A Critical Exploration of Fear and Loathing in Selected Romantic Fiction

Abstract

Gothic is a twisting lens, an amplifying mirror; however, the pictures it shows to us have authenticity, and cannot be grasped in ordinary forms. At the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries, this genre was the only truthful alternative for psychology and the historical sciences, the only method to reach and understand those fierce territories where penetration of knowledge was restricted or late. Romantic writers broadened the range of gothic positively whilst providing a greater understanding of the connections between terror and other aspects, violence, spectatorship, the body, imagination, and cultural politics of emotions. Including Graveyard Poetry, the subtle and the sublime, and sentimentalism, the origin of the Gothic goes parallel to the origins of the novel. Furthermore, the research also unveils that my selected writers, by using the elements of fear and loathing have manifested people’s double standards, who want to rule the world by not giving space to other creatures; nonetheless, want to use other creatures for their benefit and ease. Keeping in a trial the scholarship on gothic theory given by David Punter and Aristotle’s view of tragedy this qualitative study critically examines the selected Romantic texts to trace the elements of fear and loathing bringing horror for some and tragedy for others.