Southey and "Realistic Gothic"

It seemed very apparent to me while reading Southey's poem, "The Sailor who had Served in the Slave-Trade," that he was using the Gothic genre to show the realistic horrors in society. The previous poems showed horror and terror in almost a playful and fun manner, while Southey decides to take the horror elements to make a serious anti-slavery statement. The characteristics such as death and the irrational are both played out in this poem, and I thought it was a very convincing way to make the horrors of slavery and the slave trade "as public as possible."