scholarly journals ‘Thrilled with Chilly Horror’: A Formulaic Pattern in Gothic Fiction

2015 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 105-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manuel Aguirre
Keyword(s):  
Corpus Linguistics ◽  
Ann Radcliffe ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Prose Fiction ◽  
Formulaic Language ◽  
Gothic Fiction ◽  
Northanger Abbey ◽  
Key Word ◽  
Free Translation ◽  
Gothic Novels

Abstract This article is part of a body of research into the conventions which govern the composition of Gothic texts. Gothic fiction resorts to formulas or formula-like constructions, but whereas in writers such as Ann Radcliffe this practice is apt to be masked by stylistic devices, it enjoys a more naked display in the–in our modern eyes–less ‘canonical’ Gothics, and it is in these that we may profitably begin an analysis. The novel selected was Peter Teuthold’s The Necromancer (1794)–a very free translation of K. F. Kahlert’s Der Geisterbanner (1792) and one of the seven Gothic novels mentioned in Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey. There is currently no literature on the topic of formulaic language in Gothic prose fiction. The article resorts to a modified understanding of the term ‘collocation’ as used in lexicography and corpus linguistics to identify the significant co-occurrence of two or more words in proximity. It also draws on insights from the Theory of Oral-Formulaic Composition, in particular as concerns the use of the term ‘formula’ in traditional epic poetry, though again some modifications are required by the nature of Teuthold’s text. The article differentiates between formula as a set of words which appear in invariant or near-invariant collocation more than once, and a formulaic pattern, a rather more complex, open system of collocations involving lexical and other fields. The article isolates a formulaic pattern—that gravitating around the node-word ‘horror’, a key word for the entire Gothic genre –, defines its component elements and structure within the book, and analyses its thematic importance. Key to this analysis are the concepts of overpatterning, ritualization, equivalence and visibility.

Jane Austen’s Questioning of Gender and Genres

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie-Laure MASSEI-CHAMAYOU
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Jane Austen ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Conduct Books ◽  
Northanger Abbey ◽  
Gothic Novels ◽  
Opposite View

If Jane Austen admits in her correspondence that she was eventually pleased with Thomas Gisborne’s Enquiry into the Duties of the Female Sex (1797), the Anglican theologian nonetheless endorsed the prejudices shared by most eighteenth-century moralists towards novels. Now, in Northanger Abbey, a novel filled with literary allusions, Jane Austen’s narrator bravely takes the opposite view by launching into a bold defence of the genre. Besides resorting to a biting irony to scrutinize her society’s axioms, rules and power relations, her novels notably question Manichean representations of masculine and feminine roles. Jane Austen’s choice to distance herself from the strictly gendered models inherited from conduct books, sentimental, or gothic novels, further combines with her questioning of generic conventions. This article thus aims at exploring how Jane Austen engaged with these representations while articulating her subtle didacticism. Her aim was not merely to raise the respectability of the novel genre, but also to provide a possible answer to the crisis of values that was threatening the very foundations of the political and social order.

scholarly journals Interpreting Jane Austen’s Writing Style: Adaptations of the Novel Northanger Abbey

2020 ◽  
pp. 221-233
Author(s):  
Hlushchenko Olena Volodymyrivna ◽  
Kornielaieva Yevheniia Valeriivna ◽  
Moskaliuk Olena Viktorivna
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Jane Austen ◽  
Literary Work ◽  
Research Paper ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Writing Style ◽  
Gothic Fiction ◽  
Northanger Abbey ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Spelling Word

The research paper focused on revealing the individual writing style of Jane Austen based on the novel Northanger Abbey and interpretations of its various adaptations. The purpose of the article is to prove that the individual author’s style can be reconstructed due to different stylistic devices that help the reader to understand the message of a literary work more profoundly and take into account in the process of film adaptations. An author’s style is characterized by numerous factors including spelling, word choices, sentence structures, punctuation, use of literary stylistic devices (irony, metaphors, rhyme, etc.) and organization of ideas, narration structure, and overall tone of the narration. The main analytic procedures used in the research are keyness, collocation, and cluster. The authors also define that the novel under analysis is a parody of Gothic fiction. The author ruined the conventions of eighteenth-century novels by making her heroine fall in love with the character before he has a serious thought of her and exposing the heroine’s romantic fears and curiosities as groundless. The article deals with adaptation as an integral part of the concept of intersemiotic translation. It is possible to say that adaptation is an attempt to translate the content of the adapted material into its screening; intersemiotic translation focuses on the analysis and interpretation of semiotic codes in the scope of adapted material. Seven basic operations used to differentiate the range of adaptation are substitution, reduction, addition, amplification, inversion, transaccentation, compression.

Reading Habits in Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey

2021 ◽  
Vol 66 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-190
Author(s):  
Ana Voicu
Keyword(s):  
Character Development ◽  
Book Reading ◽  
Literary Genre ◽  
Narrative Development ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Reading Habits ◽  
Gothic Fiction ◽  
Northanger Abbey ◽  
Novel Theory ◽  
The Way

"Reading Habits in Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey. This article focuses on the way Catherine Morland, Northanger Abbey’s heroine, is influenced and even guided by the literature she either chooses or is given to read. Her reading habits, as well as her changing typologies as a reader, influence both the development of her character and the narrative. This study also debunks the idea that Northanger Abbey is a parody of Gothic fiction, contextualizing book reading in an age when the novel was yet to be considered a respectable literary genre. Keywords: wise reader, the avid reader, the hypocritical reader, character development, narrative development, Gothic fiction, novel theory"

scholarly journals Gothic beetle: a comment on one of Pushkin’s allusions

2020 ◽  
pp. 66-79
Author(s):  
V. V. Maroshi ◽  
Keyword(s):  
English Literature ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Gothic Novel ◽  
Gothic Fiction ◽  
Gothic Novels ◽  
Literary Allusion ◽  
Eugene Onegin ◽  
A Chain ◽  
A Minor ◽  
Minor Character

The paper deals with the beetle as a minor character of the seventh chapter of the novel “Eugene Onegin” and a literary allusion. It is syntactically and rhythmically highlighted in the text of the stanza. V. V. Nabokov was the first to try to set the origin of the character from English literature. The closest meaning of the allusion was a reference to V. A. Zhukovsky, with his surname associated with the beetle by its etymology and the appearance of a “buzzing beetle” in his translation of T. Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.” The landscape of the 15th stanza of the novel is represented within the genres of elegy, pastoral, and ballad. We expand the field of Pushkin’s allusion to the Gothic novels of A. Radcliffe and Gothic fiction in general. Mentioning the beetle launches a chain of reminiscences from Gothic novels during Tatiana’s walk and her visit to Onegin’s empty “castle.” The quotations from Shakespeare and Collins in Radcliffe’s novels are of great significance. Shakespeare’s beetle, a Hecate’s messenger, is involved in creating an atmosphere of night fears and mystery surrounding the scene in Onegin’s castle. A collection of Radcliffe’s novels in Pushkin’s library suggests the poet was somewhat familiar with the paratext of the novel “The Romance of the Forest”. Moreover, the beetle as a parody character for a ballad and a Gothic novel appeared in the unfinished poem “Vasily Khrabrov” by the poet’s uncle, V. L. Pushkin.

scholarly journals The Dialogic Mode in Jane Austen’s ”Northanger Abbey”: The Manorial Gothic Meets a Subversive Novel of Manners

2019 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 19
Author(s):  
Urszula Terentowicz-Fotyga
Keyword(s):  
Interesting Case ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Gothic Fiction ◽  
Northanger Abbey ◽  
Novel Of Manners

<p>The paper proposes to read the dialogue of two generic traditions: the novel of manners and gothic fiction in Jane Austen’s <em>Northanger Abbey</em>. The generic dialogue in <em>Northanger Abbey</em>constitutes a particularly interesting case, as it appears at the very inception of the manorial tradition in fiction and thus bears a strong modelling function. The paper argues that <em>Northanger Abbey</em>represents a subversive version of the novel of manners, which contextualizes and substantiates the transgressive character of the gothic.</p>

scholarly journals Interpreting Jane Austen’s Writing Style: Adaptations of the Novel Northanger Abbey

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Елена Владимировна Глущенко ◽  
Kornielaieva Yevheniia Valeriivna ◽  
Moskaliuk Olena Viktorivna
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Jane Austen ◽  
Literary Work ◽  
Research Paper ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Writing Style ◽  
Gothic Fiction ◽  
Northanger Abbey ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Spelling Word

The research paper focused on revealing the individual writing style of Jane Austen based on the novel Northanger Abbey and interpretations of its various adaptations. The purpose of the article is to prove that the individual author’s style can be reconstructed due to different stylistic devices that help the reader to understand the message of a literary work more profoundly and take into account in the process of film adaptations. An author’s style is characterized by numerous factors including spelling, word choices, sentence structures, punctuation, use of literary stylistic devices (irony, metaphors, rhyme, etc.) and organization of ideas, narration structure, and overall tone of the narration. The main analytic procedures used in the research are keyness, collocation, and cluster. The authors also define that the novel under analysis is a parody of Gothic fiction. The author ruined the conventions of eighteenth-century novels by making her heroine fall in love with the character before he has a serious thought of her and exposing the heroine’s romantic fears and curiosities as groundless. The article deals with adaptation as an integral part of the concept of intersemiotic translation. It is possible to say that adaptation is an attempt to translate the content of the adapted material into its screening; intersemiotic translation focuses on the analysis and interpretation of semiotic codes in the scope of adapted material. Seven basic operations used to differentiate the range of adaptation are substitution, reduction, addition, amplification, inversion, transaccentation, compression.

The Castle of Otranto

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Horace Walpole
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Literary Genre ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Gothic Fiction ◽  
English Novel ◽  
Game Changer ◽  
The Way ◽  
The Grotesque

‘Look, my lord! See heaven itself declares against your impious intentions’ The Castle of Otranto (1764) is the first supernatural English novel and one of the most influential works of Gothic fiction. It inaugurated a literary genre that will be forever associated with the effects that Walpole pioneered. Professing to be a translation of a mysterious Italian tale from the darkest Middle Ages, the novel tells of Manfred, prince of Otranto, whose fear of an ancient prophecy sets him on a course of destruction. After the grotesque death of his only son, Conrad, on his wedding day, Manfred determines to marry the bride–to–be. The virgin Isabella flees through a castle riddled with secret passages. Chilling coincidences, ghostly visitations, arcane revelations, and violent combat combine in a heady mix that terrified the novel's first readers. In this new edition Nick Groom examines the reasons for its extraordinary impact and the Gothic culture from which it sprang. The Castle of Otranto was a game-changer, and Walpole the writer who paved the way for modern horror exponents.

The Monk

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Lewis
Keyword(s):  
French Revolution ◽  
English Literature ◽  
Young Girl ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Reading Public ◽  
Ghost Stories ◽  
Gothic Fiction ◽  
Black Magic ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Profound Insight

‘He was deaf to the murmurs of conscience, and resolved to satisfy his desires at any price.’ The Monk (1796) is a sensational story of temptation and depravity, a masterpiece of Gothic fiction and the first horror novel in English literature. The respected monk Ambrosio, the Abbot of a Capuchin monastery in Madrid, is overwhelmed with desire for a young girl; once having abandoned his monastic vows he begins a terrible descent into immorality and violence. His appalling fall from grace embraces blasphemy, black magic, torture, rape, and murder, and places his very soul in jeopardy. Lewis’s extraordinary tale drew on folklore, legendary ghost stories, and contemporary dread inspired by the terrors of the French Revolution. Its excesses shocked the reading public and it was condemned as obscene. The novel continues to beguile and shock readers today with its gruesome catalogue of iniquities, while at the same time giving a profound insight into the deep anxieties experienced by British citizens during one of the most turbulent periods in the nation’s history.

Northanger Abbey, Lady Susan, The Watsons, Sanditon

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Austen ◽  
Claudia L. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Ordinary Life ◽  
Northanger Abbey ◽  
Gothic Novels

‘… in suspecting General Tilney of either murdering or shutting up his wife, she had scarcely sinned against his character, or magnified his cruelty.’ Northanger Abbey is about the misadventures of Catherine Morland, young, ingenuous, and mettlesome, and an indefatigable reader of gothic novels. Their romantic excess and dark overstatement feed her imagination, as tyrannical fathers and diabolical villains work their evil on forlorn heroines in isolated settings. What could be more remote from the uneventful securities of life in the midland counties of England? Yet as Austen brilliantly contrasts fiction with reality, ordinary life takes a more sinister turn, and edginess and circumspection are reaffirmed alongside comedy and literary burlesque. Also including Austen's other short fictions, Lady Susan, The Watsons, and Sanditon, this valuable new edition examines the ambitious and innovative works with which she inaugurated as well as closed her career.

Hierogamy versus Wedlock: Types of Marriage Plots and Their Relationship to Genres of Prose Fiction

PMLA ◽  
1976 ◽  
Vol 91 (5) ◽  
pp. 900-913 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evelyn J. Hinz
Keyword(s):  
The Novel ◽  
Prose Fiction ◽  
Wuthering Heights ◽  
Mythic Narrative

Because we conventionally think of marriage in social and moral terms, we tend to regard it as a subject practically indigenous to the novel. Hence a work like Wuthering Heights poses problems for the traditional genre critic, since while this work is concerned with marriage its conventions are not those of the novel. The usual tactic is to call Brontë's work a “romance,” but marriage is not compatible with the “romance” as the term is usually defined. It is thus important to recognize that there are two types of marriage plots in prose fiction: one indigenous to the novel, that might be called “wedlock”; another, indigenous to works like Wuthering Heights, that may be called “hierogamy.” Thus, works like Wuthering Heights should not be classified as “displaced novels” but as examples of an autonomous genre which for the present might be designated “mythic narrative.”

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