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Romantic supernaturalism: the case study as Gothic tale.(Critical Essay)

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From: Wordsworth Circle
Date: 20030322
Author:Burwick, Frederick

The Romantic period witnessed advances in rational and empirical modes of intellectual inquiry and, paradoxically, an increased interest in the supernatural. Ghosts were perceived as mental apparitions, illusions, and hallucinations and as supernatural phenomena bonded to a particular place, as by a curse of vengeance or retribution, because their bodies had met death under peculiar circumstances. What was wanted, then, was a supernaturalism informed by a probing of its very possibility.

Ann Radcliffe owed her success in The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) and Italian (1797) to ...

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