Horror fiction is a nebulous genre, its shape changing over the centuries. It often masquerades as science fiction or fantasy, for the genre has never been characterized exclusively by blood and gore, by elements of the supernatural, by physical pain any more than psychological pain. It has, at various times and in various cultures, incorporated all of these elements, the only consistent theme being that the story being told induce fear and/or dread in the listener or reader.
Religions have used horror to control their adherents, just as governments have used horror to control their citizens. Some of the world's most ancient archetypes of horror, including demons of every persuasion, can be found in the mythologies and earliest writings of mankind:
It was not, however, until the rise of the novel in Western Europe in the 18th century that the genre as we know it today began to explode into popularity. In gothic novels like Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto (1764) and Anne Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), and especially in novels like Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus (1818--claimed also as a progenitor of science fiction), the march towards modern horror fiction may be said to have begun in earnest:
Edgar Allan Poe's short stories and novels like Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897--based on one of the most ancient of all horror archetypes) would do much to propel the genre toward what perhaps proved the greatest of all influences on the genre's popularity, the Golden Age of Pulp Fiction:
We will examine the influence of that golden age and its writers in tomorrow's post....
Recent Comments