Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-cc8bf7c57-fxdwj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-11T06:54:31.526Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

1.17 - The German ‘School’ of Horrors: A Pharmacology of the Gothic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 July 2020

Angela Wright
Affiliation:
University of Sheffield
Dale Townshend
Affiliation:
Manchester Metropolitan University
Get access

Summary

This chapter addresses the privileged but vilified position of Germany and its Schauerroman in Germany and Britain around 1800. German Gothic was discussed almost from the outset in material terms, and one notable medium in this regard was pharmacological discourse. In British and German political rhetoric and literary criticism, German Gothic itself was considered a poisonous instance destroying the readers’ health. Using this guiding pharmacological rhetoric of horror, this chapter provides an introduction to the German ‘School’ of horrors in its late-Enlightenment and Romantic contexts, paying particular attention to the often overlooked but immensely important role of dramatic adaptation as a medium for the productive interactions between Germany and Britain. Drawing on writers and directors such as Johann Karl August Musäus, Benedikte Naubert, Heinrich Zschokke, James Boaden, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Matthew Gregory Lewis, this chapter locates the aesthetic models of the Gothic within emergent anthropological paradigms of the imagination and affective patterns of literary reception in the expanding popular literary market around 1800.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of the Gothic
Volume 1: Gothic in the Long Eighteenth Century
, pp. 364 - 381
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×