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)

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

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The Sanatorium (Detective Elin Warner, #1)

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Lists

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

Young Adult Horror: Ghosts

173 books — 197 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 — 749 voters

Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White

Queer Horror

701 books — 469 voters

A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavallaro

Boarding School Mysteries

201 books — 95 voters

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

Haunted House Stories

219 books — 162 voters

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

352 books — 222 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”

“ You are not cursed-you are a reaper. You are the night incarnate, the ferrier of souls. You are the bridge between the living and the dead—a caged bird that's ready to fly. So spread your wings, Signa Farrow, because you are limitless. Spread your wings, and oh, how we'll fly. ...more ”
― Adalyn Grace, Belladonna

29 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

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