Chapter 10 - The Gothic

Summary

This chapter examines cross-fertilization in the ‘transitional’ period (roughly 1818–37) between the Gothic novel, the French roman noir, and the German Schauer traditions, including the well-known influence of E. T. A. Hoffmann on the French conte fantastique and Hoffmann’s relation to George Sand and to Sir Walter Scott. It does so by tracing the European peregrinations of the Gothic trope of forbidden space across diverse national and literary borders, from Perrrault’s ‘Bluebeard’ to Tieck, Hoffmann, Radcliffe, Stevenson, and Wilde’s Dorian Gray. The chapter then focuses on George Sand’s novel Mauprat and its dialogue with Hoffmann and Scott.