Week 2

2. Literary Influences

a. Gothic Literature

  • European Romantic, pseudo-medieval fiction characterized by an atmosphere of numinous mystery and terror.

  • The golden age of Gothic literature lasted approximately 1765–1820.

Points of Contact Between Gothic and Weird Fiction

Both Gothic and Weird fiction share:

  • Focus on the relationship between natural and supernatural worlds

  • Strong emphasis on atmosphere and mood

  • Presence of monstrous creatures and supernatural forces

  • Interest in the irrational and unintelligible

  • Exploration of the sublime and the uncanny

  • Examination of psychological states and identity

  • Use of mystery and suspense

  • Unreliable narration and lack of clear narrative closure

b. The Decadent Movement (Late 19th Century)

A primarily literary movement centered in France and England that rejected middle-class values.

  • Influenced by Gothic literature and the works of Edgar Allan Poe

  • Sought to shock and scandalize readers

Key Values and Themes

  • The city valued over the countryside

  • The creative valued over the logical

  • The exotic preferred over the familiar/local

  • The artificial and refined preferred over the natural

  • Decay valued over health

  • Fleeting pleasure preferred over enduring morality

  • The monstrous favored over the normal

  • Perverse eroticism emphasized over normative sexuality

c. Folklore Influences

Weird fiction draws heavily from myth and folklore traditions:

  • The Norns — goddesses of fate who spin, measure, and cut human lives

  • The Sandman — originally a disciplinary figure used to frighten children

  • Black Annis — a hag who snatches children

  • Fairies — supernatural forest entities

  • Wendigo — Algonquian entity associated with boundary crossing and transformation

  • Fetches/Doppelgängers — apparitions or doubles of living persons

4. Visual Art Influences

Surrealism

  • Artistic movement using fantasy, myth, and dream imagery.

  • Surrealists, like Gothic writers, viewed society as overly rational and restrictive.

  • Believed the irrational and unconscious mind reveal deeper truths.

Weird: An Etymology

  • The word weird comes from the Old English wyrd, meaning fate or destiny.

  • In Anglo-Saxon and Norse traditions, wyrd referred to a cosmic force governing human life.

  • In Norse mythology, the Norns spin fate.

  • In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the Weird Sisters act as agents shaping destiny.

Historical Shift in Meaning (16th–20th Century)

The meaning of weird evolved from:

  1. Cosmic destiny

  2. The supernatural and eerie

  3. The strange or odd

Weird fiction revives the older meaning — emphasizing inevitable encounters with supernatural or incomprehensible forces.

The Uncanny Valley

The uncanny valley describes:

  • A negative human emotional reaction (creepiness or unease) toward entities that appear almost — but not exactly — human.

  • Discomfort increases when human replicas closely resemble real humans but remain slightly imperfect.

Masahiro Mori’s Uncanny Valley Model

  • Familiarity increases as objects become more human-like.

  • However, near-perfect human resemblance produces a sharp drop in comfort (the “valley”).

  • Examples provoking discomfort:

    • corpses

    • zombies

    • realistic prosthetics

    • near-human robots or masks

Romantic vs. Rational (The Sandman Context)

Nathaniel (Romantic Figure)

  • Passionate

  • Imaginative

  • Superstitious

  • Obsessed with expressing inner emotional states through art

Clara (Rational Enlightenment Figure)

  • Represents clarity and reason.

  • Challenges irrational fear and superstition.

  • Argues that fear gains power only through belief in it.

Key idea:

Irrational belief can make imagined threats feel real.

Tzvetan Todorov’s Theory of Fantastic Literature

Todorov divides fantastic literature into three categories based on how strange or supernatural events are explained.

1. Fantastic Uncanny

  • Events initially appear supernatural.

  • Ultimately receive a rational or logical explanation.

  • The strange is explained through psychology, coincidence, or natural causes.

2. Fantastic Marvelous

  • Events are confirmed to be genuinely supernatural.

  • The narrative accepts supernatural forces as real within the story world.

3. The Fantastic (True Fantastic)

  • Defined by unresolved hesitation or uncertainty.

  • Both the reader and characters remain unsure whether events are natural or supernatural.

  • Ambiguity is never fully resolved.

Two Key Definitions

Allegory

According to the Oxford English Dictionary:

  • An allegory is a story, image, or artwork that uses symbols to convey a hidden or secondary meaning, often moral or political.

  • In simple terms:

    • One thing stands in for another hidden idea or concept.

Masque

  • A theatrical performance written in verse.

  • Often included music and dancing.

  • Popular in England during the 16th and 17th centuries.

  • Especially associated with performances for the nobility.