Gothic novel

The gothic novel is an English literary genre, which can be said to have been born with The Castle of Otranto (1764) by Horace Walpole. It is the predecessor to modern horror fiction and it above all has led to the common definition of gothic as being connected to the dark and horrific.

The first gothic novels

'Gothic' came to be applied to the literary genre precisely because the genre dealt with such emotional extremes and dark themes, and because it found its most natural settings in the buildings of this style: Castles, mansions and monasteries, often remote, crumbling and ruined. It was a fascination with this architecture and its related art, poetry (see Graveyard Poets) and even landscape gardening that inspired the first wave of gothic novelists: Horace Walpole, whose seminal The Castle of Otranto is often regarded as the first true gothic novel, was obsessed with fake medieval gothic architecture and built his own house Strawberry Hill in that form, sparking off a fashion for gothic revival.

Related Topics:
Graveyard Poets - Horace Walpole - The Castle of Otranto - Strawberry Hill - Gothic revival

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Walpole's novel arose out of this obsession with the medieval. Here rather than a fake building he originally claimed it was a real medieval romance he had discovered and republished. Thus was born the gothic novel's association with fake documentation to increase its effect. The Castle of Otranto was originally titled a Romance, a literary form which was held by educated taste to be tawdry and not even fit for children due to its superstitious elements, but Walpole revived some of the elements of the medieval romance in a new form. The basic plot created many other gothic staples including a threatening mystery and an ancestral curse, as well as countless trappings: hidden passages, oft-fainting heroines, etc. It was however Ann Radcliffe who created the gothic novel in its standard form. Radcliffe introduced the brooding figure of the gothic villain, which developed into the Byronic hero. Unlike Walpole's, her novels were best-sellers and virtually everyone in English society was reading them. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818) is undoubtedly one of the most important literary triumphs of this period.

Related Topics:
Fake documentation - The Castle of Otranto - Romance - Ann Radcliffe - Villain - Byronic hero - Mary Shelley - Frankenstein

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