Melodrama and Sensationalism in Gothic Literature
We don't know about you, but when we hear melodrama, we think reality TV.
But melodrama was a thing way before the Real Housewives came around. Melodramatic plays took off in the 18th century and gave us a whole boatload of shared cultural images: that hand fluttering to the heart when shocked; the exaggerated lip-bite when confused; the wringing of the hands when worried. It's all melodrama. This type of over-the-top emotional gesturing was a trend people actually paid to go see—live.
Part of the addictive allure of Gothic novels is their ability to meld two distinct stylistic elements: melodrama from theater and sensationalism from contemporary novels. Both elements were harshly ridiculed by critics at the time who considered novels in general to be low brow, but Gothic novels that offered you excessive emotion (melodrama) and made your heart pound (sensationalism) sold like hotcakes.
Chew on This
What happens when you get a full-fledged Romantic poet trying his hand at a little Gothic literature? You get possibly one of the creepiest poems about guilt and shame ever. Creepiness aside, we see a little melodrama happening every time Samuel Taylor Coleridge's mariner meets somebody new.
Check out the first lines of "La Belle Dame Sans Merci", and let us know how they don't fall pretty close to melodrama. With a title about a merciless (and supernatural) lady, our other friendly neighborhood Romantic poet, John Keats, serves up plenty of Gothicism. He's even using a Medieval source text, and you know how much those Gothic writers love them some Medievalism.