ABSTRACT
Many aspects of Lamartine's Les Prludes are best comprehended within the context of Gothic fiction. Anyone familiar with Gothic literature, however, can immediately recognize that the Genius, a guardian spirit, is one of many supernatural beings populating Gothic tales. The Gothic literary tradition meant a lot to Byron in his writing as well as in his leisure activities. The Castle of Otranto introduced many dramatic paraphernalia that recurred in subsequent tales of horror: a rambling ancient castle with deserted wings and damp corridors, darkness, death, madness, the supernatural, ghostly apparitions, and so forth. Gothic literature has a rich genesis and an even more fertile history. These fantastic personages appear, for example, in Schiller's play Warbeck, in William Beckford's novel Vathek, and in Byron's poem Manfred. These trappings, however, are present, in abundance, in other Gothic writings that were undoubtedly familiar to Chopin.
