ABSTRACT
The species of literature which has been the author main theme in the preceding chapters is known in literary history as “the romanticism of terror”. As the reader will have observed, the evocation of an atmosphere of suspense and of terror forms the goal at which these writers aimed. In The Castle of Otranto and the works of Mrs. Radcliffe, the general supporting atmosphere of suspense is furnished by the danger constantly threatening the chief characters. The suspense and terror obviously denoted something else to the romanticist than the naked terror of the arena; watching two strong wrestlers we can feel suspense, which becomes transformed into unmixed terror if one were to attempt to strangle the other. The counterpart of peaceful and soothing nocturnal nature in romanticism is a harmonious, daylit nature, which is usually the typically English, luxuriant brook-landscape described earlier, with its distant signs of human culture expressive of happiness.
