Yep. This. I saw someone say Mary Shelley invented the Gothic and she didn't 'invent' it. As Orrin points out, Ann Radcliffe would have been the more likely originator of the Gothic although even that is a bit iffy (lots of people basically created lots of stuff around the same time). - ThreadSky

silviamg.bsky.social • 126 days ago

Yep. This. I saw someone say Mary Shelley invented the Gothic and she didn't 'invent' it. As Orrin points out, Ann Radcliffe would have been the more likely originator of the Gothic although even that is a bit iffy (lots of people basically created lots of stuff around the same time).

Reposted from Orrin Grey

Adding a little clarity on Mary Shelley and the history of the gothic.

Comments

quaestor.bsky.social•125 days ago

invented is a big word....and should not be used in this context.

jackmmorris.bsky.social•125 days ago

Wikipedia described Ann Radcliffe as a ‘pioneer’ and that seems like a good term for early writers of any genre. As you say, nothing is written in a cultural vacuum

gloomyghost88.bsky.social•125 days ago

Wait, wasnt it Siouxsie Sioux?

maximummary.bsky.social•125 days ago

📌

jjgyet.bsky.social•126 days ago

The roughly 180 years from 1720 to 1900, had so much going on that inspired the "gothic" styles of the era, it would be impossible to call one person the "Creator". More like a bunch of authors going through some of the worst parts of "modern" human history and writing to process it.

silviamg.bsky.social•126 days ago

Same issue with declaring a creator of science fiction, fantasy, or a bunch of other genres. The genres become more clearly codified in the 20th century and before that it's a tangled genealogical tree.

jjgyet.bsky.social•126 days ago

Modern genre codification is probably more of an issue than trying to figure out who gets to be hailed as the creator of those genre.

orringrey.com•126 days ago

Even my post here necessarily flattens it all a bit (hard not to in around 1000 words), but hopefully provides a little more context for folks who're coming to it from the misapprehension than Shelley was the first gothic writer.

silviamg.bsky.social•126 days ago

Also not being first is not necessarily bad! Agatha Christie wasn't the first mystery writer and she was still hugely influential and important to literature. Shelley wrote Frankenstein when Gothic was already a thing but she had a terrific angle on it, etc.

orringrey.com•126 days ago

Yeah, I honestly think, in terms of stuff like this especially, there's a little too much emphasis on who "invented" a specific thing, as though any genre or movement ever really sprang fully formed from nothing, rather than accreting as a reaction to things that came before.

silviamg.bsky.social•126 days ago

The first Gothic novel is generally considered to be Horace Walpole's 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto, but Ann Radcliffe was a mega bestseller in her day and influenced a bunch of people, so as Orrin says if someone should be called mother of the Gothic it would be her.

silviamg.bsky.social•126 days ago

I'll say I generally bristle at calling someone mother/father of whatever. In the case of people calling Shelley mother of the Gothic however it made me grind my teeth because it eliminated not only Walpole (hugely important), but ignored another woman: Radcliffe. We should be talking about more

infinitelives.bsky.social•125 days ago

I feel the same way when people say Gibson “invented” cyberpunk, or the Sex Pistols invented punk rock. That’s just not how art movements come together, in my experience. It’s not one person having an awesome idea. It’s the coalescence of ideas from many creators.

silviamg.bsky.social•126 days ago

creators, not reducing the field so it seems like there was only One Woman in the 19th century writing (Shelley) and Two Dudes (Poe and Stoker).

ibotelhowriting.bsky.social•125 days ago

So much this! Even calling Radcliff the mother of gothic fiction is a bit tricky. She had a tremendous influence in the genre and definitely helped to consolidate it, but Clara Reeve, Sophia Lee, and Charlotte Smith all made contributions to the genre before Radcliffe's first novel got published.

silviamg.bsky.social•125 days ago

Yep. And some of those people are fairly obscure nowadays but Smith was well known in the day and influenced Jane Austen + many other people. These people were are also often in correspondence with each other, part of literary circles, so it's not surprising the Gothic was picked up by many writers.

maximummary.bsky.social•125 days ago

It’s also important to realize that innovators and popularizers are usually two different sets of people. They are slightly different skill sets and both deserve recognition. It’s not either/or.

Comments

Posting Rules

Reply