Jane Austen's Lamited Range with Respect to Pride and Prejudice
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- Date Submitted: 10/29/2014 01:30 AM
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Novelists of The Romantic Age
The great novelists of the Romantic period are Jane Austen and Scott, but before them there appeared some novelists who came under the spell of medievalism and wrote novels of ‘terror’ or the ‘Gothic novels’. The origin of this type of fiction can be ascribed to Horace Walpole’s (1717-97) The Castle of Otranto (1746). Here the story in set in medieval Italy and it includes a gigantic helmet that can strike dead its victims, tyrants, supernatural intrusions, mysteries and secrets. There were a number of imitators of such a type of novel during the eighteenth century as well as in the Romantic period.
(i) The Gothic Novel
The most popular of the writers of the ‘terror’ or ‘Gothic’ novel during the Romantic age was Mrs. Ann Radciffe (1764-1823), of whose five novels the best-known are The Mysteries of Udolpho and the Italian. She initiated the mechanism of the ‘terror’ tale as practiced by Horace Walpole and his followers, but combined it with sentimental but effective description of scenery. The Mysteries of Udolpho relates the story of an innocent and sensitive girl who falls in the hands of a heartless villain named Montoni. He keeps her in a grim and isolated castle full of mystery and terror. The novels of Mrs. Radcliffe became very popular, and they influenced some of the great writers like Byron and Shelley. Later they influenced the Bronte sisters whose imagination was stimulated by these strange stories.
Though Mrs. Radcliffe was the prominent writer of ‘Gothic’ novels, there were a few other novelists who earned popularity by writing such novels. They were Mathew Gregory (‘Monk’) Lewis (1775-1818). Who wrote The Monk, Tales of Terror and Tales of Wonder; and Charles Robert Maturin whose Melmoth the Wanderer exerted great influence in France. But the most popular of all ‘terror’ tales was Frankestein (1817) written by Mrs. Shelley. It is the story of a mechanical monster with human powers capable of performing...
The great novelists of the Romantic period are Jane Austen and Scott, but before them there appeared some novelists who came under the spell of medievalism and wrote novels of ‘terror’ or the ‘Gothic novels’. The origin of this type of fiction can be ascribed to Horace Walpole’s (1717-97) The Castle of Otranto (1746). Here the story in set in medieval Italy and it includes a gigantic helmet that can strike dead its victims, tyrants, supernatural intrusions, mysteries and secrets. There were a number of imitators of such a type of novel during the eighteenth century as well as in the Romantic period.
(i) The Gothic Novel
The most popular of the writers of the ‘terror’ or ‘Gothic’ novel during the Romantic age was Mrs. Ann Radciffe (1764-1823), of whose five novels the best-known are The Mysteries of Udolpho and the Italian. She initiated the mechanism of the ‘terror’ tale as practiced by Horace Walpole and his followers, but combined it with sentimental but effective description of scenery. The Mysteries of Udolpho relates the story of an innocent and sensitive girl who falls in the hands of a heartless villain named Montoni. He keeps her in a grim and isolated castle full of mystery and terror. The novels of Mrs. Radcliffe became very popular, and they influenced some of the great writers like Byron and Shelley. Later they influenced the Bronte sisters whose imagination was stimulated by these strange stories.
Though Mrs. Radcliffe was the prominent writer of ‘Gothic’ novels, there were a few other novelists who earned popularity by writing such novels. They were Mathew Gregory (‘Monk’) Lewis (1775-1818). Who wrote The Monk, Tales of Terror and Tales of Wonder; and Charles Robert Maturin whose Melmoth the Wanderer exerted great influence in France. But the most popular of all ‘terror’ tales was Frankestein (1817) written by Mrs. Shelley. It is the story of a mechanical monster with human powers capable of performing...