The Romantic vs. the Gothic Novel of Nineteenth Century English Literature
Gothic and romantic writing both spring from a recognition of the insufficiency of reason or religious faith to explain and make comprehensible the complexities of life. Romantic writing reconciles the discordant elements it faces, resolving their apparent contradictions imaginatively in the creation of a higher order. Gothic writing has no such answers and can only leave the “opposites” contradictory and paradoxical.
The Romantic Novel
Traditionally the romantic novel has been perceived as a more serious art form, dealing with many of the same issues as Romantic poetry, but in a novel as opposed to a poetic form. Within the setting of love relationships, the Romantic novel focuses on the importance of the individual as opposed to society’s values; a questioning of the traditional authority of the ruling classes; an emphasis on the power of emotion and imagination; a striving for moral good in a generally corrupt world, an emphasis on the value of nature to evoke both comfort and real communication. Jane Austen, Sir Walter Scott and Emily and Charlotte Bronte are often considered the best of the genre.
The Romantic Novel interestingly is as interested in social criticism and the exploration of moral values as it is in the study of relationships, love and emotion in general. Sir Walter Scott in novels like Ivanhoe, The Heart of Midlothian critiques the exploitation of the Scottish by the English and the unfairness of any class system within the context of adventures stories. Jane Eyre explores love relationships, but simultaneously explores what it means to be English in a changing political and social culture, what responsibilities are entailed in being leaders in a community, how important moral worth is.
The Gothic Novel
The gothic novel, on the other hand is perceived as being less focused on character and ideas, and more interested in entertainment and imagination, especially relating to fear and dread. In class terms, where the romantic novel is a middle class form, the gothic novel has always been regarded as popular, lower class fiction. A great many popular gothic novels were written in the early nineteenth century and they were the most successful form of popular literature. Stephen King is regarded as a foremost contemporary gothic novelists. However, romantic writers also absorbed many of the characteristics of the gothic novel, especially the later romantic writers such as the Bronte sisters and Mary Shelley in England and Victor Hugo in France. For many years, these latter writers were not respected members of the literary canon because of the strong gothic influence in their writings. Now because of a contemporary interest in psychology, the gothic influences have become more legitimized.
The Gothic novel has three main connotations: violence, the supernatural, and the past (particularly the historical setting of the middle ages).
Popular gothic fiction were usually set in castles or run-down buildings with all the paraphenalia of fear: dark corridors, secret underground passages, dungeons, overgrown natural environments, dense forests, thunderstorms and the like - anything that worked on the imagination to suggest mystery, fear, potential or past violence and death. Plots often involved evil doings in vaults, terrified fugitives, weird white-clothed figures and virginal female victims.
The Romantic and the Gothic
The later Romantic novelists like Mary Shelley and the Bronte sisters demonstrate characteristics of both the higher moral and social purpose of the Romantic novel and the entertaining blood-curdling atmosphere of the gothic novel.
Frankenstein
As a Romantic novel: a study of good and evil, of the impact of science on society, on human responsibilities, the importance of family and education. Notice the discussion of education, philosophy and politics that takes place in the cottage in the forest among the political exiles.
As a gothic novel: gory scenes of violence, death and destruction, chases, innocent female victims, blood and gore and desolate natural settings, or diseased immoral urban settings.
Wuthering Heights
As a Romantic Novel: two ways of living, class conflict, the individual desire vs. social approval, the importance of emotion and the necessity of moral good
As a gothic novel: dark and gloomy setting, violence, ghosts, curses, female victims
Jane Eyre
As a Romantic novel: the story of Jane rising up through the social ranks, defying convention. The need for Rochester to endure moral retribution and 20th c. interpretations of the treatment of the mad woman in the attic
As a Gothic novel: dark and gloomy setting, violence, death, insanity, female victims