O GÓTICO E O SUBLIME EM STARVATION COVE E MAN PROPOSES, GOD DISPOSES

Abstract

The Franklin Expedition was a British venture in the first half of the 19th century that aimed to find the previously unknown Northwest Passage, with the aim of creating new trade routes that would connect Europe to Asia, as well as recording scientific information about the location. The mission's destination would take the crew to a region that, for centuries before, had dominated the public imagination with supernatural and haunting stories. With heavily reinforced ships, modified with the highest technology possible at the time, Captain Sir John Franklin and 129 men left England and never returned. The mystery surrounding the fate of the men and the curiosity about how they had failed inspired many narratives and paintings in the years and centuries that followed. This article aims to reflect on possible characteristics of the Gothic in two paintings that represent the final moments of the expedition and its men. To this end, the discussion of the Burkean sublime is mainly used, seeking to relate it to representations of the Arctic and attributes considered Gothic.