Gothic Fiction

**Gothic fiction**, which is largely known by the subgenre of **Gothic horror**, is a genre or mode of literature and film that combines fiction and horror, death, and at times romance. Its origin is attributed to English author Horace Walpole, with his 1764 novel *The Castle of Otranto*, subtitled (in its second edition) "A Gothic Story". Gothic fiction tends to place emphasis on both emotion and a pleasurable kind of terror, serving as an extension of the Romantic literary movement that was relatively new at the time that Walpole's novel was published. The most common of these "pleasures" among Gothic readers was the sublime—an indescribable feeling that "takes us beyond ourselves."[1] The literary genre originated in England in the second half of the 18th century where, following Walpole, it was further developed by Clara Reeve, Ann Radcliffe, William Thomas Beckford and Matthew Lewis. The genre had much success in the 19th century, as witnessed in prose by Mary Shelley's *Frankenstein* and the works of Edgar Allan Poe as well as Charles Dickens with his novella, *A Christmas Carol*, and in poetry in the work of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Lord Byron. Another well-known novel in this genre, dating from the late Victorian era, is Bram Stoker's *Dracula*. The name *Gothic*, which originally referred to the Goths, and then came to mean "German",[2] refers to the Gothic architecture of the medieval era of European history, in which many of these stories take place. This extreme form of Romanticism was very popular throughout Europe, especially among English- and German-language writers and artists. The English Gothic novel also led to new novel types such as the German *Schauerroman* and the French *roman noir*.

*The Castle of Otranto* (1764) is regarded as the first Gothic novel. The aesthetics of the book have shaped modern-day gothic books, films, art, music and the goth subculture.[3]

The novel usually regarded as the first Gothic novel is *The Castle of Otranto* by English author Horace Walpole, which was first published in 1764.[3] Walpole's declared aim was to combine elements of the medieval romance, which he deemed too fanciful, and the modern novel, which he considered to be too confined to strict realism.[4] The basic plot created many other staple Gothic generic traits, including threatening mysteries and ancestral curses, as well as countless trappings such as hidden passages and oft-fainting heroines.

Walpole published the first edition disguised as a medieval romance from Italy discovered and republished by a fictitious translator. When Walpole admitted to his authorship in the second edition, its originally favourable reception by literary reviewers changed into rejection. The reviewers' rejection reflected a larger cultural bias: the romance was usually held in contempt by the educated as a tawdry and debased kind of writing; the genre had gained some respectability only through the works of Samuel Richardson and Henry Fielding.[5] A romance with superstitious elements, and moreover void of didactical intention, was considered a setback and not acceptable. Walpole's forgery, together with the blend of history and fiction, contravened the principles of the Enlightenment and associated the Gothic novel with fake documentation.

## Links:

-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic\_fiction

-https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-gothic-literature-739030

-https://americanliterature.com/gothic-literature-study-guide