Adventure of the German Student (Masterplots II: Short Story Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Washington Irving
- First Published: 1824
- Type of Plot: Gothic
- Time of Work: The late eighteenth century, during the French Revolution
- Setting: Paris, France
- Principal Characters: Gottfried Wolfgang, The mysterious woman, The narrator
- Genres: Short fiction, Gothic fiction, Horror literature
- Subjects: Sex or sexuality, Obsession, Death or dying, Students or student life, Horror
- Locales: Paris, France
The Story
This story, one of a number of tales and sketches collected in Tales of a Traveller (1824), is narrated by an old man to a group of listeners. The story concerns a young student from the German university town of Gottingen. The student, Gottfried Wolfgang, is described as a man of good family but also as one given to intense speculation on the dark, mystical side of existence. Indeed, he is shown to have dedicated himself to these studies to such an extent that both his physical health and his imagination have become “diseased.” As the narrator tells his...
[The entire page is 1527 words long]
