Date of Award
2023
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelors
Department
Humanities
First Advisor
Wallace, Miriam
Area of Concentration
English
Abstract
In this thesis, I wished to research the ways in which early British Gothic literature interacts with and utilizes alternate mediums in their texts. Throughout my piece, I discuss the following works: Matthew Lewis’s The Monk, Ann Radcliffe’s Romance of the Forest, and Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. In my first chapter, I discuss the use of intersections of poetry in the works of Matthew Lewis and Ann Radcliffe, and argue that the two represent the dichotomy of attitudes towards the Gothic and its interaction with sister arts, in that one is utilizing the poetry for the sake of developing plot structures, while the other is utilizing the pieces for developing character interaction. However, both instances further draw on the strength of the medium to adjust the pacing to force readers to slow down and acknowledge these choices. In my second chapter, I discuss the consistent reference to visual arts in Jane Eyre, and the ways Charlotte Brontë uses Jane’s art to serve as a means to manipulate pacing to heighten tension as well as points of development in line with the bildungsroman genre.
Recommended Citation
Rhineheart, Molly, "Gothic Fiction and the Sister Arts: Uses of Poetry and Drawing in The Monk, Romance of the Forest, and Jane Eyre" (2023). Theses & ETDs. 6420.
https://digitalcommons.ncf.edu/theses_etds/6420