Gothic fiction

Gothic fiction, also called Gothic horror from the 20th century onward, is a literary style built around fear and haunting. Its name comes from the Renaissance use of "gothic" as a insult meaning medieval and barbaric, a term that itself traces back to Gothic architecture and, before that, the Goths. The first work labeled Gothic was Horace Walpole's 1764 novel *The Castle of Otranto*, later given the subtitle *A Gothic Story*. Other 18th-century writers in this vein include Clara Reeve, Ann Radcliffe, William Beckford, and Matthew Gregory Lewis. The genre's influence carried into the early 1800s, showing up in Romantic poetry by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Lord Byron, and in novels by Mary Shelley, Charles Maturin, Walter Scott, and E. T. A. Hoffmann, who often used Gothic motifs. Victorian literature kept the aesthetic alive through Charles Dickens, the Brontë sisters, and American authors Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Later Gothic works include *Carmilla* (1872) by Sheridan Le Fanu, *Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde* (1886) by Robert Louis Stevenson, *The Picture of Dorian Gray* (1890) by Oscar Wilde, *Dracula* (1897) by Bram Stoker, and *The Beetle* (1897) by Richard Marsh. In the 20th century, the genre remained influential through writers such as Daphne du Maurier, Stephen King, V. C. Andrews, Shirley Jackson, Anne Rice, and Toni Morrison.

The core of Gothic fiction is a fearful atmosphere, the possibility of supernatural events, and the past breaking into the present. Settings often feature physical remnants of earlier times, especially ruined buildings that highlight how fleeting human creations and history can be. Typical 18th- and 19th-century Gothic settings include castles and religious buildings like monasteries, convents, and crypts. The mood is usually claustrophobic, with common plot points involving vengeful persecution, imprisonment, and murder. Horrifying events in these stories often work as metaphors for psychological or social conflicts. The narrative structure is typically disjointed and winding, using tales within tales, shifting narrators, and framing devices like discovered manuscripts or inserted histories. Other recurring elements, even if not central to the plot, include sleep-like or death-like states, live burials, doubles, unnatural echoes or silences, the revelation of hidden family ties, illegible writings, night landscapes, remote locations, and dreams. By the late 1800s, Gothic fiction frequently featured demons, demonic possession, ghosts, and other evil spirits.

Gothic fiction is closely tied to the Gothic Revival architecture of the same period. English Gothic writers often saw medieval buildings as representing a dark, terrifying era marked by harsh laws enforced through torture and by mysterious, fantastic, superstitious rituals. The literary Gothic values the thrill of extreme emotion, the awe and fear of the sublime, and a focus on atmosphere—much like Gothic Revivalists rejected the clarity and rationalism of Neoclassical style favored by the Enlightenment. Gothic ruins stir multiple emotions by showing the collapse of human works and inevitable decay, which is why fake ruins were added as decorative features in English landscape parks. Including a Gothic building in a story serves several purposes: it sets the tale in the past, creates a sense of isolation, suggests religious connections, and evokes awe. The architecture often mirrors the characters and events. In *The Castle of Otranto*, for instance, the building is full of tunnels that characters use secretly, reflecting the hidden secrets around Manfred's possession of the castle and how his family acquired it.

The elements that would become Gothic literature had a long history before 1764, when Walpole presented *The Castle of Otranto* as a fictional translation of a medieval narrative. William Shakespeare's plays were a key reference for early Gothic writers, who used them to lend credibility and legitimacy to the new genre. Tragedies like *Hamlet*, *Macbeth*, *King Lear*, *Romeo and Juliet*, and *Richard III* involve the supernatural, revenge, murder, ghosts, witchcraft, and omens, often set in medieval castles and written with dramatic pathos. Early Gothic authors frequently quoted and alluded to Shakespeare. Another major influence was John Milton's *Paradise Lost* (1667), especially its portrayal of Satan as a tragic anti-hero. This character became a model for many charismatic Gothic villains and Byronic heroes. Milton's version of the fall, redemption, creation, and decreation, as seen in *Frankenstein*, served as an important template for Gothic plots. Alexander Pope also shaped Gothic fiction. He was the first major 18th-century poet to write in an authentic Gothic style. His poem *Eloisa to Abelard* (1717) tells of star-crossed lovers—one confined to a convent, the other to a monastery—and is filled with gloomy imagery, religious terror, and suppressed passion. Pope's influence appears throughout 18th-century Gothic works.