Just a quick shout out on one of my favorite poems. The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe was first published with his name attributed to it on this day in 1845. Very haunting and very Gothic. Anyway, if you’d like to read it, go here. If reading isn’t your thing, you can find a recording on Librivox here. If you want to see a video of Vincent Price reading The Raven, go down to the bottom of the wikipedia page on the poem and you’ll find it under external links/video. He does a dramatic reading of the poem, not literal, but hey it’s Vincent Price! And if you want to see the best adaptation of The Raven ever, go here for The Simpson’s Halloween special version. So, if you like really depressing, gothic poems, enjoy!!
Nosferatu, The Symphony of Horror (How’s that for a catchy name?) was an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. It is, as far as I can tell from a brief research, one of the earliest adaptations of Dracula. Directed by F.W. Murnau and released in 1922, the film attempted to get around the problem of not having the rights to the Stoker story by changing the setting from London to the fictional German city of Wisborg and also changing all the names of the characters. Count Dracula becomes Count Orlok, Harker becomes Thomas Hutter, Renfield becomes Knock, and so on. Minus the ending, though, the story is essentially the same as Dracula. [click to continue…]
Apart from Jane Eyre, Dracula, and the lighthearted mockery that is Northanger Abbey, I have read little Gothic-inspired fiction–even Heathcliff and Cathy are still on my I-suppose-I-ought-to-read-that list. The sense I get, however, from Jonathan Harker’s fearful stay at Dracula’s, and even more so from Jane Eyre’s haunting descriptions of the loved-and-feared Thornfield Hall, is that a good Gothic novel has to have its mysterious ancient building full of secrets.
Hogwarts, with its turrets and tapestries and hidden passages and (talking) suits of armor, seems to fit right into that trope. It comes complete with ghosts, Peeves the poltergeist, and the Chamber of Secrets with its monster, not to mention the Slytherin dungeon with its green glow and skulls or the Potions dungeon with strange slimy things in jars and Byronic hero. [click to continue…]
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