【正文】 ures for O’Connor… … …… …… 12 I . Vio l e n c e a n d De a t h… ………… …… … ……… 1 2 I I . C h r is t ia n Et h ic s . .. . . . . .. ……… ……… … 14 Conclusion… ……… ..………… ………………… … .… ……… … 16 Wo rk s C i te d… ……… … … … … … …… … … … …… … … … … ..… 17 如有三級標(biāo)題，可以 i. ii. iii. iv. 編寫，為簡明，建議目錄中盡量不要寫三級標(biāo)題，正文中可有三級標(biāo)題 。 it is a matter of showing things” (Fitzgerald 93). I. Formaton of Gothic Genre The word “Gothic” has undergone many changes and expansions. In its earliest sense, it denotes the language and ethnic identity of the Goths, a savage tribute living in northeast border of Roman empire. Gothic style is prevenlent in the Middle Ages, one that is viewed as “Dark Age” for the ignorance of knowledge. Thus the word “gothic” contsins the meaning of “medieval” and”barbarous” in the eighteenth century. the word “Gothic” also refers to a unique style of architecture according to Hornby, a kind of architecture built in the style that was popular in Western Europe from the 12th century to the 16th centuries, and which has pointed arches, windows, and tall thin pillars and a novel written in the style popular in the 18th and 19th centuries, which described romantic adventures in mysterious or frightening surroundings. (Hornby 883) The “Gothic”, in a literary sense, refers to a genre of literature involves poetry, fiction, drama and film, which is “full of depicts of murders and supernatural things to thrill readers” (Han 36), and “deals with the strange, mysterious, and supernatural designed to invoke suspense and terror in readers” (Zhao 283). The early gothic classics are only novels that still remains important in modern Gothic writing. It flourishes in the late eighteenth century and early ninteenth century. The first Gothic novel The Castle of Otranto: A Gothic Story, written by Horace Walpole, is B. A. Thesis of Shandong University of Finance and Economics 4 immensely successful among readers, making many of them afraid to go to bed at that time. It is the first attempt to find “a tale of amusing fiction upon the basis of the ancient romance of chivalry” (Walter 115) . what?s more, the novel was “an attempt to blend the two kinds of romance, the ancient and the modern” (Horace 19). The Castle of Otranto: A Gothic Story has occupied the pioneering e wide poplace in the history of gothic and an irreplaceable one in English Literature. The pularity of Gothic novel initiatives many followers. Among them, Ann Radcliff and Mathew Gregory Lewis are two most famous ones for their respective work The Mysteries of Udolpho and The Monk. In 1794, Ann Radcliffe publishes her most famous gothic novel, The Mysteries of Udolpho, which is noted for its poetic description of landscape. The Monk(1796) es out two years later which is renowed for appalling description of violence and sexuality. Another classic Gothic novel is The Italian written by Radcliffe in 1797, thus gothic genre is fully developed. The German critic, Wolfgang Kayser puts forward grotesque as a genre in his book The Grotesque Art and Literature, That the word “grotesque” applies to three different realmsthe creative process, the work of art itself, and its receptionis siginificant and appropriate as an indication that it has the makings of a basic esthetic catagery. (Kayser, 179) Kayser believes the nature of grotesque is “the astranged world” (184). The plots of Gothic novel are usually related to killing one?s life, villian, rape, devilhero, which is closely related to absurdity and abnormality. Philip Thompson views gothic as “a fundamentally ambivalent thing, as a violent clash of opposites” (Thompson 11). The rise of Gothic novels keeps a close tie with western culture and tradition. It not only worships ancient legends, myth and folktales, but also roots deeeply in Bible and Christain. It deals with dark emotions and extreme modes, always reveals the evil side of huamn beings. The settings in Gothic novels include castles, dark or hidden tunnels。?s Wuthering Heights (1847) in the ninteenth century are also acknowledged as Gothic novels. Charles Dickens is another great writer heavily influenced by Gothic novels. Oliver Twist (18378), Bleak House (1854), Great Expectations (1861) and The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870) contain Gothic mood and themes. II. Gothic Tradition in American Tradition Gothic novel begins at the end of nieenth century in American. Born of the same heritage, the American writers share some similarities with European counterparts , but also develop their own features. Charles Brockden Brown is a pioneer of American gothic novel who draw his inspiration on British Gothic writers , such as Ann Radeliffe. Wieland is his first and bestknown work, which begins the tradition of American Gothic novel. In the nieenth century, Edgar Ellen Poe, Herman Melville and Hawthorne are the mainstream writers who elevate American Gothic. Poe may be the mo st gothic one among them since he is renowed for detective stories and the theme of portraying the death of a beautiful lady. Poe is a master of horror fiction and he claims that “My terror is not of Germany, but of the soul” (Xiao 98). Anthor prominent innovation dunring that time is that the style of Gothic literature is not fined to novels. Short stories which are prefered by Poe and Hawthore and later enriched by William Faulker and Flannery O?Connor dominant the area of Gothic literature. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, the mordern age adds new contents and layers to Gothic literature and sees more social reality such as racial discirmination, , poverty and child abuse. That phenomenon is probably due to the two World War, the cold War, the drugs and the disaster brought by new technology which makes B. A. Thesis of Shandong University of Finance and Economics 6 contemporary writers like Will