Sunday 5 February 2017

The Origin Of Genre Fiction?

Alan Moore, Jerusalem (London, 2016), pp. 1055-1057.

The first novels were comedies of manners.

James Hervey, a theologian, contrasted human transience with divine eternity.

Hervey influenced other theologians and the Graveyard Poets.

Later Graveyard poets focused on graveyards, not on God.

The first Gothic novelists followed the later Graveyard poets.

Gothic fiction was the first genre.

Gothic novels were followed by ghost stories, horror fiction and fantasy.

Frankenstein was both a Gothic novel and the first science fiction novel.

Edgar Allan Poe wrote Gothic fiction, then invented detective fiction.

Bauhaus independently influenced the modern Goth movement.

Like Hervey and Alan Moore, David J of Bauhaus came from Northampton, the center of England, with "...its churches, murders, history and ghostly monks." (p. 1057)

Addendum: Superman is transitional between sf and superheroes as Frankenstein was between Gothic and sf. See here.

Addendum II: For some discussion of the issues in this post, see here.

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