Why You Should Read Gothic Literature 

What are your favourite books in gothic literature?

a guy that enjoys gothic fiction... not gonna lie, that's hot.

Brilliant review! Gothic literature is really a thing in and of itself. It tackles themes explored in other works but it’s the introspection and sense of isolation that make the genre so interesting.

I am currently reading Frankenstein and next on my list are Moby Dick, Dracula and To Kill a Mocking Bird.

Thank you for this very perceptive description of Gothic literature. I truly enjoy stories that delve into the complexities of humanity, the darker side of our natures, not fairy tale happily ever after renditions of life, sugar coating what is melancholic or dismal. I’m very intrigued by Ann Radcliffe, whose passages I’ve chanced upon. This lady draws me right into her world. I also enjoy all the Bronte sisters, the moors with the sense of dark mystery they evoke in conjunction with some of the Byronic as well as possessed, vicious characters that bring out this mood. Wilkie Collins is another author I love. I don’t know if he is in this genre but his Woman in White certainly evokes a sense of eerie, with this strange possessed but heart rending character appearing like a ghost and the brutal people who do her in.

I’m about to watch “Wuthering Heights” (a recent version) but now I’m not sure I want to. I saw the old one (1939?) as a child and always thought they were so romantic and in love, running around the moors, and that it was so tragic but still showed they really loved ea other at the end when she died in his arms. I don’t recall if I’d actually read the book…. Anyway, it’ll be interesting to see how this portrayal treats the story and now I’m prepared for some nasty business in the end, thanks to your other reviews. I’m also curious whether clergy condemned the gothic genre if good doesn’t always prevail. I’m enjoying your channel BTW.

I'm a friend of John McCrae's, an academic into Gothic lit, who has been cajoling me into reading the genre for years. I am now in complete lockdown in Nepal and have taken advantage of my enforced isolation to read 'The Castle of Otranto', 'The Old English Baron', 'A Sicilian Romance' and 'The Monk' in a week. With the single exception of the Radcliffe, which I found tedious and prissy, I have enjoyed them all. I was able to suspend disbelief with the Walpole and was happy to go along for the improbable ride. Ditto with the Clara Reeve. 'The Monk' is literally sensational - God knows what people thought in the 1790s, but it's shocking in parts even today. But Ann Radcliffe - laboured, verbose and unexciting. 'Vathek' is next, then Maturin and Shelley.

I've read some of them. I also quite liked the TV Series Penny Dreadful, although it was not completely faithful to the Gothic novels, it sort of mixed many of the works and characters you mentioned in an interesting way.

I've read many gothic novels and M.R. James stories are still the scariest to me. Wish he had written a novel.

Good video. Gothic literature or any Gothic art form is more like a theatrical version of reality. It is reflective at times rather than just being dark. It captures a mood and time, particularly that is either intensely intimate or melancholic. I think it appeals more deeply to the introverted characters because even the dark personalities depicted in such stories are more of a thinking man's villain, a philosophical anti-hero, a victim at heart (even Dracula arguably turned out to a dreaded villain due to certain misfortunes in his life), etc. It is like showing light through darkness..It is not about someone who is invincible and all-powerful, typical hero or heroine. Here there are flaws and defects in the protagonist. As you say, it brings out two opposite elements that are incredibly intertwined just like life in itself. Gothic literature explores that with style and substance.

Nice to get more perspective on the genre

Hi Joshua, thank you for the video. You mentioned the amorality or art in Dorian Gray. That really intrigued me. Can you mention more about that or why Wilde felt that way?

I just read, "And Then There Were None", by Agatha Christie. It's a detective novel, but the detective genre arose out of the Gothic genre. There's a large house that's the only structure on a tiny island (so a structure like Dracula's castle); the island is cut off from the rest of civilization, so the ten people staying in the house are completely isolated; there's a terrible storm at night, which adds to the terror of the novel (nature as a threat); and there's psychological torture. Very Gothic. And i loved it.

Please do Sensation novels...

yeah

Lovely video! If you haven’t read Donna Tartt’s _The Secret History_, give it a look.