Classics in Environmental Criminology

Andresen, Martin A.; Brantingham, P. Jeffrey; Kinney, Bryan

doi:10.4324/9781439817803

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Cited by 27 publications

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Crime

Whatley¹

2012

The Encyclopedia of the Gothic

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Two works from the mid‐eighteenth century are touchstones for the theme of crime and the Gothic. The first is the original Gothic novel, Horace Walpole's 1764 Castle of Otranto (see walpole, horace ) and the second is Cesare Beccaria's “An Essay on Crimes and Punishment,” published in Italy in the same year. Among other faults he found with the criminal justice system of his day, Beccaria wrote against the medieval use of torture, secret accusation, the arbitrary power of judges, and capital punishment; his essay is recognized as an early rationalist and progressive approach to crime and punishment. In contrast, the Gothic novel began with an eighteenth‐century portrait of medieval transgressions as spectacle. Otranto rendered a vibrant image of medieval crime, backward legal practices, tyranny, corruption, and superstition – the very elements Beccaria attempted to remove. The value of its portrayal has, over a number of centuries, been contested. Whether a Beccarian rationalism frames Gothic crime is a question that has shaped the critical response to the genre since its inception.

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