Kwan Lung Chan 
The Conventions of the Gothic Genre 
From ‘Castle of Otranto’ by Horace Walpole to ‘The Monk’ by Matthew Gregory Lewis and ‘Frankenstein’ by Mary Shelley

Essay from the year 2020 in the subject Literature — Comparative Literature, grade: A-, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, course: ENGE5950 The Gothic in the Romantic Era, language: English, abstract: In this essay, the author will look into the five aspects of sublimity, using an example from Horace Walpole’s ‘Castle of Otranto’ (1764), Matthew Gregory Lewis’s ‘The Monk’ (1796) and Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’ (1818), in order to trace the transformation of the Gothic genre from mid-18th century, when the genre began, to early 19th century, when the most famous novel of the genre was written.

The conventions of the Gothic genre have always been changing as time goes on. The most notable and central one is the notion of sublimity, which can be further categorized into five aspects, namely passion, terror, obscurity, power and vastness.