Gothic fiction, sometimes referred to asGothic horror (primarily in the 20th century), is a literaryaesthetic offear andhaunting. The name of the genre refers to theGothic architecture of the EuropeanMiddle Ages, which characterized the settings of early Gothic novels.
The first work to be labeled as Gothic wasHorace Walpole's 1764 novelThe Castle of Otranto, later subtitledA Gothic Story. Subsequent 18th-century contributors includedClara Reeve,Ann Radcliffe,William Thomas Beckford, andMatthew Lewis. The Gothic influence continued into the early 19th century, with Romantic works by poets, likeSamuel Taylor Coleridge andLord Byron. Novelists such asMary Shelley,Charles Maturin,Walter Scott andE. T. A. Hoffmann frequently drew upon gothic motifs in their works as well.
Gothic aesthetics continued to be used throughout the earlyVictorian period in novels byCharles Dickens,Brontë sisters, as well as works by the American writers,Edgar Allan Poe andNathaniel Hawthorne. Later, Gothic fiction evolved through well-known works likeDracula byBram Stoker,The Beetle byRichard Marsh, andStrange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde byRobert Louis Stevenson. In the 20th-century, Gothic fiction remained influential with contributors includingDaphne du Maurier,Stephen King,Shirley Jackson,Anne Rice, andToni Morrison.
Gothic fiction is characterized by an environment of fear, the threat ofsupernatural events, and the intrusion of the past upon the present.[1][2] The setting typically includes physical reminders of the past, especially through ruined buildings that stand as proof of a previously thriving world that is now decaying.[3] Characteristized gothic settings in the 18th and 19th centuries include castles, and religious buildings such asmonasteries,convents, andcrypts. The atmosphere is typicallyclaustrophobic, and common plot elements include vengeful persecution, imprisonment, and murder.[1] The depiction of horrifying events in Gothic fiction often serves as a metaphorical expression of psychological or social conflicts.[2] The form of a Gothic story is usually discontinuous and convoluted, often incorporating tales within tales, changing narrators, and framing devices such as discovered manuscripts or interpolated histories.[4] Other characteristics, regardless of relevance to the main plot, can include sleeplike and deathlike states,live burials,doubles, unnatural echoes or silences, the discovery of obscured family ties, unintelligible writings, nocturnal landscapes, remote locations,[5] and dreams.[4] In the late 19th century, Gothic fiction often involveddemons anddemonic possession,ghosts, and other kinds of evilspirits.[5]
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Gothic fiction is strongly associated with theGothic Revival architecture of that same era. English Gothic writers often associated medieval buildings with what they saw as a dark and terrifying period, marked by harsh laws enforced bytorture and with mysterious, fantastic, andsuperstitiousrituals. The literary Gothic embodies an appreciation of the joys of extreme emotion, the thrills of fearfulness and awe inherent in thesublime, and a quest for atmosphere, similar to the Gothic Revivalists' rejection of the clarity andrationalism of theNeoclassical style of theEnlightened Establishment. Gothic ruins invoke multiple linked emotions by representing the collapse of human creations and inevitabledecay– hence the urge to add fake ruins as eyecatchers in English landscape parks.
Including a Gothic building in a story serves several purposes. It implies that the story is set in the past, coveys a sense ofisolation or dissociation from the rest of the world, indicates religious associations, and evokes feelings of awe. The architecture often served as a mirror for the characters and events of the story.[7] The buildings inThe Castle of Otranto, for example, are riddled withtunnels that characters use to move back and forth in secret. This movement mirrors the secrets surrounding Manfred's possession of the castle and how it came into his family.[8]
From the castles,dungeons, forests, and hidden passages of the Gothic novel genre emerged female Gothic. Guided by the works of authors such asAnn Radcliffe,Mary Shelley, andCharlotte Brontë, the female Gothic allowed women's societal and sexual desires to be introduced. In many respects, the novel's intended reader of the time was the woman who, even as she enjoyed such novels, felt she had to "[lay] down her book with affected indifference, or momentary shame,"[9] according toJane Austen. The Gothic novel shaped its form for woman readers to "turn to Gothic romances to find support for their own mixed feelings."[10]
Female Gothic narratives focus on such topics as a persecuted heroine fleeing from a villainous father and searching for an absent mother. At the same time, male writers tend towards the masculine transgression of socialtaboos. The emergence of theghost story gave women writers something to write about besides the common marriage plot, allowing them to present a more radical critique of male power, violence, and predatory sexuality.[11] Authors such asMary Robinson andCharlotte Dacre however, present a counter to the naive and persecuted heroines usually featured in female Gothic of the time, and instead feature more sexually assertive heroines in their works.[12]
When the female Gothic coincides with the explainedsupernatural, the natural cause of terror is not the supernatural, but female disability and societal horrors:rape,incest, and the threatening control of a male antagonist. Female Gothic novels also address women's discontent withpatriarchal society, their difficult and unsatisfying maternal position, and their role within that society. Women's fears of entrapment in the domestic, their bodies, marriage, childbirth, ordomestic abuse commonly appear in the genre.
After the characteristic GothicBildungsroman-like plot sequence, female Gothic allowed readers to grow from "adolescence to maturity"[13] in the face of the realized impossibilities of the supernatural. As protagonists such as Adeline inThe Romance of the Forest learn that their superstitious fantasies and terrors are replaced by natural cause and reasonable doubt, the reader may grasp the heroine's true position: "The heroine possesses the romantic temperament that perceives strangeness where others see none. Her sensibility, therefore, prevents her from knowing that her true plight is her condition, the disability of being female."[13]
'Tis now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world. Now could I drink hot blood,
And do such bitter business as the day
Would quake to look on.
The components that would eventually combine into Gothic literature had a rich history by the time Walpole presented a fictitious medieval manuscript inThe Castle of Otranto in 1764.
The plays ofWilliam Shakespeare, in particular, were a crucial reference point for early Gothic writers, in both an effort to bring credibility to their works, and to legitimize the emerging genre as serious literature to the public.[14] Tragedies such asHamlet,Macbeth,King Lear,Romeo and Juliet, andRichard III, with plots revolving around the supernatural, revenge, murder, ghosts,witchcraft, andomens, written in dramatic pathos, and set in medieval castles, were a huge influence upon early Gothic authors, who frequently quote, and make allusions to Shakespeare's works.[15]
John Milton'sParadise Lost (1667) was also very influential among Gothic writers, who were especially drawn to the tragicanti-hero characterSatan, who became a model for many charismatic Gothic villains andByronic heroes. Milton's "version of the myth of the fall and redemption, creation and decreation, is, asFrankenstein again reveals, an important model for Gothic plots."[16]
Alexander Pope, who had a considerable influence on Walpole, was the first significant poet of the 18th century to write a poem in an authentic Gothic manner.[17]Eloisa to Abelard (1717), a tale of star-crossed lovers, one doomed to a life of seclusion in a convent, and the other in a monastery, abounds in gloomy imagery, religious terror, and suppressed passion. The influence of Pope's poem is found throughout 18th-century Gothic literature, including the novels of Walpole, Radcliffe, and Lewis.[18]
Gothic literature is often described with words such as "wonder" and "terror."[19] This sense of wonder and terror that provides thesuspension of disbelief so important to the Gothic—which, except for when it is parodied, even for all its occasionalmelodrama, is typically played straight, in a self-serious manner—requires the imagination of the reader to be willing to accept the idea that there might be something "beyond that which is immediately in front of us." The mysterious imagination necessary for Gothic literature to have gained any traction had been growing for some time before the advent of the Gothic. The need for this came as the known world was becoming more explored, reducing the geographical mysteries of the world. The edges of the map were filling in, and no dragons were to be found. The human mind required a replacement.[20] Clive Bloom theorizes that this void in the collective imagination was critical in developing the cultural possibility for the rise of the Gothic tradition.[21]
The setting of most early Gothic works was medieval, but this was a common theme long before Walpole. In Britain especially, there was a desire to reclaim a shared past. This obsession frequently led to extravagant architectural displays, such asFonthill Abbey, and sometimes mock tournaments were held. It was not merely in literature that a medieval revival made itself felt, and this, too, contributed to a culture ready to accept a perceived medieval work in 1764.[20]
The Gothic often uses scenery of decay, death, and morbidity to achieve its effects (especially in the Italian Horror school of Gothic). However, Gothic literature was not the origin of this tradition; it was far older. The corpses, skeletons, and churchyards so commonly associated with early Gothic works were popularized by theGraveyard poets. They were also present in novels such asDaniel Defoe'sA Journal of the Plague Year, which contains comical scenes of plague carts and piles of corpses. Even earlier, poets likeEdmund Spenser evoked a dreary and sorrowful mood in such poems asEpithalamion.[20]
All aspects of pre-Gothic literature occur to some degree in the Gothic, but even taken together, they still fall short of true Gothic.[20] What needed to be added was an aesthetic to tie the elements together. Bloom notes that this aesthetic must take the form of a theoretical or philosophical core, which is necessary to "sav[e] the best tales from becoming mere anecdote or incoherent sensationalism."[22] In this case, the aesthetic needed to be emotional, and was finally provided byEdmund Burke's 1757 work,A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, which "finally codif[ied] the gothic emotional experience."[23] Specifically, Burke's thoughts on the Sublime, Terror, and Obscurity were most applicable. These sections can be summarized thus: the Sublime is that which is or produces the "strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling"; Terror most often evoked the Sublime; and to cause Terror, we need some amount of Obscurity – we can't know everything about that which is inducing Terror – or else "a great deal of the apprehension vanishes"; Obscurity is necessary to experience the Terror of the unknown.[20] Bloom asserts that Burke's descriptive vocabulary was essential to the Romantic works that eventually informed the Gothic.
The birth of Gothic literature was thought to have been influenced by political upheaval. Researchers linked its birth with theEnglish Civil War, culminating in theJacobite rising of 1745 which was more recent to the first Gothic novel (1764). The collective political memory and any deep cultural fears associated with it likely contributed to early Gothic villains as literary representatives of defeatedTory barons orRoyalists "rising" from their political graves in the pages of early Gothic novels to terrorize thebourgeois reader of late eighteenth-century England.[24][25][26][27]
The first work to call itself "Gothic" wasHorace Walpole'sThe Castle of Otranto (1764).[1] The first edition presented the story as a translation of a sixteenth-century manuscript and was widely popular.[28] Walpole, in the second edition, revealed himself as the author which adding the subtitle "A Gothic Story." The revelation prompted a backlash from readers, who considered it inappropriate for a modern author to write a supernatural story in a rational age.[29] Initiating a literary genre, Walpole's Gothic tale inspired many contemporary imitators, includingClara Reeve'sThe Old English Baron (1778), with Reeve writing in the preface: "This Story is the literary offspring ofThe Castle of Otranto".[28] Like Reeve, the 1780s saw more writers attempting his combination of supernatural plots with emotionally realistic characters. Examples includeSophia Lee'sThe Recess (1783–5) andWilliam Beckford'sVathek (1786).[30]
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At the height of the Gothic novel's popularity in the 1790s, the genre was almost synonymous withAnn Radcliffe, whose works were highly anticipated and widely imitated.The Romance of the Forest (1791) andThe Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) were particularly popular.[30] In an essay on Radcliffe,Walter Scott writes of the popularity ofUdolpho at the time, "The very name was fascinating, and the public, who rushed upon it with all the eagerness of curiosity, rose from it with unsated appetite. When a family was numerous, the volumes flew, and were sometimes torn from hand to hand."[31] Radcliffe's novels were often seen as the feminine and rational opposite of a more violently horrifying male Gothic associated withMatthew Lewis. Radcliffe's final novel,The Italian (1797), responded to Lewis'sThe Monk (1796).[2] Radcliffe and Lewis have been called "the two most significant Gothic novelists of the 1790s."[32]
The popularity and influence ofThe Mysteries of Udolpho andThe Monk saw the rise of shorter and cheaper versions of Gothic literature in the forms ofGothic bluebooks andchapbooks, which in many cases were plagiarized and abridgments of well known Gothic novels.[33]The Monk in particular, with its immoral and sensational content, saw many plagiarized copies, and was notably drawn from in the cheaper pamphlets.[34]
Other notable Gothic novels of the 1790s includeWilliam Godwin'sCaleb Williams (1794),Regina Maria Roche'sClermont (1798), andCharles Brockden Brown'sWieland (1798), as well as large numbers of anonymous works published by theMinerva Press established byWilliam Lane atLeadenhall Street, London in 1790.[30] In continental Europe, Romantic literary movements led to related Gothic genres such as the GermanSchauerroman and the French Roman noir.[35][36] Eighteenth-century Gothic novels were typically set in a distant past and (for English novels) a distant European country, but without specific dates or historical figures that characterized the later development of historical fiction.[37]
The saturation of Gothic-inspired literature during the 1790s was referred to in a letter bySamuel Taylor Coleridge, writing on 16 March 1797, "indeed I am almost weary of the Terrible, having been a hireling in theCritical Review for the last six or eight months – I have been reviewingthe Monk,the Italian,Hubert de Sevrac &c &c &c – in all of which dungeons, and old castles, & solitary Houses by the Sea Side & Caverns & Woods & extraordinary characters & all the tribe of Horror & Mystery, have crowded on me – even to surfeiting."[38]
The excesses, stereotypes, and frequent absurdities of the Gothic genre made it rich territory for satire.[39] HistorianRictor Norton notes that satire of Gothic literature was common from 1796 until the 1820s, including early satirical works such asThe New Monk (1798),More Ghosts! (1798) andRosella, or Modern Occurrences (1799). Gothic novels themselves, according to Norton, also possess elements of self-satire, "By having profane comic characters as well as sacred serious characters, the Gothic novelist could puncture the balloon of the supernatural while at the same time affirming the power of the imagination."[40] After 1800 there was a period in which Gothic parodies outnumbered forthcoming Gothic novels.[41] InThe Heroine byEaton Stannard Barrett (1813), Gothic tropes are exaggerated for comic effect.[42] InJane Austen's novelNorthanger Abbey (1818), the naive protagonist, a female named Catherine, conceives herself as a heroine of a Radcliffean romance and imagines murder and villainy on every side. However, the truth turns out to be much more prosaic. This novel is also noted for including a list of early Gothic works known as theNorthanger Horrid Novels.[43]
The poetry, romantic adventures, and character ofLord Byron—characterized by his spurned loverLady Caroline Lamb as "mad, bad and dangerous to know"—were another inspiration for the Gothic novel, providing the archetype of theByronic hero. For example, Byron is the title character in Lady Caroline's Gothic novelGlenarvon (1816).
Byron was also the host of the celebrated ghost-story competition involving himself,Percy Bysshe Shelley,Mary Shelley, andJohn William Polidori at the Villa Diodati on the banks ofLake Geneva in the summer of 1816. This occasion was productive of both Mary Shelley'sFrankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus (1818), and Polidori's short story "The Vampyre" (1819), featuring the ByronicLord Ruthven. "The Vampyre" has been accounted by cultural criticChristopher Frayling as one of the most influential works of fiction ever written and spawned a craze forvampire fiction and theatre (and, latterly, film) that has not ceased to this day.[44] Although clearly influenced by the Gothic tradition, Mary Shelley's novel is often considered the first science fiction novel, despite the novel's lack of any scientific explanation for the animation ofFrankenstein's monster and the focus instead on themoral dilemmas and consequences of such a creation.
John Keats'La Belle Dame sans Merci (1819) andIsabella, or the Pot of Basil (1820) feature mysteriously fey ladies.[45] In the latter poem, the names of the characters, the dream visions, and the macabre physical details are influenced by the novels of premiere Gothicist Ann Radcliffe.[45]
Although ushering in the historical novel, and turning popularity away from Gothic fiction,Walter Scott frequently employed Gothic elements in his novels and poetry.[46] Scott drew upon oralfolklore, fireside tales, and ancient superstitions, often juxtaposing rationality and the supernatural. Novels such asThe Bride of Lammermoor (1819), in which the characters' fates are decided by superstition andprophecy, or the poemMarmion (1808), in which a nun is walled alive inside a convent, illustrate Scott's influence and use of Gothic themes.[47][48]
A late example of a traditional Gothic novel isMelmoth the Wanderer (1820) byCharles Maturin, which combines themes ofanti-Catholicism with anoutcast Byronic hero.[49]Jane C. Loudon'sThe Mummy! (1827) features standard Gothic motifs, characters, and plot, but with one significant twist; it is set in the twenty-second century and speculates on fantastic scientific developments that might have occurred three hundred years in the future, making it andFrankenstein among the earliest examples of the science fiction genre developing from Gothic traditions.[50]
During two decades, the most famous author of Gothic literature in Germany was the polymathE. T. A. Hoffmann. Lewis'sThe Monk influenced and even mentioned it in his novelThe Devil's Elixirs (1815). The novel explores the motive ofDoppelgänger, a term coined by another German author and supporter of Hoffmann,Jean-Paul, in his humorous novelSiebenkäs (1796–1797). He also wrote an opera based onFriedrich de la Motte Fouqué's Gothic storyUndine (1816), for which de la Motte Fouqué wrote the libretto.[51] Aside from Hoffmann and de la Motte Fouqué, three other important authors from the era wereJoseph Freiherr von Eichendorff (The Marble Statue, 1818),Ludwig Achim von Arnim (Die Majoratsherren, 1819), andAdelbert von Chamisso (Peter Schlemihls wundersame Geschichte, 1814).[52] After them,Wilhelm Meinhold wroteThe Amber Witch (1838) andSidonia von Bork (1847).
In Spain, the priestPascual Pérez Rodríguez was the most diligent novelist in the Gothic way, closely aligned to the supernatural explained by Ann Radcliffe.[53] At the same time, the poetJosé de Espronceda publishedThe Student of Salamanca (1837–1840), a narrative poem that presents a horrid variation on theDon Juan legend.
In Russia, authors of the Romantic era includeAntony Pogorelsky (penname of Alexey Alexeyevich Perovsky),Orest Somov,Oleksa Storozhenko,[54]Alexandr Pushkin,Nikolai Alekseevich Polevoy,Mikhail Lermontov (for his workStuss), andAlexander Bestuzhev-Marlinsky.[55] Pushkin is particularly important, as his 1833 short storyThe Queen of Spades was so popular that it was adapted into operas and later films by Russian and foreign artists. Some parts of Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov'sA Hero of Our Time (1840) are also considered to belong to the Gothic genre, but they lack the supernatural elements of other Russian Gothic stories.
The following poems are also now considered to belong to the Gothic genre: Meshchevskiy's "Lila", Katenin's "Olga",Pushkin's "The Bridegroom",Pletnev's "The Gravedigger" andLermontov'sDemon (1829–1839).[56]
The key author of the transition from Romanticism to Realism,Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol, who was also one of the most important authors of Romanticism, produced a number of works that qualify as Gothic fiction. Each of his three short story collections features a number of stories that fall within the Gothic genre or contain Gothic elements. They include "Saint John's Eve" and "A Terrible Vengeance" fromEvenings on a Farm Near Dikanka (1831–1832), "The Portrait" fromArabesques (1835), and "Viy" fromMirgorod (1835). While all are well known, the latter is probably the most famous, having inspired at least eight film adaptations (two now considered lost), one animated film, two documentaries, and a video game. Gogol's work differs from Western European Gothic fiction, as his cultural influences drew onUkrainian folklore, theCossack lifestyle, and, as a religious man,Orthodox Christianity.[57][58]
Other relevant authors of this era includeVladimir Fyodorovich Odoevsky (The Living Corpse, written 1838, published 1844,The Ghost,The Sylphide, as well as short stories),Count Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy (The Family of the Vourdalak, 1839, andThe Vampire, 1841),Mikhail Zagoskin (Unexpected Guests),Józef Sękowski/Osip Senkovsky (Antar), andYevgeny Baratynsky (The Ring).[55]
By theVictorian era, Gothic had ceased to be the dominant genre for novels in England, partly replaced by more sedatehistorical fiction. However, Gothic short stories continued to be popular, published in magazines or as smallchapbooks calledpenny dreadfuls.[1] The most influential Gothic writer from this period was the AmericanEdgar Allan Poe, who wrote numerous short stories and poems reinterpreting Gothic tropes. His story "The Fall of the House of Usher" (1839) revisits classic Gothic tropes of aristocratic decay, death, andinsanity.[59] Poe is now considered the master of the American Gothic.[1]
In England, one of the most influential penny dreadfuls is the anonymously authoredVarney the Vampire (1847), which introduced thetrope ofvampires having sharpened teeth.[60] Another notable English author of penny dreadfuls isGeorge W. M. Reynolds, known forThe Mysteries of London (1844),Faust (1846),Wagner the Wehr-wolf (1847), andThe Necromancer (1857).[61]Elizabeth Gaskell's tales "The Doom of the Griffiths" (1858), "Lois the Witch", and "The Grey Woman" all employ one of the most common themes of Gothic fiction: the power of ancestralsins to curse future generations, or the fear that they will.M. R. James, an English medievalist whose stories are still popular today, is known as the originator of the "antiquarian ghost story." In Spain,Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer stood out with his romantic poems and short tales, some depicting supernatural events. Today some consider him the most-read Spanish writer afterMiguel de Cervantes.[62]
In addition to these short Gothic fictions, some novels drew on the Gothic.Emily Brontë'sWuthering Heights (1847) transports the Gothic to the forbidding Yorkshire Moors and features ghostly apparitions and a Byronic hero in the person of the demonic Heathcliff. The Brontës' fictions were cited by feminist criticEllen Moers as prime examples of Female Gothic, exploring woman's entrapment within domestic space and subjection to patriarchal authority and the transgressive and dangerous attempts to subvert and escape such restriction.[63] Emily Brontë'sCathy andCharlotte Brontë'sJane Eyre are examples of female protagonists in such roles.[64]Louisa May Alcott's Gothic potboiler,A Long Fatal Love Chase (written in 1866 but published in 1995), is also an interesting specimen of this subgenre. Charlotte Brontë'sVillette also shows the Gothic influence, with its supernatural subplot featuring a ghostly nun, and its view ofRoman Catholicism as exotic and heathenistic.[65][66]Nathaniel Hawthorne's novelThe House of the Seven Gables, about a family's ancestral home, is colored with suggestions of the supernatural andwitchcraft; and in true Gothic fashion, it features the house itself as one of the main characters,
The genre also heavily influenced writers such asCharles Dickens, who read Gothic novels as a teenager and incorporated their gloomy atmosphere and melodrama into his works, shifting them to a more modern period and an urban setting; for example, inOliver Twist (1837–1838),Bleak House (1852–1853) andGreat Expectations (1860–1861). These works juxtapose wealthy, ordered, and affluent civilization with the disorder and barbarity of the poor in the same metropolis.Bleak House, in particular, is credited with introducingurban fog to the novel, which would become a frequent characteristic of urban Gothic literature and film.[67]Miss Havisham fromGreat Expectations is one of Dickens' most Gothic characters. The bitter recluse shuts herself away in her gloomy mansion ever since being jilted at the altar on her wedding day.[68] His most explicitly Gothic work is his last novel,The Mystery of Edwin Drood, which he did not live to complete and was published unfinished upon his death in 1870.[69] The mood and themes of the Gothic novel held a particular fascination for the Victorians, with their obsession with mourning rituals,mementos, and mortality in general.
Irish Catholics also wrote Gothic fiction in the 19th century. Although someAnglo-Irish dominated and defined the subgenre decades later, they did not own it. Irish Catholic Gothic writers includedGerald Griffin,James Clarence Mangan, andJohn andMichael Banim.William Carleton was a notable Gothic writer, and converted from Catholicism to Anglicanism.[70]
In Switzerland,Jeremias Gotthelf wroteThe Black Spider (1842), an allegorical work that uses Gothic themes. The last work from the German writerTheodor Storm,The Rider on the White Horse (1888), also uses Gothic motives and themes.[71]
After Gogol, Russian literature saw the rise of Realism, but many authors continued to write stories within Gothic fiction territory.Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev, one of the most celebrated Realists, wroteFaust (1856),Phantoms (1864),Song of the Triumphant Love (1881), andClara Milich (1883). Another classic Russian Realist,Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky, incorporated Gothic elements into many of his works, although none can be seen as purely Gothic.[72]Grigory Petrovich Danilevsky, who wrote historical and early science fiction novels and stories, wroteMertvec-ubiytsa (Dead Murderer) in 1879. Also,Grigori Alexandrovich Machtet wrote "Zaklyatiy kazak", which may now also be considered Gothic.[73]
The 1880s saw the revival of the Gothic as a powerful literary form allied tofin de siecle, which fictionalized contemporary fears like ethical degeneration and questioned the social structures of the time. Classic works of thisUrban Gothic includeRobert Louis Stevenson'sStrange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886),Oscar Wilde'sThe Picture of Dorian Gray (1891),George du Maurier'sTrilby (1894),Richard Marsh'sThe Beetle (1897),Henry James'The Turn of the Screw (1898), and the stories ofArthur Machen.
In Ireland, Gothic fiction tended to be purveyed by theAnglo-IrishProtestant Ascendancy. According to literary criticTerry Eagleton,Charles Maturin,Sheridan Le Fanu, andBram Stoker form the core of theIrish Gothic subgenre with stories featuring castles set in a barren landscape and a cast of remote aristocrats dominating anatavistic peasantry, which represent an allegorical form the political plight ofCatholic Ireland subjected to the Protestant Ascendancy.[74] Le Fanu's use of the gloomy villain, forbidding mansion, and persecuted heroine inUncle Silas (1864) shows direct influence from Walpole'sOtranto and Radcliffe'sUdolpho. Le Fanu's short story collectionIn a Glass Darkly (1872) includes the superlative vampire taleCarmilla, which provided fresh blood for that particular strand of the Gothic and influencedBram Stoker'svampire novelDracula (1897). Stoker's book created the most famous Gothic villain ever,Count Dracula, and establishedTransylvania andEastern Europe as thelocus classicus of the Gothic.[75] Published in the same year asDracula,Florence Marryat'sThe Blood of the Vampire is another piece of vampire fiction.The Blood of the Vampire, which, likeCarmilla, features a female vampire, is notable for its treatment of vampirism as bothracial and medicalized. The vampire, Harriet Brandt, is also apsychic vampire, killing unintentionally.[76]
In the United States, notable late 19th-century writers in the Gothic tradition wereAmbrose Bierce,Robert W. Chambers, andEdith Wharton. Bierce's short stories were in the horrific and pessimistic tradition of Poe. Chambers indulged in the decadent style of Wilde and Machen, even including a character named Wilde in hisThe King in Yellow (1895).[77] Wharton published some notable Gothic ghost stories. Some works of the Canadian writerGilbert Parker also fall into the genre, including the stories inThe Lane that had No Turning (1900).[78]
The serialized novelThe Phantom of the Opera (1909–1910) by the French writerGaston Leroux is another well-known example of Gothic fiction from the early 20th century, when many German authors were writing works influenced bySchauerroman, includingHanns Heinz Ewers.[79]
Until the 1990s, Russian Gothic critics did not view Russian Gothic as a genre or label. If used, the word "gothic" was used to describe (mostly early) works ofFyodor Dostoyevsky from the 1880s. Most critics used tags such as "Romanticism" and "fantastique", such as in the 1984 story collection translated into English asRussian 19th-Century Gothic Tales but originally titledФантастический мир русской романтической повести, literally, "The Fantastic World of Russian Romanticism Short Story/Novella."[80] However, since the mid-1980s, Russian gothic fiction as a genre began to be discussed in books such asThe Gothic-Fantastic in Nineteenth-Century Russian Literature,European Gothic: A Spirited Exchange 1760–1960,The Russian Gothic Novel and its British Antecedents andGoticheskiy roman v Rossii (The Gothic Novel in Russia).
The first Russian author whose work has been described as gothic fiction is considered to beNikolay Mikhailovich Karamzin. While many of his works feature gothic elements, the first to belong purely under the gothic fiction label isOstrov Borngolm (Island of Bornholm) from 1793.[81] Nearly ten years later,Nikolay Ivanovich Gnedich followed suit with his 1803 novelDon Corrado de Gerrera, set in Spain during the reign ofPhilip II.[82] The term "Gothic" is sometimes also used to describe theballads of Russian authors such asVasily Andreyevich Zhukovsky, particularly "Ludmila" (1808) and "Svetlana" (1813), both translations based onGottfreid August Burger's Gothic German ballad, "Lenore".[83]
During the last years ofImperial Russia in the early 20th century, many authors continued to write in the Gothic fiction genre. They include the historian and historical fiction writerAlexander Valentinovich Amfiteatrov andLeonid Nikolaievich Andreyev, who developed psychological characterization; the symbolistValery Yakovlevich Bryusov,Alexander Grin,Anton Pavlovich Chekhov;[84] andAleksandr Ivanovich Kuprin.[73] Nobel Prize winnerIvan Alekseyevich Bunin wroteDry Valley (1912), which is seen as influenced by Gothic literature.[85] In a monograph on the subject, Muireann Maguire writes, "The centrality of the Gothic-fantastic to Russian fiction is almost impossible to exaggerate, and certainly exceptional in the context of world literature."[86]
Gothic fiction andModernism influenced each other. This is often evident indetective fiction, horror fiction, and science fiction, but the influence of the Gothic can also be seen in the high literary Modernism of the 20th century.Oscar Wilde'sThe Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) initiated a re-working of older literary forms and myths that became common in the work ofW. B. Yeats,T. S. Eliot,James Joyce,Virginia Woolf,Shirley Jackson, andAngela Carter, among others.[88] In Joyce'sUlysses (1922), the living are transformed into ghosts, which points to an Ireland in stasis at the time and a history of cyclical trauma from theGreat Famine in the 1840s through to the current moment in the text.[89] The wayUlysses uses Gothic tropes such as ghosts and hauntings while removing the supernatural elements of 19th-century Gothic fiction indicates a general form of modernist Gothic writing in the first half of the 20th century.
In America,pulp magazines such asWeird Tales reprinted classic Gothic horror tales from the previous century by authors like Poe,Arthur Conan Doyle, andEdward Bulwer-Lytton, and printed new stories by modern authors featuring both traditional and new horrors.[90] The most significant of these wasH. P. Lovecraft, who also wrote a conspectus of the Gothic and supernatural horror tradition in hisSupernatural Horror in Literature (1936), and developed aMythos that would influence Gothic and contemporary horror well into the 21st century. Lovecraft's protégé,Robert Bloch, contributed toWeird Tales and pennedPsycho (1959), which drew on the classic interests of the genre. From these, the Gothic genreper se gave way to modernhorror fiction, regarded by some literary critics as a branch of the Gothic,[91] although others use the term to cover the entire genre.
The Romantic strand of Gothic was taken up inDaphne du Maurier'sRebecca (1938), which is seen by some to have been influenced byCharlotte Brontë'sJane Eyre.[92] Other books by du Maurier, such asJamaica Inn (1936), also display Gothic tendencies. Du Maurier's work inspired a substantial body of "female Gothics," concerning heroines alternately swooning over or terrified by scowlingByronic men in possession of acres of prime real estate and the appertainingdroit du seigneur.
The genre also influencedAmerican writing, creating aSouthern Gothic genre that combines some Gothic sensibilities, such as thegrotesque, with the setting and style of theSouthern United States. Examples includeErskine Caldwell,William Faulkner,Carson McCullers,John Kennedy Toole,Manly Wade Wellman,Eudora Welty,V. C. Andrews,Tennessee Williams,Truman Capote,Flannery O'Connor,Davis Grubb,Anne Rice,Harper Lee, andCormac McCarthy.[93]
Mass-produced Gothic romances became popular in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s with authors such asPhyllis A. Whitney,Joan Aiken,Dorothy Eden,Victoria Holt,Barbara Michaels,Mary Stewart,Alicen White, and Jill Tattersall. Many featured covers show a terror-stricken woman in diaphanous attire in front of a gloomy castle, often with a single-lit window. Many were published under thePaperback Library Gothic imprint and marketed to female readers. While the authors were mostly women, some men wrote Gothic romances under female pseudonyms: the prolific Clarissa Ross and Marilyn Ross were pseudonyms of the maleDan Ross;Frank Belknap Long published Gothics under his wife's name, Lyda Belknap Long; the British writerPeter O'Donnell wrote under the pseudonym Madeleine Brent. After the gothic romance boom faded away in the early 1990s, very few publishers embraced the term for mass market romance paperbacks apart from imprints like Love Spell, which was discontinued in 2010.[94] However, in recent years the term "Gothic Romance" is being used to describe both old and new works of Gothic fiction.[95]
Gothic fiction continues to be extensively practised by contemporary authors. Many modern writers of horror or other types of fiction exhibit considerable Gothic sensibilities – examples includeAnne Rice,Susan Hill,Ray Russell,Billy Martin,Silvia Moreno-Garcia,Carmen Maria Machado,Neil Gaiman, andStephen King.[96][97]Thomas M. Disch's novelThe Priest (1994) was subtitledA Gothic Romance and partly modeled on Matthew Lewis'The Monk.[98][99][100] Many writers such as Billy Martin, Stephen King,Brett Easton Ellis, andClive Barker have focused on the body's surface and blood's visuality.[101] England'sRhiannon Ward is among the recent writers of Gothic fiction.Catriona Ward won a British Fantasy Award for Best Horror Novel for her gothic novelRawblood in 2016.
Contemporary American writers in the tradition includeJoyce Carol Oates with such novels asBellefleur andA Bloodsmoor Romance,Toni Morrison with her radical novelBeloved, about a slave-woman whose murdered baby haunts her,Raymond Kennedy with his novelLulu Incognito,[102]Donna Tartt with her postmodern gothic horror novelThe Secret History,[103]Ursula Vernon with herEdgar Allan Poe-inspired novelWhat Moves the Dead,Danielle Trussoni with her "gothic extravaganza"The Ancestor,[104] and filmmakerAnna Biller withBluebeard's Castle, a throwback to 18th-century Gothic novels and 1960s dime-store romances.[105] British writers who have continued in the Gothic tradition includeSarah Waters with her haunted house novelThe Little Stranger,[106]Diane Setterfield with her quintessentially Gothic novelsThe Thirteenth Tale[107] andOnce Upon a River,Helen Oyeyemi with her experimental novelWhite is for Witching,[108]Sarah Perry with her novelsMelmoth andThe Essex Serpent,[109] andLaura Purcell with her historical novelsThe Silent Companions andThe Shape of Darkness.[110]
Several Gothic traditions have also developed in New Zealand (with the subgenre referred to as New Zealand Gothic orMaori Gothic)[111] and Australia (known as Australian Gothic). These explore everything from the multicultural natures of the two countries[112] to their natural geography.[113] Novels in the Australian Gothic tradition includeKate Grenville'sThe Secret River and the works ofKim Scott.[114] An even smaller genre isTasmanian Gothic, set exclusively on the island, with prominent examples includingGould's Book of Fish byRichard Flanagan andThe Roving Party byRohan Wilson.[115][116][117][118] Another Australian author,Kate Morton, has penned several homages to classic gothic fiction, among themThe Distant Hours andThe House at Riverton.[119]
Southern Ontario Gothic applies a similar sensibility to a Canadian cultural context.Robertson Davies,Alice Munro,Barbara Gowdy,Timothy Findley, andMargaret Atwood have all produced notable exemplars of this form. Another writer in the tradition wasHenry Farrell, best known for his 1960 Hollywood horror novelWhat Ever Happened To Baby Jane? Farrell's novels spawned a subgenre of "Grande Dame Guignol" in the cinema, represented by such films asthe 1962 film based on Farrell's novel, which starredBette Davis versusJoan Crawford; this subgenre of films was dubbed the "psycho-biddy" genre.
Outside the English-speaking world,Latin American Gothic literature has been gaining momentum since the first decades of the 21st century. Some of the main authors whose style has been described as Gothic areMaría Fernanda Ampuero,Mariana Enríquez,Fernanda Melchor,Mónica Ojeda,Giovanna Rivero, andSamanta Schweblin.
The many Gothic subgenres include a new "environmental Gothic" or "ecoGothic".[120][121][122]It is an ecologically aware Gothic engaged in "dark nature" and "ecophobia."[123]Writers and critics of the ecoGothic suggest that the Gothic genre is uniquely positioned to speak to anxieties aboutclimate change and the planet's ecological future.[124]
Among the bestselling books of the 21st century, theYA novelTwilight byStephenie Meyer is now increasingly identified as a Gothic novel, as isCarlos Ruiz Zafón's 2001 novelThe Shadow of the Wind.[125]
Literary Gothic themes have been translated into other media. There was a notable revival in 20th-centuryGothic horror cinema, such as the classicUniversal Monsters films of the 1930s,Hammer Horror films, andRoger Corman's Poe cycle.[126] InHindi cinema, the Gothic tradition was combined with aspects ofIndian culture, particularly reincarnation, for an "Indian Gothic" genre, beginning withMahal (1949) andMadhumati (1958).[127] The 1960s Gothic television seriesDark Shadows borrowed liberally from Gothic traditions, with elements like haunted mansions, vampires, witches, doomed romances, werewolves, obsession, and madness. The early 1970s saw aGothic Romance comic book mini-trend with such titles asDC Comics'The Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love andThe Sinister House of Secret Love,Charlton Comics'Haunted Love,Curtis Magazines'Gothic Tales of Love, andAtlas/Seaboard Comics'one-shot magazineGothic Romances.
Twentieth-century rock music also had its Gothic side.Black Sabbath's 1970debut album created a dark sound different from other bands at the time and has been called the first-ever "goth-rock" record.[128] However, the first recorded use of "gothic" to describe a style of music was forThe Doors. Critic John Stickney used the term "gothic rock" to describe the music of The Doors in October 1967 in a review published inThe Williams Record.[129] Other forerunners who initially shaped the aesthetics and musical conventions of gothic rock includeMarc Bolan,[130]the Velvet Underground,David Bowie,Brian Eno, andIggy Pop.[131] CriticSimon Reynolds retrospectively describedKate Bush's 1978 song "Wuthering Heights"—with its lyrics inspired byEmily Brontë's 1847 novelWuthering Heights featuringCathy as a ghost and the tortured anti-heroHeathcliff—as "Gothic romance distilled into four-and-a-half minutes of gaseous rhapsody".[132]Gothic rock as a music genre emerged in late 1970s England, withBauhaus's debut single, "Bela Lugosi's Dead", released in late 1979, retrospectively considered to be the beginning of the genre.[133] This was followed by the albumUnknown Pleasures byJoy Division a year later, and in the early 1980s, post-punk bands such asthe Cure andSiouxsie and the Banshees included more gothic characteristics in their music.[134] Tracing the genre from its 18th-century literary roots through its flourishing as a music subculture from the late 1970s onward, the Cure'sLol Tolhurst wrote, "Goth is about being in love with the melancholy beauty of existence".[135][136] Themes from Gothic writers such asH. P. Lovecraft were used among Gothic rock andheavy metal bands, especially inblack metal,thrash metal (Metallica'sThe Call of Ktulu),death metal, andgothic metal. For example, in his compositions, heavy metal musicianKing Diamond delights in telling stories full of horror, theatricality,Satanism, andanti-Catholicism.[137]
Inrole-playing games (RPG), the pioneering 1983Dungeons & Dragons adventureRavenloft instructs the players to defeat the vampireStrahd von Zarovich, who pines for his dead lover. It has been acclaimed as one of the best role-playing adventures ever and even inspiredan entire fictional world of the same name. TheWorld of Darkness is a gothic-punk RPG line set in the real world, with the added element of supernatural creatures such aswerewolves andvampires. In addition to its flagship titleVampire: The Masquerade, the game line features a number of spin-off RPGs such asWerewolf: The Apocalypse,Mage: The Ascension,Wraith: The Oblivion,Hunter: The Reckoning, andChangeling: The Dreaming, allowing for a wide range of characters in the gothic-punk setting.My Life with Master uses Gothic horror conventions as a metaphor forabusive relationships, placing the players in the shoes of minions of a tyrannical, larger-than-life Master.[138]
Variousvideo games feature Gothic horror themes and plots. TheCastlevania series typically involves a hero of the Belmont lineage exploring a dark, old castle, fighting vampires, werewolves, Frankenstein's Creature, and other Gothic monster staples, culminating in a battle against Dracula himself. Others, such asGhosts 'n Goblins, feature a camper parody of Gothic fiction. 2017'sResident Evil 7: Biohazard, a Southern Gothic reboot to the survival horror video game involves an everyman and his wife trapped in a derelict plantation and mansion owned by a family with sinister and hideous secrets and must face terrifying visions of a ghostly mutant in the shape of a little girl. This was followed by 2021'sResident Evil Village, a Gothic horror sequel focusing on an action hero searching for his kidnapped daughter in a mysterious Eastern European village under the control of a bizarre religious cult inhabited by werewolves, vampires, ghosts, shapeshifters, and other monsters. TheDevil May Cry series stands as an equally parodic and self-serious franchise, following the escapades, stunts and mishaps of series protagonistDante as he explores dingy demonic castles, ancient occult monuments and ruined urban landscapes on his quest to avenge his mother and brother. Gothic literary themes appear all throughout the story, such as how the past physically creeps into the ambiguously modern setting, recurrent imagery of doubles (notably regarding Dante and histwin brother), and the persisting melodramas associated with Dante's father's fame, absence, and demonic heritage. Beginning withDevil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening, Female Gothic elements enter the series as deuteragonistLady works through her own revenge plot against her murderous father, with the oppressive and consistent emotional and physical abuse instigated by a patriarchal figure serving as a heavy, understated counterweight to the extravagance of the rest of the story. Finally,Bloodborne takes place in the decaying Gothic city ofYharnam, where the player must face werewolves, shambling mutants, vampires, witches, and numerous other Gothic staple creatures. However, the game takes a marked turn midway shifting from gothic toLovecraftian horror.The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt expansion packHearts of Stone features several gothic elements such as a death, ghosts, ghostly possession, an evil curse, an abandoned haunted mansion, a graveyard, beasts, and demonic entities.[139]
Popular tabletop card gameMagic: The Gathering, known for itsparallel universe consisting of "planes," features the plane known asInnistrad. Its general aesthetic is based on northeast European Gothic horror. Innistard's common residents include cultists, ghosts, vampires, werewolves, and zombies.
Film directorTim Burton, whose influences include Universal Monsters movies such asFrankenstein, Hammer Horror films starringChristopher Lee and the horror films ofVincent Price, is known for creating a gothic aesthetic in his films.[140] Modern Gothic horror films includeSleepy Hollow,[141]Interview with the Vampire,[142]Underworld,[143]The Wolfman,[144]From Hell,[145]Dorian Gray,[146]Let the Right One In,[147]The Woman in Black,[148]Crimson Peak,[149]The Little Stranger,[150] andThe Love Witch.[151]
The TV seriesPenny Dreadful (2014–2016) brings many classic Gothic characters together in a psychological thriller set in the dark corners of Victorian London.[152] The Oscar-winning Korean filmParasite has also been called Gothic – specifically, Revolutionary Gothic.[153] Recently, theNetflix originalThe Haunting of Hill House and its successorThe Haunting of Bly Manor have integrated classic Gothic conventions into modern psychological horror.[154]
Educators in literary, cultural, and architectural studies appreciate the Gothic as an area that facilitates investigation of the beginnings of scientific certainty. AsCarol Senf has stated, "the Gothic was... a counterbalance produced by writers and thinkers who felt limited by such a confident worldview and recognized that the power of the past, the irrational, and the violent continue to sway in the world."[155] As such, the Gothic helps students better understand their doubts about the self-assurance of today's scientists. Scotland is the location of what was probably the world's first postgraduate program to consider the genre exclusively: the MLitt in the Gothic Imagination at theUniversity of Stirling, first recruited in 1996.[156]
The setting is greatly influential in Gothic novels. It not only evokes the atmosphere of horror and dread, but also portrays the deterioration of its world. The decaying, ruined scenery implies that at one time there was a thriving world. At one time the abbey, castle, or landscape was something treasured and appreciated. Now, all that lasts is the decaying shell of a once thriving dwelling.
Dealing with the story of drug-addicted choirmaster John Jasper, The Mystery of Edwin Drood is a "dark and gothic" tale which is "very spooky, scary and modern"
The result is a book that while with one foot in Tasmanian Gothic, does represent a personal innovation.
On one level, the book is a picaresque romp through colonial Tasmania in the early 1800s based on the not very reliable reminiscences of Gould, a convicted forger, painter of fish and inveterate raconteur. On another level, the novel is a Gothic horror tale in its reimagining of a violent, brutal and oppressive penal colony whose militaristic regime subjugated both the imported and original inhabitants.
Richard Flanagan, Gould's Book of Fish, would have to be Gothic. Tasmanian history is pro-foundly dark and dreadful.
Flanagan in Gould's Book of Fish and Wanting also seeks to interrogate assumed complacency through a strangely comic and dark rerendering of reality to draw out many truths, such as Tasmania's treatment of its Indigenous peoples.
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