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'''Gothic fiction''', sometimes called '''Gothic horror''' (primarily in the 20th century), is a loose literary aesthetic of [[fear]] and [[haunting]]. The name refers to [[Gothic architecture]] of the European [[Middle Ages]], which was characteristic of the settings of early Gothic novels.
The first work to call itself Gothic was [[Horace Walpole]]'s 1764 novel ''[[The Castle of Otranto]]'', later subtitled "A Gothic Story". Subsequent 18th-century contributors included [[Clara Reeve]], [[Ann Radcliffe]], [[William Beckford (novelist)|William Thomas Beckford]], and [[Matthew Gregory Lewis|Matthew Lewis]]. The Gothic influence continued into the early 19th century; works by the [[Romantic poetry|Romantic poets]], like [[Samuel Taylor Coleridge]] and [[Lord Byron]], and novelists such as [[Mary Shelley]],
The early [[Victorian literature|Victorian period]] continued the use of gothic aesthetic in novels by [[Charles Dickens]] and the [[Brontë family|Brontë sisters]], as well as works by the American writers [[Edgar Allan Poe]] and [[Nathaniel Hawthorne]]. Later well-known works were ''[[Dracula]]'' by [[Bram Stoker]], [[Richard Marsh (author)|Richard Marsh's]] ''[[The Beetle (novel)|The Beetle]]'' and [[Robert Louis Stevenson]]'s ''[[Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde]]''. Twentieth-century contributors include [[Daphne du Maurier]], [[Stephen King]], [[Shirley Jackson]], [[Anne Rice]], and [[Toni Morrison]].
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==Characteristics==
[[File:The Bride of Lammermoor - Wolf's Crag.jpg|thumb|right|The ruins of Wolf's Crag castle in [[Walter Scott]]'s ''[[The Bride of Lammermoor]]'' (1819)]]
Gothic fiction is characterized by an environment of fear, the threat of [[supernatural]] events, and the intrusion of the past upon the present.<ref name="Birch">{{Cite encyclopedia |year=2009 |title=Gothic fiction |encyclopedia=The Oxford Companion to English Literature |publisher=Oxford University Press |editor-last=Birch |editor-first=Dinah |edition=7th |isbn=9780191735066}}</ref><ref name="Hogle">{{Cite book |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/9780511999185/type/book |title=The Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction |date=2002-08-29 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-79124-3 |editor-last=Hogle |editor-first=Jerrold E. |edition=1 |pages=1–20 |
Gothic fiction often moves between "[[high culture]]" and "[[low culture|low]]" or "
===Role of architecture===
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===The Female Gothic===
From the castles, dungeons, forests, and hidden passages of the Gothic novel genre emerged female Gothic. Guided by the works of authors such as [[Ann Radcliffe]], [[Mary Shelley]], and [[Charlotte 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,"<ref name="Austen">"Austen's ''Northanger Abbey''", Second Edition, Broadview, 2002.</ref> according to [[Jane Austen]]. The Gothic novel shaped its form for woman readers to "turn to Gothic romances to find support for their own mixed feelings."<ref name="Ronald">Ronald, Ann, "Terror Gothic: Nightmare and Dream in Ann Radcliffe and Charlotte Bronte", in Juliann E. Fleenor (ed.) [https://resources.saylor.org/wwwresources/archived/site/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/The-Female-Gothic.pdf ''The Female Gothic''],
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 social taboos. The emergence of the ghost 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.<ref name="Smith, Andrew 2004, pp. 1–7">Smith, Andrew, and Diana Wallace, "The Female Gothic: Then and Now." ''Gothic Studies'', 25 August 2004, pp. 1–7.</ref> Authors such as [[Mary Robinson (poet)|Mary Robinson]] and [[Charlotte 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.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://reactormag.com/the-real-life-heroines-of-the-early-gothic/| title=The Real Life Heroines of the Early Gothic
| date=May 14, 2021|last=Hirst|first=Sam| website=[[Reactor (magazine)|Reactor]]| access-date=June 22, 2024}}</ref>
When the female Gothic coincides with the explained supernatural 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 with patriarchal 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, or domestic abuse commonly appear in the genre.
After the characteristic Gothic ''[[Bildungsroman]]''-like plot sequence, female Gothic allowed readers to grow from "adolescence to maturity"<ref name="Nichols">Nichols, Nina da Vinci, "Place and Eros in Radcliffe
==History==
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The components that would eventually combine into Gothic literature had a rich history by the time Walpole presented a fictitious medieval manuscript in ''The Castle of Otranto'' in 1764.
The plays of [[William 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.<ref>{{Cite thesis|author=L. Wiley, Jennifer|url=https://repository.arizona.edu/bitstream/handle/10150/594386/azu_etd_14308_sip1_m.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y|title=Shakespeare's Influence on the English Gothic,
[[John Milton]]'s ''[[Paradise Lost]]'' (1667) was also very influential among Gothic writers, who were especially drawn to the tragic anti-hero character [[Paradise Lost#Characters|Satan]], who became a model for many charismatic Gothic villains and [[Byronic heroes]]. Milton's "version of the myth of the fall and redemption, creation and decreation, is, as ''[[Gothic aspects in Frankenstein|Frankenstein]]'' again reveals, an important model for Gothic plots."<ref>{{Cite thesis|author=Percival, Robert |url=https://ir.canterbury.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10092/11870/Percival_thesis.pdf?sequence=1|title=From the Sublime to the Numinous: A Study of Gothic Qualities in the Poetry and Drama of Shelley's Italian Period |type=MA thesis |publisher=University of Canterbury |date=2013|access-date=April 29, 2022 |hdl=10092/11870 |doi=10.26021/4865 }}</ref>
[[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.<ref>{{Cite thesis|author=Saraoorian, Vahe |url=https://etd.ohiolink.edu/apexprod/rws_etd/send_file/send?accession=bgsu1554464085299421&disposition=inline |title=The Way To Otranto: Gothic Elements In Eighteenth-Century English Poetry |type=PhD dissertation |publisher=Bowling Green State University
Gothic literature is often described with words such as "wonder" and "terror."<ref name="Terror and Wonder">{{Cite web |url=http://www.bl.uk/events/terror-and-wonder--the-gothic-imagination |title=Terror and Wonder the Gothic Imagination |website=The British Library |publisher=British Library|access-date=26 March 2016}}</ref> This sense of wonder and terror that provides the [[suspension of disbelief]] so important to the Gothic—which, except for when it is parodied, even for all its occasional [[melodrama]], 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.<ref name="Early and Pre-Gothic Literary Conventions">{{Cite web |url=http://www.spookyscarysociety.com/2015/10/31/october-2015-literary-meeting-early-and-pre-gothic-literary-conventions-examples/ |title=Early and Pre-Gothic Literary Conventions & Examples |date=31 October 2015 |website=Spooky Scary Skeletons Literary and Horror Society |publisher=Spooky Scary Society |access-date=26 March 2016}}</ref> Clive Bloom theorizes that this void in the collective imagination was critical in developing the cultural possibility for the rise of the Gothic tradition.<ref name="Gothic Histories">{{cite book|last1=Bloom|first1=Clive|title=Gothic Histories: The Taste for Terror, 1764 to Present|date=2010|publisher=Continuum International Publishing Group|location=London|page=2}}</ref>
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===Eighteenth-century Gothic novels===
{{main|Eighteenth-century Gothic novel}}
[[File:The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794).png|thumb|upright|left|[[Ann Radcliffe]]'s ''[[The Mysteries of Udolpho]]'' (1794), a bestselling
The first work to call itself "Gothic" was [[Horace Walpole]]'s ''[[The Castle of Otranto]]'' (1764).<ref name="Birch"/> The first edition presented the story as a translation of a sixteenth- century manuscript and was widely popular. 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.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Clery |first=E. J. |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/776946868 |title=The Rise of Supernatural Fiction,
[[File:Minerva Press publications notice, The Gloucester Journal, 1795.jpg|upright|thumb|[[Minerva Press]] notice from October 1795 listing new publications, including many Gothic titles.]]
At the height of the Gothic novel's popularity in the 1790s, the genre was almost synonymous with [[Ann Radcliffe]], whose works were highly anticipated and widely imitated. ''[[The Romance of the Forest]]'' (1791) and ''[[The Mysteries of Udolpho]]'' (1794) were particularly popular.<ref name="Sucur">{{Cite encyclopedia|title=Gothic fiction|encyclopedia=The Literary Encyclopedia.|last=Sucur|first=Slobodan|date=2007-05-06|issn=1747-678X}}</ref> In an essay on Radcliffe, [[Walter Scott]], writes of the popularity of ''Udolpho'' 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."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://archive.org/details/livesnovelists01scotgoog/page/n5/mode/2up |title=Lives of the Novelists |last=Scott |first=Walter |publisher=Carey & Lea|page=195| date=1825}}</ref> Radcliffe's novels were often seen as the feminine and rational opposite of a more violently horrifying male Gothic associated with [[Matthew Lewis (writer)|Matthew Lewis]]. Radcliffe's final novel, [[The Italian (Radcliffe novel)|''The Italian'']] (1797), responded to Lewis's ''[[The Monk]]'' (1796)
A Companion to the Gothic |date=2000|page=49|isbn=978-0-63123-199-8}}</ref>
The popularity and influence of ''The Mysteries of Udolpho'' and ''The Monk'' saw the rise of shorter and cheaper versions of Gothic literature in the forms of [[Gothic bluebooks]] and [[chapbooks]], which in many cases were plagiarized and abridgments of well known Gothic novels.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Thomas|first=Susan |url=https://library.unimelb.edu.au/asc/whats-on/exhibitions/dark-imaginings/gothicresearch/gothic-bluebooks-the-popular-thirst-for-fear-and-dread |title=Gothic bluebooks: The popular thirst for fear and dread|publisher=[[University of Melbourne]]}}</ref> ''The Monk'' in particular, with its immoral and sensational content, saw many plagiarized copies, and was notably drawn from in the cheaper pamphlets.<ref>{{Cite book |last=J. Potter|first=Franz J. |url=https://thedarkartsjournal.wordpress.com/2021/05/14/review-gothic-chapbooks/ |title=Gothic Chapbooks, Bluebooks and Shilling Shockers, 1797-1830 |date=2021 |publisher=University of Wales Press |isbn=978-1-78683-670-0}}</ref>
Other notable Gothic novels of the 1790s include [[William Godwin]]'s ''[[Things as They Are; or, The Adventures of Caleb Williams|Caleb Williams]]'' (1794), [[Regina Maria Roche]]'s ''[[Clermont (novel)|Clermont]]'' (1798), and [[Charles Brockden Brown]]'s [[Wieland (novel)|''Wieland'']] (1798), as well as large numbers of anonymous works published by the [[Minerva Press]].<ref name="Sucur" /> In continental Europe, Romantic literary movements led to related Gothic genres such as the German ''Schauerroman'' and the French R''oman noir''.<ref>{{Citation |last=Hale |first=Terry |title=French and German Gothic: the beginnings |date=2002 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-companion-to-gothic-fiction/french-and-german-gothic/D2C9BAEC304DC0E27775DF1CE36B9DA3 |work=The Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction |pages=63–84 |editor-last=Hogle |editor-first=Jerrold E. |series=Cambridge Companions to Literature |place=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-79124-3 |access-date=2020-09-02}}</ref><ref>{{Cite thesis |last=Seeger |first=Andrew Philip |date=2004 |title=Crosscurrents between the English Gothic novel and the German Schauerroman |type=PhD dissertation |publisher=University of Nebraska–Lincoln |url=https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI3131562 |id={{ProQuest|305161832}} |pages=1–208}}</ref> 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 [[File:NACatherinereading.jpg|left|thumb|Catherine Morland, the naive protagonist of ''[[Northanger Abbey]]'' (1818), [[Jane Austen]]'s Gothic parody]]
The saturation of Gothic-inspired literature during the 1790s was referred to in a letter by [[Samuel Taylor Coleridge]], writing on 16 March 1797, "indeed I am almost weary of the Terrible, having been a hireling in the [[The Critical Review (newspaper)|Critical Review]] for the last six or eight months – I have been reviewing ''[[the Monk]]'', ''[[The Italian (Radcliffe novel)|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."<ref>{{Cite web|author=Norton, Rictor|url=http://rictornorton.co.uk/gothic/monk.htm |title=Gothic Readings,
The excesses, stereotypes, and frequent absurdities of the Gothic genre made it rich territory for satire.<ref>Skarda 1986.</ref> Historian [[Rictor Norton]] notes that satire of Gothic literature was common from 1796 until the 1820s, including early satirical works such as ''The New Monk'' (1798), ''More Ghosts''! (1798) and ''Rosella, 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."<ref>{{Cite web|author=Norton, Rictor|url=http://rictornorton.co.uk/gothic/parody.htm |title=Gothic Readings, 1764–1840, Gothic Parody |date=2000}}</ref> After 1800 there was a period in which Gothic parodies outnumbered forthcoming Gothic novels.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Potter |first=Franz J. |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/58807207 |title=The history of Gothic publishing,
===Second generation or ''Jüngere Romantik''===
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[[File:Frontispiece to Frankenstein 1831.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Mary Shelley]]'s ''[[Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus]]'' (1818) has come to define Gothic fiction in the Romantic period. Frontispiece to 1831 edition shown.]]
Byron was also the host of the celebrated ghost-story competition involving himself, [[Percy Bysshe Shelley]], [[Mary Shelley]], and [[John William Polidori]] at the Villa Diodati on the banks of [[Lake Geneva]] in the summer of 1816. This occasion was productive of both Mary Shelley's ''[[Frankenstein|Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus]]'' (1818), and Polidori's ''[[The Vampyre]]'' (1819), featuring the Byronic [[Lord Ruthven (vampire)|Lord Ruthven]]. ''The Vampyre'' has been accounted by cultural critic Christopher Frayling as one of the most influential works of fiction ever written and spawned a craze for [[Vampire literature|vampire fiction]] and theatre (and, latterly, film) that has not ceased to this day.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Frayling | first =Christopher | author-link =Christopher Frayling | title =Vampyres: Lord Byron to Count Dracula | publisher =Faber | date =1992 | orig-year=1978 |location=London |isbn=978-0-571-16792-0 |url =https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780571167920}}</ref>
[[John Keats]]' ''[[La Belle Dame sans Merci]]'' (1819) and ''[[Isabella, or the Pot of Basil]]'' (1820) feature mysteriously fey ladies.<ref name=skarda>Skarda and Jaffe (1981), pp. 33–35 and 132–133.</ref> 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.<ref name=skarda/>
Although ushering in the historical novel, and turning popularity away from Gothic fiction, [[Walter Scott]] frequently
A late example of a traditional Gothic novel is ''[[Melmoth the Wanderer]]'' (1820) by [[Charles Maturin]], which combines themes of anti-Catholicism with an outcast Byronic hero.<ref>Varma 1986</ref> [[Jane C. Loudon]]'s ''[[The Mummy!]]'' (1827) features standard Gothic motifs, characters, and plot, but with one significant twist
During two decades, the most famous author of Gothic literature in Germany was the polymath [[E. T. A. Hoffmann]]. Lewis's ''[[The Monk]]'' influenced and even mentioned it in his novel ''[[The Devil's Elixirs]]'' (1815).
In Spain, the priest [[Pascual Pérez Rodríguez]] was the most diligent novelist in the Gothic way, closely aligned to the supernatural explained by Ann Radcliffe.<ref>Aldana, Xavier, pp. 10–17</ref> At the same time, the poet [[José de Espronceda]] published ''[[El estudiante de Salamanca|The Student of Salamanca]]'' (
[[File:Вий.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Viy, lord of the underworld, from the [[Viy (story)|story of the same name]] by Gogol]]
In Russia, authors of the Romantic era include [[Antony Pogorelsky]] (penname of Alexey Alexeyevich Perovsky), [[Orest Somov]], [[Oleksa Storozhenko]],<ref>Krys Svitlana, "[https://journals.ku.edu/index.php/folklorica/article/view/4211 Folklorism in Ukrainian Gotho-Romantic Prose: Oleksa Storozhenko’s Tale About Devil in Love (1861).]" ''Folklorica: Journal of the Slavic and East European Folklore Association'', 16 (2011), pp. 117–138.</ref> [[Alexandr Pushkin]], [[Nikolai Polevoy|Nikolai Alekseevich Polevoy]], [[Mikhail Lermontov]] (for his work ''Stuss''), and [[Alexander Bestuzhev-Marlinsky]].<ref name="Horner (2002), pp. 59–82">Horner (2002). ''Neil Cornwell: European Gothic and the 19th-century Gothic literature'', pp. 59–82.</ref> Pushkin is particularly important, as his 1833 short story ''[[The Queen of Spades (story)|The 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's
The following poems are also now considered to belong to the Gothic genre: Meshchevskiy's "Lila", Katenin's "Olga", [[Alexander Pushkin|Pushkin]]'s "The Bridegroom", [[Pyotr Pletnyov|Pletnev]]'s "The Gravedigger" and [[Mikhail Lermontov|Lermontov]]'s
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 "[[St. John's Eve (short story)|Saint John's Eve]]" and "[[A Terrible Vengeance]]" from ''[[Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka]]'' (1831–1832), "[[The Portrait (short story)|The Portrait]]" from ''Arabesques'' (1835), and "[[Viy (story)|Viy]]" from [[Mirgorod (short story collection)|''Mirgorod'']] (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 on [[Ukrainian folklore]], the [[Cossacks|Cossack]] lifestyle, and, as
Other relevant authors of this era include [[Vladimir 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, and ''The Vampire'', 1841), [[Mikhail Zagoskin]] (''Unexpected Guests''), [[Józef Sękowski]]/[[Osip Senkovsky]] (''Antar''), and [[Yevgeny Baratynsky]] (''The Ring'').<ref name="Horner (2002), pp. 59–82" />
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[[File:Varney the Vampire or the Feast of Blood.jpg|thumb|upright|Cover of a ''[[Varney the Vampire]]'' publication, 1845]]
By the [[Victorian era]], Gothic had ceased to be the dominant genre for novels in England, partly replaced by more sedate
[[File:Jane Eyre.jpg|left|upright|thumb|Jane Eyre's trial through the moors in [[Charlotte Brontë]]'s ''[[Jane Eyre]]'' (1847)]]
In addition to these short Gothic fictions, some novels drew on the Gothic. [[Emily Brontë]]'s ''[[Wuthering 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 critic [[Ellen 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.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Literary Women |last=Moers |first=Ellen |year=1976 |publisher=Doubleday |isbn=9780385074278}}</ref> Emily Brontë's ''Cathy'' and [[Charlotte Brontë]]'s ''[[Jane Eyre]]'' are examples of female protagonists in such roles.<ref>Jackson (1981) pp. 123–129.</ref> [[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's ''[[Villette (novel)|Villette]]'' also shows the Gothic influence, with its supernatural subplot featuring a ghostly nun, and its view of [[Roman Catholicism]] as exotic and heathenistic.
[[File:Havisham.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Miss Havisham]] from Dickens’ ''Great Expectations'']]
The genre also heavily influenced writers such as [[Charles 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, in ''[[Oliver Twist]]'' (1837–1838), ''[[Bleak House]]'' (1854) and ''[[Great 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 introducing [[smog|urban fog]] to the novel, which would become a frequent characteristic of urban Gothic literature and film (Mighall 2007). [[Miss Havisham]] from ''Great Expectations'', is one of Dickens’ most Gothic characters. The bitter recluse who shuts herself away in her gloomy mansion ever since being jilted at the altar on her wedding day.<ref>{{cite news |title=The Gothic in Great Expectations |url=https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/videos/the-gothic-in-great-expectations |access-date=16 August 2021 |agency=[[British Library]] |archive-date=31 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230731073817/https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/videos/the-gothic-in-great-expectations |url-status=dead }}</ref> 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. The mood and themes of the Gothic novel held a particular fascination for the Victorians, with their obsession with mourning rituals, [[Memento mori|mementos]], and mortality in general.
Irish Catholics also wrote Gothic fiction in the 19th century. Although some Anglo-Irish dominated and defined the subgenre decades later, they did not own it. Irish Catholic Gothic writers included [[Gerald Griffin]], [[James Clarence Mangan]], and [[John Banim|John]] and [[Michael Banim]]. [[William Carleton]] was a notable Gothic writer, and converted from Catholicism to Anglicanism.<ref>{{Cite book |title=The Emergence of Irish Gothic Fiction |last=Killeen |first=Jarlath |date=2014-01-31 |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |isbn=978-0-7486-9080-0 |pages=51 |doi=10.3366/edinburgh/9780748690800.001.0001 |s2cid=192770214 |url=http://www.oapen.org/download/?type=document&docid=649971}}</ref>
In
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, wrote ''Faust'' (1856), ''Phantoms'' (1864), ''Song of the Triumphant Love'' (1881), and ''Clara 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.<ref>Cornwell (1999). pp. 211–256.</ref> [[Grigory Petrovich Danilevsky]], who wrote historical and early
[[File:Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde poster edit2.jpg|left|thumb|[[Robert Louis Stevenson]]'s ''[[Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde]]'' (1886) was a classic Gothic work of the 1880s, seeing many stage adaptations.]]
The 1880s saw the revival of the Gothic as a powerful literary form allied to [[fin de siecle]], which fictionalized contemporary fears like ethical degeneration and questioned the social structures of the time. Classic works of this [[Urban Gothic]] include [[Robert Louis Stevenson]]'s ''[[Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde|Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde]]'' (1886), [[Oscar Wilde]]'s ''[[The Picture of Dorian Gray]]'' (1891), [[George du Maurier]]'s ''[[Trilby (novel)|Trilby]]'' (1894), [[Richard Marsh (author)|Richard Marsh]]'s ''[[The Beetle (novel)|The Beetle]]'' (1897), [[Henry James]]' ''[[The Turn of the Screw]]'' (1898), and the stories of [[Arthur Machen]].
In Ireland, Gothic fiction tended to be purveyed by the [[Anglo-Irish people|Anglo-Irish]] [[Protestant Ascendancy]]. According to literary critic [[Terry Eagleton]], [[Charles Maturin]], [[Sheridan Le Fanu]], and [[Bram Stoker]] form the core of the [[Irish Gothic literature|Irish Gothic subgenre]] with stories featuring castles set in a barren landscape and a cast of remote aristocrats dominating an [[atavism|atavistic]] peasantry, which represent an allegorical form the political plight of [[Irish Catholics|Catholic Ireland]] subjected to the Protestant Ascendancy.<ref>Eagleton, 1995.</ref> Le Fanu's use of the gloomy villain, forbidding mansion, and persecuted heroine in ''[[Uncle Silas]]'' (1864) shows direct influence from Walpole's ''Otranto'' and Radcliffe's ''Udolpho''. Le Fanu's short story collection ''[[In a Glass Darkly]]'' (1872) includes the superlative vampire tale ''[[Carmilla]]'', which provided fresh blood for that particular strand of the Gothic and influenced [[Bram Stoker]]'s [[vampire]] novel ''[[Dracula]]'' (1897). Stoker's book created the most famous Gothic villain ever, [[Count Dracula]], and established [[Transylvania in popular culture|Transylvania]] and
In the United States, notable late 19th-century writers in the Gothic tradition were [[Ambrose Bierce]], [[Robert W. Chambers]], and [[Edith 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 his ''[[The King in Yellow]]'' (1895).<ref>{{cite book |last1=Punter |first1=David |title=The Literature of Terror: A History of Gothic Fictions from 1765 to the Present Day |date=1980 |publisher=Longmans |location=United Kingdom |isbn=9780582489219 |pages=268–290 |chapter=Later American Gothic}}</ref> Wharton published some notable Gothic ghost stories. Some works of the Canadian writer [[Sir Gilbert Parker, 1st Baronet|Gilbert Parker]] also fall into the genre, including the stories in ''[[The Lane that Had No Turning, and Other Tales Concerning the People of Pontiac|The Lane that had No Turning]]'' (1900).<ref>{{Cite book |title="Introduction" to The Lane that Had No Turning, and Other Tales Concerning the People of Pontiac |last=Rubio |first=Jen |publisher=Rock's Mills Press |year=2015 |isbn=978-0-9881293-7-5 |location=Oakville, ON |pages=vii – viii}}</ref>
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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 of [[Fyodor Dostoyevsky]] from the 1880s. Most critics used tags such as "Romanticism" and "[[fantastique]]", such as in the 1984 story collection translated into English as ''Russian 19th-Century Gothic Tales'' but originally titled ''Фантастический мир русской романтической повести'', literally, "The Fantastic World of Russian Romanticism Short Story/Novella."<ref>Cornwell (1999). Introduction.</ref> However, since the mid-1980s, Russian gothic fiction as a genre began to be discussed in books such as ''The Gothic-Fantastic in Nineteenth-Century Russian Literature'', ''European Gothic: A Spirited Exchange 1760–1960'', ''The Russian Gothic Novel and its British Antecedents'' and ''Goticheskiy roman v Rossii (The Gothic Novel in Russia)''.
The first Russian author whose work has been described as gothic fiction is considered to be [[Nikolay Karamzin|Nikolay Mikhailovich Karamzin]]. While many of his works feature gothic elements, the first to belong purely under the gothic fiction label is ''Ostrov Borngolm'' (''Island of Bornholm'') from 1793.<ref>Cornwell (1999). Derek Offord: ''Karamzin's Gothic Tale'', pp. 37–58.</ref> Nearly ten years later, [[Nikolay Gnedich|Nikolay Ivanovich Gnedich]] followed suit with his 1803 novel ''Don Corrado de Gerrera'', set in Spain during the reign of [[Philip II of Spain|Philip II]].<ref>Cornwell (1999). Alessandra Tosi: "At the origins of the Russian gothic novel", pp. 59–82.</ref> The term "Gothic" is sometimes also used to describe the [[ballad]]s of Russian authors such as [[Vasily Andreyevich Zhukovsky]], particularly "Ludmila" (1808) and "[[Svetlana (ballad)|Svetlana]]" (1813), both translations based on [[Gottfried August Bürger|Gottfreid August Burger]]'s Gothic German ballad, "[[Lenore (ballad)|Lenore]]
During the last years of [[Russian Empire|Imperial Russia]] in the early 20th century, many authors continued to write in the Gothic fiction genre. They include the historian and historical fiction writer [[Alexander Amfiteatrov|Alexander Valentinovich Amfiteatrov]] and [[Leonid Andreyev|Leonid Nikolaievich Andreyev]], who developed psychological characterization; the symbolist [[Valery Yakovlevich Bryusov]], [[Alexander Grin]], [[Anton Pavlovich Chekhov]];<ref>Cornwell (1999). p. 257.</ref> and [[Aleksandr Ivanovich Kuprin]].<ref name="Butuzov"/> Nobel Prize winner [[Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin]] wrote ''[[Dry Valley (novel)|Dry Valley]]'' (1912), which is seen as influenced by Gothic literature.<ref>Peterson, p. 36.</ref> 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."<ref>Muireann Maguire, ''Stalin's Ghosts: Gothic Themes in Early Soviet Literature'' (Peter Lang Publishing, 2012; {{ISBN|3-0343-0787-X}}), p. 14.</ref>
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===Twentienth-century Gothic fiction===
{{See also|Pulp magazine}}
[[File:Mrs. Danvers.jpg|thumb|right|[[Mrs. Danvers]] in the [[Rebecca (1940 film)|1940 film adaptation]] of [[Daphne du Maurier]]'s ''[[Rebecca (novel)|Rebecca]]''. The success of ''Rebecca'' inspired a revival of interest in Gothic romance in the 20th century<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://patch.com/connecticut/groton/bp--more-classic-riffs|last=Clark-Greene|first=Barbara|date=2012 |title=More Classic Riffs |website=[[Patch Media]]}}</ref>]]
Gothic fiction and [[Modernism]] influenced each other. This is often evident in detective 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]]'s ''[[The Picture of Dorian Gray]]'' (1890) initiated a re-working of older literary forms and myths that became common in the work of [[W. B.
[[File:Weird Tales March 1934.jpg|thumb|left|[[Pulp magazine]]s such as ''[[Weird Tales]]'' reprinted and popularized Gothic horror from the previous century.]]
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===Southern Gothic===
{{main|Southern Gothic}}
The genre also influenced [[American literature|American writing]], creating a [[Southern Gothic]] genre that combines some Gothic sensibilities, such as the [[grotesque]], with the setting and style of the
===New Gothic romances===
Mass-produced Gothic romances became popular in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s with authors such as [[Phyllis A. Whitney]], [[Joan Aiken]], [[Dorothy Eden]], [[Eleanor Hibbert|Victoria Holt]], [[Barbara Mertz|Barbara Michaels]], [[Mary Stewart (novelist)|Mary Stewart]], [[Alice M G White|Alicen White]], and Jill Tattersall. Many featured covers show a terror-stricken woman in diaphanous attire in front of a gloomy
=== Contemporary Gothic ===
{{For|modern horror associated with the goth scene|Goth subculture#Books and magazines}}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 include [[Anne Rice]], [[Susan Hill]], [[Poppy Z. Brite|Billy Martin]], [[Silvia Moreno-Garcia]], [[Carmen Maria Machado]], [[Neil Gaiman]], and [[Stephen King]].<ref>Skarda and Jaffe (1981) pp. 464–465 and 478.</ref><ref>Davenport-Hines (1998) pp.
Contemporary American writers in the tradition include [[Joyce Carol Oates]] with such novels as ''[[Bellefleur (novel)|Bellefleur]]'' and ''A Bloodsmoor Romance'', [[Toni Morrison]] with her radical novel ''[[Beloved (novel)|Beloved]]'', about a slave-woman whose murdered baby haunts her, [[Raymond Kennedy (novelist)|Raymond Kennedy]] with his novel ''Lulu Incognito'',<ref>{{Cite web |title=The American Gothic – Digital Collections for the Classroom |url=https://dcc.newberry.org/?p=14394 |access-date=2023-05-03 |language=en-US}}</ref> [[Donna Tartt]] with her postmodern gothic horror novel ''[[The Secret History]]'',<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Gothic Terror of Donna Tartt's The Secret History |url=https://horrorobsessive.com/2022/01/20/the-gothic-terror-of-donna-tartts-the-secret-history/ |website=Horror Obsessive}}</ref> [[Ursula Vernon]] with her [[Edgar Allan Poe]]-inspired novel ''[[What Moves the Dead]]'', [[Danielle Trussoni]] with her "gothic extravaganza" ''The Ancestor'',
Several Gothic traditions have also developed in
[[Southern Ontario Gothic]] applies a similar sensibility to a Canadian cultural context. [[Robertson Davies]], [[Alice Munro]], [[Barbara Gowdy]], [[Timothy Findley]], and [[Margaret Atwood]] have all produced notable exemplars of this form. Another writer in the tradition was [[Henry Farrell]], best known for his 1960 Hollywood horror novel ''[[What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (novel)|What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?]]'' Farrell's novels spawned a subgenre of "Grande Dame Guignol" in the cinema, represented by such films as [[What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962 film)|the 1962 film based on Farrell's novel]], which starred [[Bette Davis]] versus [[Joan 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 are [[María Fernanda Ampuero]], [[Mariana Enríquez]], [[Fernanda Melchor]], [[Mónica Ojeda]], [[Giovanna Rivero]], [[Michelle Roche-Rodríguez]], and [[Samanta Schweblin]].
The many Gothic subgenres include a new "environmental Gothic" or "ecoGothic".<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://perditanovel.com/the-eco-gothic-2/ |title=The Ecogothic |first=Max |last=says |date=November 23, 2014}}</ref><ref>Hillard, Tom. "'Deep Into That Darkness Peering': An Essay on Gothic Nature". ''Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment'', 16 (4), 2009.</ref><ref>Smith, Andrew and William Hughes. "Introduction: Defining the ecoGothic" in ''EcoGothic''. Andrew Smith and William Hughes, eds. Manchester University Press. 2013.</ref>
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*[[Gothic Western]]
*[[Irish Gothic literature]]
*[[Latin American Gothic]]
*[[List of gothic fiction works]]
*[[List of Minerva Press authors]]
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==References==
{{refbegin|30em}}
*{{Cite book |last=Aldana Reyes |first=Xavier |title=Spanish Gothic: National Identity, Collaboration and Cultural Adaptation
*{{Cite book |last=Baddeley |first=Gavin |author-link= Gavin Baddeley |title=Goth Chic |year=2002 |publisher=Plexus |location=London |isbn=978-0-85965-382-4|ref=none}}
*Baldick, Chris (1993), ''Introduction,'' in ''The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales'', Oxford: Oxford University Press
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*Townshend, Dale (2007), ''The Orders of Gothic''
*Varma, Devendra (1957), ''The Gothic Flame''
*Varma, Devendra (1986), "Maturin, Charles Robert" in Jack Sullivan, ed., ''The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural:
*Wisker, Gina (2005), ''Horror Fiction: An Introduction'', Continuum: New York
*Wright, Angela (2007), ''Gothic Fiction'', Basingstoke: Palgrave
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==External links==
*{{Wikisource-inline}}
*[http://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/themes/the-gothic Gothic Fiction at the British Library] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180525065938/https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/themes/the-gothic |date=25 May 2018 }}
*[http://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/videos/the-gothic Key motifs in Gothic Fiction] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170701084130/http://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/videos/the-gothic |date=1 July 2017 }} – a British Library film
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20070926221147/http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gothic_Fiction_
*[https://irishgothichorror.wordpress.com ''Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies'']
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20071220055018/http://www.adam-matthew-publications.co.uk/digital_guides/gothic_fiction/Biographies.aspx Gothic author biographies]
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{{Narrative}}
{{Horror fiction}}
{{
{{Goth subculture}}
{{Romanticism}}
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[[Category:Gothic fiction| ]]
[[Category:1760s neologisms]]
[[Category:
[[Category:Horror genres]]
[[Category:Literary genres]]
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