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

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Lists

Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

Ladies of Horror and Dark Fiction Writing

437 books — 212 voters

Gothic Romantic Suspense of a Bygone Era- Victorian Mansions, Mysterious Manors, Haunted Chateaux, Sinister Castles, Rambling Estates, Governesses, Heiresses, Mistresses, and Brooding Atmospheres

344 books — 218 voters

Great Gothic Paranormal

84 books — 162 voters

Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White

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678 books — 399 voters

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Brilliant Dark Fiction

240 books — 218 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”

“ All is as if the world did cease to exist. The city's monuments go unseen, its past unheard, and its culture slowly fading in the dismal sea. ...more ”
― Nathan Reese Maher

90 likes

“ His was not the hatred that arises suddenly like a storm and as suddenly abates. It was, once the initial shock of anger and pain was over, a calculated thing that grew in a bloodless way. ”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan

27 likes

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