Publication details
"Land of Apparitions": The Depiction of Ghosts and Other Supernatural Occurrences in the First Gothic Plays
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| Year of publication | 2016 |
| Type | Chapter of a book |
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| Description | The paper discusses one of the key features of the genre of gothic drama which reigned over the English stage during the latter part of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The gothic stage represented the psyche of the eighteenth century audience, namely their special delight in “exploiting mystery, gloom and terror”, as Bertrand Evans put it. Gothic dramatists strived to promote this prevailing public taste. Strong links between gothic drama and the gothic novel have been observed by many scholars. The gothic romances served as a source for playwrights and the detailed visual backgrounds were helpful in creating settings for the plays. Gothic novels were very often adapted for the stage. The nature of the depiction of supernatural events in these adaptations is worth attention since it illustrates the obvious differences between the gothic narrative and gothic drama. |