Literature and Drama Editor Laura Kiely has declared it peak spooky reason time, bringing us on a literary journey through eras of Dark Romanticism, Gothic, and Horror.
This year, the autumn equinox begins on the 22nd of September and will mark the visual beginning of autumnal change. Think about it, the days are already getting shorter, there’s a mortal breeze all around us. It’s a season characterised by anticipation for the next fallen leaf just so you can feel the crisp crunch beneath your feet. Like spring, it’s a liminal time and space; not fixed on the spectrum of hot or cold. Another full circle of life and death approaches, so it’s not up for debate, this is peak spooky reading times.
Horror fiction has changed dramatically over the centuries and audiences have too. What was once deemed frightening in the 18th century may not feel remotely so today. There exists among the literati a very steady consensus that the horror novel was conceived in Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1764). But was it Dark Romanticism or the Gothic? The differences feel so intangible. Horace Walpole is widely credited as catalysing the Gothic movement in literature with The Castle, though he was writing in a proto-Romantic style.
However, the novel features proto-Gothic tropes nonetheless, all of which include a dark family secret, tragic romance, fantastical elements combined with the real world, and, always, a ‘damsel in distress’: “The gentle maid, whose hapless tale these melancholy pages speak; say, gracious lady, shall she fail to draw the tear a down from thy cheek?” The Castle falls under both because of the time out of which it emerged; the idea of Horror in fiction had not yet materialised. It wouldn’t be until the end of the 19th century that the inception of Horror as a genre would replace the Gothic pedestal.
An ardent example of this is Henry James’ ghost story The Turn of the Screw (1898). After a century and a half of the Gothic, the Horror novel became more easily recognised for its nuanced approach to dark themes and subject matter. While the Gothic was superfluous in its depiction of horror; always cradling a melodramatic demeanour, Horror fiction became more psychological. James’s novella The Turn details the events that transpire in an isolated country home when the paranormal infiltrates the minds of two young children whom the protagonist, an unnamed governess, is entrusted to look after. At the complex risk of spoiling the story, all I can posit is this: who is doing the infiltrating?
While Stephen King only started publishing in the latter half of the 20th century, it is safe to say in retrospect that his name quickly came to dominate the craft of Horror at large during this era. The Shining (1977) was King’s third novel and third commercial success in a row; published after the triumphs of Carrie (1974) and Salem’s Lot (1976) established him as a leading author in horror fiction. An atmospheric masterpiece, The Shining isolates the reader between the lines of Jack Torrence’s emerging madness from the omnipresent third-person perspective. What sears this novel in memory isn’t just King’s skill for directly engaging his readers with morally ambiguous characters, but more specifically, the atmosphere which confronts them. This is a story where the atmosphere itself manifests into a tangible character; it’s not just Jack, Wendy and Danny, it’s the Overlook Hotel as well.
At the turn of the century, Horror fiction was revolutionised by Mark Z. Danielewski’s cult classic House of Leaves (2000). Presented as a work of epistolary fiction, House of Leaves reads more like a palimpsest manuscript that weaves together several interrelated narratives. It is stylistically postmodern in its consistent demonstration of metafictional elements where it opens with the statement: “This is not for you.” and continues in this meta tone throughout. Its complex narrative structure locks the reader inside of this house that appears to be much bigger inside than it is outside… Through this unconventional format, the novel attaches to the reader a pervasive feeling of unease for the Navidson family who have just moved in. This is a story about the nature of storytelling and the reader has to decide where they place themself; “we all create stories to protect ourselves.”
This is an extremely brief history of Horror and only touches on a minute list of the classics – though the aforementioned novels are highly worth reading for those who are willing to engage with the dying world this autumn.