ABSTRACT
The multiple forms of the Gothic proved no exception – they were eclectic, hybrid, changeable and often multi-layered, a 'jumble of Tragedy, Comedy and Opera', as Genest defined Francis North's The Kentish Barons. The model for the Gothic novel's young lover may be found in the eighteenth-century 'man of feeling', the oversensitive and almost feminine male protagonist of Henry McKenzie's eponymous novel. The Gothic villain-hero – usually an attractive, anguished and self-examining character – is the real dramatic protagonist. The heroines of the Gothic are objects of desire, and they seemingly conform to the ideal gendered model that has been defined as the 'domestic woman'. Gothic edifices could many a tale unfold – to paraphase the words of King Hamlet to his son. The image freezes and transmutes the circulation of the Gothic signs, and the circuits of appropriation and re-appropriation Gothic signifiers underwent across the media.
