SOURCE: "The Idea of the Numinous in Gothic Literature," in The Gothic Imagination: Essays in Dark Romanticism, edited by G. R. Thompson, Washington State University Press, 1974, pp. 11-21.

In the following essay, Varnado examines the place of the numinous experience in Gothic literature.

One of the engaging aspects of modern literary criticism has been the enthusiastic acceptance of aid from nonliterary disciplines. Psychoanalysis, anthropology, sociology, and semantics have undoubtedly enriched our understanding and influenced our critical response to literature.¹ One suspects, however, that such methodologies are best applied to works which are more or less subjective in nature. The Gothic tradition in British and American literature, for instance, offers itself as a prime candidate. Critical appraisal of Gothic literature has sometimes been marked by an ambiguity, as though critics found difficulty in coming to terms with the material. In a well-known pronouncement on Edgar Allan Poe, T. S...