Introduction 1 Romantic period

1.6.3 Imagination

By the spread of gothic literature, as a new theme and way of writing authors followed to express their real life and misery, the use of imagination became more important. Authors through their gothic stories provided imaginary places and

supernatural characters like ghosts, vampires, monsters in order to create an imaginary world for the reader to live in while reading the book.

And since imagination is closely related to Romanticism and considered as one of its important features, as explained before, according to the Romantics, “imagination is the power in nature from the beginning of time, it is a force, a capacity, not simply to produce imagery, but to manifest, to visualize or speak into being” (Dwyer 05).
Generally, most gothic plots are based on imagination in a way that helps the reader get involved with the story, taking as an example Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula (1897). It is a story about supernatural creators called vampires who live in a creepy old castle in the countryside. This story uses imagination to provide creatures that never die except by stabbing them with a stick within their heart which is the only thing that could kill them and turns them into dust. The author used imagination in a way that touches the reader and visualizes the events for him which helps him to picture all the details and story’s events.

1.6 Conclusion

The shift which literature knew from the 1750’s to 1840’s, from faith in reason to the reign of senses, feelings, and escapism to imagination changed the writers’ spirit towards their writings. The style and words changed going hand in hand with the genres. Just like the previous movements, Romanticism manifested itself in poetry and drama, in music and paintings, in novels and short stories.

As Romanticism altered this last genre, it changed its content and dragged it from being a folk tale or a song to a small book sold in bookstores, little in size, but rich in content. It hypnotized the readers to choose another book from the same collection. It was no more a realistic report from their lives; it was another world to where they escape after being exhausted from the real world.

This new world was known for its new characteristics, it was the dark presentation of the hidden gloomy part of human beings and nature. It was gothic

full of supernatural creators with fear and death in a way or another; it presented how the Americans at the nineteenth and eighteenth century saw their society.

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