Bram Stokers Dracula And The Gothic Tradition
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Open Dissertations and Theses
1-1-1976
Bram Stoker's Dracula and the Gothic Tradition
David Gates
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Gates, David, "Bram Stoker's Draculaand the Gothic Tradition" (1976). Open Access Dissertations and Theses. Paper 4700.
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contact scom@mcmaster.ca.BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA AND THE GOTHIC TRADITION
BRAM STOKER I S· DRACULA
AND THE GOTHIC TRADITION
By
DAVID GATES B.A.
A THESIS
Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies
in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
for the Degree
Master of Arts
McMaster University
September 1976
MASTER OF ARTS (1976)
McMASTER UNIVERSITY
(English)
Hamilton, Ontario
TITLE:AUTHOR:'
Bram Stoker's DYa'cu'la and the Gothic Tradition
David Gates B.A.
SUPERVISOR:
(McMaster University)
Dr. Joseph Sigman
NUMBER OF PAGES:
iv, 112
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ii
I wish to thank Dr. Joseph Sigman for all his help and
encouragement in the writing of the thesis.
iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION ·
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CHAPTER ONE
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CHAPTER TWO
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CHAPTER THREE
CONCLUSION
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I ntroduction
Although in his time, Bram Stoker was a theatrecritic,
a civil servant, a newspaper editor, an author of novels
and short stories and the business manager for the famous
actor Sir Henry Irving, he is known today primarily as the
creator of Dracula.
The fame of this novel, one of the
greatest works of horror fiction, has tended to eclipse
both its author and his other writing.
There is no ques-
tion, however, that Dracula isStoker's masterpiece.
is also the last great Gothic novel.
It
Written over seventy
years after the peak of the Gothic movement, Dracula is a
revival of the style and form perfected by Ann Radcliffe,
Matthew "Monk" Lewis and Charles Robert Maturin.
Although
the era of the Gothic novel had ended long before Stoker
began his writing career, its influence can be seen clearly
in his workand that of many of his contemporaries, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Robert Louis Stevenson.
In spite of the popularity of Dracula there has been
relatively little critical work on Bram Stoker's writing
and little attempt to see his work in its literary context.
1
2
What has been done has focussed on Dracula and has virtually
ignored his other novels and stories.
lam's ABiography of Dracula:
Although Harry Lud-
The Life Story of Bram
Stoker fills in the details of Stoker's life and various
careers, it is unsatisfactory when it attempts to discuss
'
''
h 1S wr1 t 1ng. I
Ludlam passes quickly over Stoker's fiction
by means of brief plot summaries and never adequately
explains his method of writing or his sources.
There is
a strong sense in thebiography that Ludlam has only a
superficial knowledge of his subject.
He certainly does
not explain "the mysteries of Dracula,,2 as he claims to
do in his introduction, nor does he "explore Stoker's uninhibited humour, rigid code of honour, facile mastery
of the weird and curious underlying tenderness in all his
works. ,,3
H. P. Lovecraft, Dorothy Scarborough, Edith
Birkhead,...
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