10-23-2007, 10:58 PM
GothicLover Wrote:paigenumber Wrote:I would define the Classic Gothics the way we define literature, except in this case, Gothics evolved much later than literature.  Therefore, Classic Gothics are pre-20th century.  These are the books we would most likely study in a literature class.
In my definition, I was speaking from a contemporary perspective, looking back to the gothic romances written in my lifetime, beginning with the books written by Daphne du Maurier, Phyllis Whitney, and Victoria Holt. There are very few of what you call "Classic Gothics" that have survived and available to the modern reader.
The gothic romance genre has evolved considerably since du Maurier's writing, morphing into woman-in-jeopardy, romantic mysteries, vampire romances, paranormal romances, and so on.
I think that what many older current day readers are seeking in terms of a "classic gothic romance," or whatever you want to call it, are the historical (or what are now historicals, being written in the late 1960s) gothic romances written in the style of du Maurier, Holt, and Whitney. These books seem to offer a comfortable style, ambiance, plot, and seriousness that readers whose reading tastes began with the above listed authors now miss savoring.
If one wishes to reserve "classic gothic" for those books written pre-1900, what classification would you suggest for the books I've described in the paragraph above?
I think I'd call them "sentimental Gothics" because of the ambience and because most of them are romances. This differentiates them from Horror Gothics, which may contain elements of the ghastly, or Paranormal Gothics, which contain real ghosts or vampires and such. It would be good to have a consistent definition of the terms we are using to describe the books we are discussing. What do you think?