Gothic Sublime and Its Significance in The Mysteries of Udolpho, Frankenstein, and The Castle of Otranto

Abstract

This research explores mainly four texts- Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto, Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho, Mary Shelly's Frankenstien and S.T. Coleridge's The Rime of Ancient Mariner in the light of sublime theory developed by Edmund Burke particularly his notion of beautiful and sublime elaborated in his influential book Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the sublime and beautiful. Burke, in this book, specifically draws a distinction between sublime objects and beautiful objects-sublime being vast in dimension, whereas beautiful comparatively small and comprehensible. However, in this research, I limit my study to the analysis of his notion of sublime, and use it methodological tool to examine the primary texts. Burke's contention is that sublimity can be achieved through the means of obscurity, infinity, power, vastness, and terror. Generally pain and terror are described as having negative connotations leading one to frustration, depression, or even death. As opposed to this general concept, this research contends that pain and terror lead onlooker and reader to the state of sublimity. This is the state in which all its motions are suspended with some degree of horror and mind is so entirely filled with its object that it cannot entertain any other. In addition to the sublime, the thesis dwells on the implication of the Gothic in opening the possibility, which subverts the traditional concept of hero/ villain.