![]() ![]() Recent scholarship has focused on the relationship between race and the Gothic, tracing the depiction of the African American experience as well as of white anxiety and fears surrounding the black presence in society and desire to maintain the status quo of whites in control and blacks in servitude. Commentator Raphael Ingelbien has offered a psychological approach to the study of the use of the Gothic in representing Anglo-Irish identity in Bram Stoker's Dracula and in works by Elizabeth Bowen. Moreau (1896), and Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897)-which, Punter asserts, "are all concerned in one way or another with the problem of degeneration, and thus of the essence of the human." Gothic literature has also been used to portray experiences of class and national identity, such as the difficulties faced by the Irish in English society. Hyde (1886), Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890), H. In the 1890s, as noted by critic David Punter, the Decadent and the Gothic merged in four works- Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Many critics praised Burke's ideas regarding the sublime and lauded his imaginative and innovative approach. Burke contends that nature images-such as the incomparable vastness of the ocean or the infinite darkness of a dense forest-inspire the highest and most intense feelings of the sublime. Images like these have held a strong fascination for readers throughout the ages. This unique conception of the sublime is influenced by and has influenced Gothic literature, especially the novels and stories that contain such settings as the dark, mysterious graveyard, the haunted castle, and the lone house on the hill. The human response is generated by the following fear-inspiring principles: vastness, difficulty, power, darkness, vacuity, obscurity, silence, solitude, infinity, massive solidity, and magnificence. Burke asserts that in order to inspire the sublime, one must be confronted with terrifying ideas. In fact, the essence of the sublime is the feeling of horror in this, his theory is unique in aesthetic study. It is a visceral response to the basic need for self-preservation and is characterized by such feelings as awe, surprise, and relief tinged with horror. ![]() He considers the origins of the sublime in the feeling of delight, which he maintains is based on the removal of pain or danger. In the first part of the essay, Burke explores and defines the sublime. This approach is unique in relation to other aesthetic theories because it allows for psychological and physiological justifications for the aesthetic experience. The discussion covers three aspects: individual passions, the essences that inspire emotion in an individual, and the rules of nature that govern the first two aspects. He sets out to distinguish the two terms and define them in light of the basis of their psychological origins. In his A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757), Edmund Burke challenges the ways in which other philosophers and aestheticians use the terms "sublime" and "beautiful," contending that the words are often employed inaccurately and exclusively. The racist implications of this belief in the biological determination of character are apparent, and have been examined by several scholars. The representation of villains and monsters in Gothic literature demonstrates this adherence to physiognomy, as these characters possess physical traits associated with evil-dark eyes, heavy eyebrows, and dark complexions. As scholars have illustrated, people in nineteenth-century Europe and America believed strongly in physiognomy, the theory that physical appearance and "blood" determined and reflected a person's character. Works written in this tradition are inherently linked to the social context in which they were created, and a great deal of critical commentary focuses on the representation of societal and cultural fear in the face of the dissolution of tradition, gender roles, oppression, and race in Gothic literature. The Gothic tradition originated in response to a period of rapid and far-reaching societal, cultural, and theological change in eighteenth-century Europe. Society, Culture, and the Gothic INTRODUCTION ![]()
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