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.

See also Gothic Romance, Gothic Horror (can exclude much of the romantic elements found in typical Gothic Fiction or Gothic Romance), Southern Gothic (generally consider a Gothic type of horror), Southern Horror, and Gothic Mystery, ...more

New Releases Tagged "Gothic"

The Dark in Her Veins (Divine Villains, 1)

Crown of the Forsaken Heir (The Shrouded Forest #1)

More new releases tagged "gothic"...

Most Read This Week

In the Veins of the Drowning (The Siren Mage, #1)

In the Wake of the Ruined (The Siren Mage, #2)

Empire of the Damned (Empire of the Vampire, #2)

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

The Sanatorium (Detective Elin Warner, #1)

The Washwoman at the River's End (The Curse of the Fates #1)

Lists

Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus. [By M. W. Shelley.] by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

Horror: 101

91 books — 105 voters

Space Horror

344 books — 321 voters

Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

The Complete Stories and Poems by Edgar Allan Poe

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

The best gothic novels, ghost stories and early horror 1764-1937

377 books — 750 voters

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw

Forthcoming Books for 2020 by African-Americans

91 books — 341 voters

Haunted House Stories

219 books — 162 voters

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

Young Adult Horror: Ghosts

173 books — 197 voters

Gothic Books

More gothic books...

Related Genres

Fiction
Gothic Horror
Southern Gothic
Gothic Romance

Gothic Revival
Ficțion
Fiçtion

Related News

Goodreads Editors Share Their September Book Picks

Here at Goodreads World Headquarters, we sort through a lot of books each month. Our monthly Readers’ Most Anticipated Books feature is exactly...

Quotes Tagged “Gothic”

“ Oh, he did look like a deity – the perfect balance of danger and charm, he was at the same time fascinating and inaccessible, distant because of his demonstrated flawlessness, and possessing such strength of character that he was dismaying and at the same time utterly attractive in an enticing and forbidden way. ”
― Simona Panova, Nightmarish Sacrifice

129 likes