Tired of wearing the same costumes as everyone else? Why not show off your literary knowledge and find something unique by plumbing the depths of Gothic literature! Of course, Count Draculas and Frankenstein’s monsters are common enough costumes, though usually based more on the film adaptations than their source texts. But there are plenty of other monsters, apparitions, and dramatic characters to be found within the genre. Here are a few ideas I’ve come up with: Continue reading Unique Halloween Costumes Inspired by Gothic Literature
Tag: The Masque of the Red Death
Plagues and Pandemics in Horror
The spread of COVID-19 is taking over our lives right now. And while I know for some of you, death and disease are the last things you want to read about right now, for many others literature is a place where we can process and confront our anxieties. This has been true throughout history. The Gothic, in particular, has always had a fascination with contagious illness. You can’t build an entire genre around nostalgia for the Middle Ages without grappling with the Black Death—a devastating plague that swept through Europe in the 1300s, killing millions. As Gothic literature developed, many authors—particularly in the Victorian era—had their own lives touched by such infectious diseases as tuberculosis, cholera, scarlet fever, and typhoid. The pandemics of the past and the present force us to confront our mortality and fears around infection and contagion. Some authors explore this through the invention of fictional plagues, while others use myth and monsters as metaphor for transmitting disease. Below are a few major works from Gothic and horror literature’s rich tradition of plagues and pandemics: Continue reading Plagues and Pandemics in Horror