, I could finally approve your comment, but I found it in the spam section) wrote their entries on a somewhat difficult topic, namely Julia Kristeva’s idea of the abject. I think you understood the concept pretty well and I hope that it became somewhat more clearer in today’s session.
    Thomas finally decided to talk a bit more about the question whether gothic writing was popular during the Romantic movement or not. You observed that there were and are various ideas to that question. In Wordsworth’s and Coleridge’s preface to “Lyrical Ballads” we find some proof that definitely not every writer approved of the Gothic mode.

    To those of you who wrote their comments today: I will not count them. All the others somehow manage to write their blog entries several days in advance or at least one day in advance. So should you.

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