Week 1: The Gothic A Lecture, by David Punter (extra credit: 1)

 His opening is correct: 'Gothic' is definitely a difficult topic to pin down. But that, to me, is part of what makes it so enticing a genre. It's nebulous, flexible, and something adaptable to the modern sense.

The idea of the double or doppelgänger being prominent in Gothic literature sort of tickles me, because the genre itself is the 'evil twin' of our senses. To me, that's because Gothic is sort of the 'original' Black Mirror. It's a reflection of us at our most exposed and natural, reacting to things unknown with no immediate explanation. In the Romantic, Gothic literature, we are the trespasser, the victim, and the witness all at once, because we have all at one point been one of those things, and the blatant handling of such mundane things as feelings juxtaposed with the extraordinary supernatural events allows us the ability better perceive both.

To be simultaneously repulsed and entranced seems to be the staple of Gothic literature, with a heavy emphasis on the human struggle to overcome the threat presented in the unknown, through means of making it known. That is, in essence, a summation of the human condition, made palatable and interesting through speculation and imagination and ghost stories. So, as our human understanding and knowledge grow, what specifically defines Gothic changes.

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