Gothic

Gothic fiction is a genre of literature that combines elements of both the uncanny and romance. As a genre, it is generally believed to have been invented by the English author Horace Walpole, with his 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto. Gothic fiction is considered to be the parent genre for both Horror and Mystery, among other genres.

The effect of Gothic fiction feeds on a pleasing sort of terror, an extension of Romantic literary pleasures that were relatively new at the time of Walpole's novel. Melodrama and parody (including self-parody) were other long-standing features of the Gothic initi Gothic fiction is a genre of literature that combines elements of both the uncanny and romance. As a genre, it is generally believed to have been invented by the English author Horace Walpole, with his 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto. Gothic fiction is considered to be the parent genre for both Horror and Mystery, among other genres.

The effect of Gothic fiction feeds on a pleasing sort of terror, an extension of Romantic literary pleasures that were relatively new at the time of Walpole's novel. Melodrama and parody (including self-parody) were other long-standing features of the Gothic initiated by Walpole.

Gothic literature is intimately associated with the Gothic Revival architecture of the same era. In a way similar to the gothic revivalists' rejection of the clarity and rationalism of the neoclassical style of the Enlightened Establishment, the literary Gothic embodies an appreciation of the joys of extreme emotion, the thrills of fearfulness and awe inherent in the sublime, and a quest for atmosphere. The ruins of gothic buildings gave rise to multiple linked emotions by representing the inevitable decay and collapse of human creations — thus the urge to add fake ruins as eye catchers in English landscape parks. English Gothic writers often associated medieval buildings with what they saw as a dark and terrifying period, characterized by harsh laws enforced by torture, and with mysterious, fantastic, and superstitious rituals. In literature such anti-Catholicism had a European dimension featuring Roman Catholic excesses such as the Inquisition (in southern European countries such as Italy and Spain).

Prominent features of Gothic fiction include terror (both psychological and physical), mystery, the supernatural, ghosts, haunted houses and Gothic architecture, castles, darkness, death, decay, doubles, madness, secrets, and hereditary curses.

The stock characters of Gothic fiction include tyrants, villains, bandits, maniacs, Byronic heroes, persecuted maidens, femmes fatales, monks, nuns, madwomen, magicians, vampires, werewolves, monsters, demons, angels, fallen angels, revenants, ghosts, perambulating skeletons, the Wandering Jew and the Devil himself. ...more

New Releases Tagged "Gothic"

An Archive of Romance (A Study in Drowning)

Empire of the Dawn (Empire of the Vampire, #3)

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Lists

The Darkest Frost, Vol. 1 by Tanya Holmes

Best Gothic Romance

230 books — 353 voters

Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Best Gothic Novels/Suspense Novels

418 books — 452 voters

House of Sky and Breath by Sarah J. Maas

The War of Two Queens by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Kingdom of the Feared by Kerri Maniscalco

Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan

2022 Anticipated Fiction Fantasy Reads

162 books — 264 voters

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

Haunted House Stories

218 books — 161 voters

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

Young Adult Horror: Ghosts

147 books — 192 voters

The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All by Laird Barron

Dark Literature

271 books — 175 voters

Gothic Books

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Related Genres

Fiction
Gothic Horror
Southern Gothic
Gothic Romance

Gothic Revival
Ficțion
Fiçtion

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Quotes Tagged “Gothic”

“ She mediated, by turns, on broken promises and broken arches, phaetons and false hangings, Tilneys and trap-doors. ”
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

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“ Everybody is equally weak on the inside, just that some present their ruins as new castles and become kings – ”
― Simona Panova, Nightmarish Sacrifice

109 likes

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