ShmoopTube

00:02

Have you ever been reading a book and thought well this story's okay and the [girl frantically reading a book in a library]

00:07

characters are fine but where are the ghosts and the vampires and couldn't it

00:10

include at least few scenes in a graveyard yeah so we might just have the

00:15

genre for you called Gothic literature well above all Gothic literature is a [girl reading a book and man behind picks up a Gothic literature book]

00:20

genre known for spookiness that means not only real-world spookiness you know

00:26

your bats, your cobwebs, your creepy folks and dark castles but also spooky

00:30

supernatural elements whether those are ghosts vampires or other kinds of spooky [examples of gothic literature elements]

00:34

monsters well you're unlikely to find those kinds of monsters in say legal

00:38

thrillers so it's nice that they have a home anyway believe it or not gothic [man with wolf head approaches judge's bench in court]

00:42

authors are interested in one of the fundamental concepts of romantic

00:45

literature the sublime just because they like bats doesn't mean they can't be [Bram Stoker stood outside a castle and a bat appears]

00:51

romantic too as you might recall experiencing the sublime is that

00:54

feeling of being overwhelmed and almost terrified though for gothic authors the

00:59

emphasis is definitely on the terrified part so whereas a traditional romantic [Lord Byron on a mountainside with a sign for 'Ooh Aah Point']

01:02

might prefer the beautiful view from the edge of a canyon the Gothic would be

01:06

enthralled by a terrifying monster attack and surprisingly Grand Canyon [Lord Byron on a mountainside attacked by a monster]

01:11

National Park has never hired a gothic writer to make their brochures wonder

01:15

why well if we've got a book and we're curious as to whether or not it's a [A boy in a library and a Tale of Stories book appears]

01:18

gothic novel well there are certain elements we can look for for one gothic

01:23

novels have a spooky setting yep these novels are usually set nightmarish [dark misty clouds pass by the moon]

01:28

places like graveyards, old churches, ruined medieval castles and well just

01:33

plain old ruins basically places that tend not to have really high property [Man stood beside a for sale sign]

01:38

values gothic novels are even sometimes set in creepier natural settings

01:42

like the English Moors or an overgrown forest on a dark and stormy night [Misty English moors and a dark windy forest]

01:47

relatively few gothic novels are set at well say at a football training camp

01:51

and spooky monsters and team sports don't tend to get along. Another element that [Monster on a football pitch tackled by a football player]

01:55

often crops up is the supernatural no not that TV show with the weirdly pretty

02:00

people fighting against evil we're talking ghosts vampires zombies

02:03

and other monsters but I'll give us a sense that evil is lurking just around [Man enters and is scared by a ghost, zombie and vampire]

02:07

the corner they're much more effective at evoking this feeling than puppies or

02:11

baby pandas as cute as they might be finally gothic

02:14

novels often play off the idea that the world is full of evil which as you'd

02:18

imagine make the world a not-so-great place to live [Earth opens up and Evil is inside]

02:21

well it's not just that bad things happen it's that they shatter former

02:25

sights of happiness like evil pins and non evil balloons and as far as bad

02:30

things go well there's almost nothing higher on our list an unexpected balloon [A clown using a pin to pop a balloon]

02:34

popper uh-huh terrifying

Full Transcript