"According to the following definition the Gothic novel is “a story of terror and suspense, usually set in a gloomy old castle or monastery” whose aim is to create the atmosphere of terror by transporting the reader into a fallen deteriorated world with predominantly morbid atmosphere where the protagonist is usually threatened by evil characters and he or she often comes across with supernatural phenomena. It is generally considered as a manifestation of dramatic emotions, romantic sensibility and imagination and that is why it is sometimes also called the “romance of terror”. The Gothic novel is a sort of reaction against the rigidity of Neoclassicism and early 18th century literature and in spite of being considered only as a second-rate and a non-academic genre, it became very popular in Britain mostly during the period from 1790’s to the 1820´s. The first novel written in the style of Gothic fiction was Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto, published in 1764. Other well-known writers who significantly contributed to the Gothic tradition are, for example, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) and most importantly Ann Radcliffe with her fourth novel The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) which became enormously popular at that time and later on served as a source of inspiration for Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey which was published posthumously in 1818. In my essay, I would like to explore the concept of gothic delusion as it is employed in Jane Austen’s third novel Northanger Abbey (1818) mentioned above."

PRÁCE BYLA UVOLNĚNA BEZ NÁROKU NA HONORÁŘ