Gothic Literature Characteristics

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Gothic drama, similarly to the Gothic novels, showed a taste for the macabre and the supernatural. It was chiefly influenced by Charles Maturin’s writings which provided the Gothic drama with a Shakespearian overtone and by James Robinson’s plays that linked the earlier Romantic Gothic with the later Victorian interest in vampires. The Romantic Literature was also distinguished by the interest in nonfictional prose which strengthened with the development of political and periodical writings. These writings generally attended to the themes of democracy and human rights and limned the existing social happenings as a form of apocalyptic change. One of such writings was Godwin’s “Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Political Justice and Its Influence …show more content…

Common characteristics of Romantic age writings The Anti-bourgeois and anti-revolutionary principles of all romantics predetermined variety of common features peculiar to Romantic literature. Some of these features represented the progress of those elements which already prevailed in sentimental and pre-romantic literature, whereas others embodied elements specific for romantic literature as a whole. Among these distinctive characteristics the most noticeable and the most interesting were the following: Idealization of nature and natural beauty: Refutation of bourgeois civilization and the turbulence connected with it encouraged Romantics to rediscover the beauty and value of nature. Romantic writers experienced the influence of the great French writer, Jean Jacques Rousseau who emphasized the importance of nature and natural state. They began to give greater attention to describing natural phenomena and capturing every “sensuous nuance” of it. Romantics imbued nature with human life, fervour and expressiveness and passionately wrote not only about the beauty and serenity of nature but also about its savagery and wildness. They brought to literature the concept of sublimity of nature, its boundless opportunities and limitless force connected with free and strong human