A Gothic-Folktale Interface

Abstract

This article offers a study of a now forgotten tale published in 1765, ‘The Adventure of Count Beaumont’. It begins by showing that, in terms of motifs and techniques, the tale displays all the marks of eighteenth-century Gothic fiction; it then applies tools familiar to folklore scholars to argue that the tale in question is directly indebted to folktale type AT326. The argument eschews intuitive approximations and builds instead on an in-depth analysis of plot, structure and motifs and a survey of its publication history to show that the story blends two poetics, those of literature and folk narrative. The article argues that in consequence of this analysis it is legitimate to question the conventional demarcation – both geographical and historical – of eighteenth-century Gothic.