Gothic fiction Gothic literature is intimately associated with the Gothic Revival architecture of the same era. In a way similar to the gothic revivalists rejection of the clarity and rationalism of the neoclassical style of the Enlightened Establishment, the literary Gothic embodies an appreciation of the joys of extreme emotion, the thrills of fearfulness and awe inherent in the sublime, and a quest for atmosphereGothic architectureProminent features of Gothic fiction include terror (both psychological and physical), mystery, the supernatural, ghosts, haunted houses and Gothic architecture, castles, darkness, death, decay, doubles, madness, secrets, and hereditary curses,ghostly music or voices,dark dungeons ,secret passageThe stock characters of Gothic fiction include tyrants, villains, bandits, maniacs, Byronic heroes, persecuted maidens, femmes fatales, madwomen, magicians, vampires, werewolves, monsters, demons, angels, fallen angels, the beauty and the beast, revenants, ghosts, perambulating skeletons, and the Wandering JewGothic fiction (sometimes referred to as Gothic horror) is a genre of literature that combines elements of both horror and romance. As a genre, it is generally believed to have been invented by the English author Horace Walpole, with his 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto.In America, Philip Freneau wrote “The House of Night”,foreshadowing the Gothic mood of Poe Its birth is deeply connected with the ideas of Cemetery Poets(墓园派诗人）at that time, as well as with Gothic aesthetic standard raised by Edmund Burke(埃德蒙伯克 ).The publication of the Castle of Otranto quickly raised imitations of Clara Reeve(克拉拉里夫 ), Sophia Lee(索菲娅李 ), William Beckford (威廉贝克福德 )and the alike. Gothic style had become the most popular and expanded from Britain to the whole European countries and the U.S.In 1790s, gothic novels gradually became two branches.One is horrible Gothic Novels. Features: This branch of gothic novels insist on traditional ways. Morbid evil are added in order to make the novel more mysterious and horrible. Representative:Matthew Lewis (马修刘易斯 ), The Monk (1795)Charles Brown(查尔斯布朗 ), Wieland 威兰(1798)The other one is sentimental gothic novels.Features: the stories still happen in the castle, but the over-mystery and extremely horrible effects are discarded. This makes the stories more logical.Representative:Mary Radcliffe (玛丽拉德克利夫 ), The Mysteries of Udolpho 尤道弗的奥秘(1794)Sally Wood(萨莉伍德), Julia朱莉亚Isaac Mitchell(伊萨克米契尔), The Asylum庇护所 The Romantics Further contributions to the Gothic genre were provided in the work of the Romantic poets. Prominent examples include Coleridges The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Christabel and Keats La Belle Dame sans Merci which feature mysteriously fey ladies Mary Shelleys Frankenstein(弗兰肯斯坦) (1818) has come to define Gothic fiction in the Romantic period. Victorian GothicAn important and innovative reinterpreter of the Gothic in this period was Edgar Allan Poe who believed that terror is not of Germany, but of the soul. His story The Fall of the House of Usher (1839) explores these terrors of the soul whilst revisiting classic Gothic tropes of aristocratic decay, death, and madnessThe influence of Byronic Romanticism evident in Poe is also apparent in the work of the Bront sisters. Emily Bronts Wuthering Heights (1847) transports the Gothic to the forbidding Yorkshire Moors and features ghostly apparitionsThe 1880s, saw the revival of the Gothic as a powerful literary form allied to fin de siecle decadence, which fictionalized contemporary fears like ethical degeneration and questioned the social structures of the time. Classic works of this Urban Gothic include Robert Louis Stevensons Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde(罗伯特路易斯史蒂文森 奇特的化身博士与海德先生 )(1886), Oscar Wildes The Picture of Dorian Gray(奥斯卡王尔德 在道林格雷的画像 ) George du Mauriers Trilby(乔治杜的 毡帽 ), Henry James The Turn of the Screw (亨利詹姆斯 的螺丝拧紧 )and the stories of Arthur Machen(阿瑟梅琴 )In America, two notable writers of the end of the 19th century, in the Gothic tradition, were Ambrose Bierce(安布罗斯比尔斯 ) and Robert W. Chambers(罗伯特钱伯斯 ). Bierces short stories were in the horrific and pessimistic tradition of Poe. Chambers, though, indulged in the decadent style of Wilde and Machen (even to the extent of having a character named Wilde in his The King in Yellow). Post-Victorian legacyNotable English twentieth century writers in the Gothic tradition include Algernon Blackwood, William Hope Hodgson, M. R. James, Hugh Walpole, and Marjorie Bowen. In America pulp magazines such as Weird Tales reprinted classic Gothic horror tales from the previous century, by such authors as Poe, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Edward Bulwer-Lytton and printed new stories by modern authors featuring both traditional and new horrors西方哥特式小说与中国志怪小说比较西方哥特式小说与中国志怪小说比较两者共同点第一，都具有突出的怪诞特征。这种怪诞特征主要表现在三大共有形态上，即人鬼相通，现实和异境相连和死而复生。第二，都以展示非常态性环境，钟爱夜晚为其显著特征。诸如墓穴，洞穴，地牢等这些非常态性环境描写本身，虽然在两种小说里有所差异，但毛骨悚然的恐怖性，却又是它们共有的接受效果。第三，两类小说中出现的人物形象可谓形形色色，林林总总，不过，它们中有四类人物形象不仅是其共有的，而且最突出，最引人注目：1暴君形象，2教徒形象，3不幸女子的形象，4鬼怪形象 中国志怪小说和西方哥特式小说由于生成的文壤，传统背景不同，共性中显出深刻的异质性又是必然的。 在情节上，志怪小说于怪诞中显温情，令人流连忘返；哥特式小说于怪诞中见恐怖，让人毛骨悚然。而且恐怖是哥特式小说的主导特征；志怪小说多是开始颇让人有些恐怖，但随后演绎出来的故事曲都不是恐怖的，而是别有洞天，柳暗花明又一村。在主题方面，中国志怪小说和西方哥特式小说表现出3大共同主题，即因果报应，爱情主题，复仇主题，但有所不同。第一，因果报应。两者在这一主题的表现中所反映出来的认识活动的广度和深度上，两者迥然相异。西方哥特式小说表现出来的因果报应主题，与基督教思想文化传统密切相关，而中国志怪小说则与儒家传统与佛教息息相连。如中从一婢，至牛渚津，求渡。有两男子，共乘船捕鱼 。两男子笑共调弄之。言：“听我为妇，当相渡也。” 丁姑使其”覆水中“，而对老翁。则以”鱼千数“相报。后者如The Castle of Otranto第二，爱情主题。虽然都张扬着对合理爱欲追求的肯定以及反传统的叛逆精神，但中国志怪小说多表现与反对封建等级制，封建礼教，包办婚姻等相联系；而哥特式小说则突出与批判修道院的教育和生活对人性的扭曲，流露出强烈的反宗教情绪。如搜神记中的紫玉，Matthew Lewis, The Monk 第三，复仇主题西方哥特式小说中，复仇往往伴随着人物强烈的个性意识，对自我本质的追问以及对知识的渴求等，复仇者多数是为捍卫自身的名誉，尊严和权利而实施复仇行为，这充分体现了西方文化中以重视，实现个人幸福，尊严，权利为目的的价值取向。而中国志怪小说中人物的复仇主要是基于”孝“和”义”，特别是无辜者死后化为鬼向作恶者讨还公道，显示正义，不会出现像哥特式小说那样采取残忍的殃及无辜的复仇行为。这实为与中国传统伦理文化对正义内涵的合“礼”解释以及文化的中和精神有关如孙元弼