"Traces the Gothic impulses in proto-Romantic and Romantic British, American and European culture, 1740-1830"--Quatrième de couverture.

This book brings together an analysis of the theoretical connection of genre, reception, and frame theory and a practical demonstration thereof, using a set of parodies of the first wave of the Gothic novel, ranging from well-known titles such as Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey, to little known and researched titles such as Mary Charlton’s Rosella. Münderlein traces the development of socio-political debates conducted in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries on female roles, behaviour, and subversion from the subtly subversive Gothic novel to the Gothic parody. Combining two major areas of research, literary criticism and Gothic studies, the book provides both a new take on an ongoing debate in literary criticism as well as an in-depth study of a virtually neglected aspect of Gothic studies, the Gothic parody.

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2009 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Literature, Works, grade: 1, University of Gdansk, course: English Literature, language: English, abstract: The parody of Gothicism emerged as a reaction against its conventions, just as Gothic novel itself was directed against the rationality of Neoclassicism. At first, the Gothic novel gained great interest of the readers, the genre developed rapidly and many writers, like Clara Reeve, Mary Shelley or Charles Maturin contributed to this kind of fiction. However, the set of conventions established by Horace Walpole and then developed by Mrs. Radcliffe, became a point of reference for Jane Austen to create a novel titled Northanger Abbey, which became an outstanding parody of the conventions. Thus, Jane Austen reused many Gothic elements, retold the story in a parodying way in order to show the silliness and artificiality of the genre.

Essay from the year 2003 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2,0, University of Duisburg-Essen, language: English, abstract: Why is Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey often referred to as a parody of the Gothic novel?_ Jane Austen (1775-1817) is often regarded as the greatest English female novelist. Her novels are praised for their underlieing social comedy and thorough description of human relationships. She lived and worked during a time predominated by novels of sentiment, sensation and sensibility. However she stayed aloof from this literary style and especially her novel Northanger Abbey is often regarded to as a parody of the Gothic novel. Main authors of these so called ‘Gothic’ romances are for example Ann Radcliffe, Horace Walpole and M.G. Lewis. The Gothic novel has its origins in the Middle Ages and deals with mysterious, frightening, fantastic, supernatural, sexual and sublime things. The stories seem rather ridiculous to us today. The reader always finds similar characters and plots in those novels: “the tyrannical father, the importunate and unscrupulous suitor, the hero and heroine of sensibility and of mysterious but noble birth, the confidante[...], the chaperone.”1 The heroine is always unbelievable beautiful but weak and virtuous. Then she is threatened by a veil man and saved by the hero in the end. In contrast to such a story Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey is often considered as a “amusing and bitingly satirical pastiche of the ‘Gothic’ romances popular in her day.”2 [...] _____ 1 Mudrick, Marvin: Irony versus Gothicism. In: Jane Austen: Northanger Abbey and Persuasion. Edited by B.C. Southam. MacMillan Education Ltd. Hampshire, London. 1986 (Casebook Series); page 75 2 Austen, Jane: Northanger Abbey. Penguin Popular Classics. London. 1994; blurb

A satire on Byronism and pessimism in general. A gathering of eccentric characters in a country house, including Mr Glowry, his son Scythrop and Mr Toobad, leads to a series of absurd incidents.

Essay from the year 2003 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2,0, University of Duisburg-Essen, 4 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: Why is Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey often referred to as a parody of the Gothic novel?_ Jane Austen (1775-1817) is often regarded as the greatest English female novelist. Her novels are praised for their underlieing social comedy and thorough description of human relationships. She lived and worked during a time predominated by novels of sentiment, sensation and sensibility. However she stayed aloof from this literary style and especially her novel Northanger Abbey is often regarded to as a parody of the Gothic novel. Main authors of these so called 'Gothic' romances are for example Ann Radcliffe, Horace Walpole and M.G. Lewis. The Gothic novel has its origins in the Middle Ages and deals with mysterious, frightening, fantastic, supernatural, sexual and sublime things. The stories seem rather ridiculous to us today. The reader always finds similar characters and plots in those novels: "the tyrannical father, the importunate and unscrupulous suitor, the hero and heroine of sensibility and of mysterious but noble birth, the confidante[...], the chaperone."1 The heroine is always unbelievable beautiful but weak and virtuous. Then she is threatened by a veil man and saved by the hero in the end. In contrast to such a story Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey is often considered as a "amusing and bitingly satirical pastiche of the 'Gothic' romances popular in her day."2 [...] _____ 1 Mudrick, Marvin: Irony versus Gothicism. In: Jane Austen: Northanger Abbey and Persuasion. Edited by B.C. Southam. MacMillan Education Ltd. Hampshire, London. 1986 (Casebook Series); page 75 2 Austen, Jane: Northanger Abbey. Penguin Popular Classics. London. 1994; blurb