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

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Lists

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

Modern Gothic

729 books — 1,389 voters

Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White

Queer Horror

703 books — 471 voters

The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All by Laird Barron

Dark Literature

276 books — 179 voters

The House Next Door by Anne Rivers Siddons

Forgotten Frights: Overlooked and Underappreciated Horror

812 books — 416 voters

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin

Daughter of Smoke & Bone by Laini Taylor

YA Gothic

197 books — 362 voters

A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavallaro

Boarding School Mysteries

202 books — 96 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”

“ The world might indeed be a cursed circle; the snake swallowed its tail and there could be no end, only an eternal ruination and endless devouring. ”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Mexican Gothic

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