A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful Essays

The sublime is a literary and philosophical concept that has appeared throughout numerous intellectual movements. The most notable employment of the sublime as a literary device is apparent in Romantic period literature. Gothic literature, as an extension of Romanticism, explores the sublime utilising typically Gothic concepts and techniques. Prominent examples of the depiction of the Gothic sublime can be realised in Mary Shelley's 1931 novel, Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus. The portrayal

tale of Manfred, Prince of Otranto, and his young son Conrad. Manfred has convinced the guardians of the beautiful Isabella, whose parents are presumed dead, to marry his sickly son Conrad who is just 15. A series

rebelling. Nevertheless, in the book, Victoria's sublime beauty and strong personality triumph over feeble men, subverting both Radcliffe's innocent heroines and Lewis' female characters who are victims of male violence. As a result, the third chapter will focus on the two main female characters in Zofloya, whose opposing appearances and personalities not only echo Burke's A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757) but also represent the clash of old and

of the sublime in Northanger Abbey. In order to familiarise Burke’s work to this text, it is essential to recap on his theory of the sublime so as to get a more fluent understanding of the given task. Burke’s theory can then be applied to Northanger Abbey therefore analysing the set question. Edmund Burke is a scholar concerned with the ability to experience the sensitivity of the sublime conscience. His work ‘A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful’ introduces

Gothic literature is the succession of romantic literature and a genre that particularly covers the period of time from approximately 1764 to 1840 although it has been prominent until this day. It emerged in England but expeditiously spread to France and Germany to finally pervade almost the whole world. As Jerrold Hogle writes: …it exploded in the 1790s (the decade Walpole died) throughout the British Isles, on the continent of Europe, and briefly in the new United States, particularly for a female

Previous theorists have examined works of horror and horror as a genre. Among these theorists are Edmund Burke, Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, and Noël Carroll, who examined the techniques that generate horror, the characteristics of the monster, and the role of readerly affect, respectively (Burke, 1757; Cohen, 1996; Carroll, 1990). I will refer to Cohen, Burke, and Carroll’s work as the traditional views of horror – but make no mistake, there are other authors who have written on the topic of horror (see