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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 the Gothic architecture of the European Middle Ages , which was characteristic of the settings of early Gothic novels.
The inability of many Gothic characters to overcome perversity by rational thought is quintessential American Gothic. [1] It is not uncommon for a protagonist to be sucked into the realm of madness because of his or her inclination towards the irrational.
Gothicism or Gothism (Swedish: Göticism Swedish pronunciation: [ˈjøːtɪsˌɪsm]; Latin: Gothicismus) was an ethno-cultural ideology and cultural movement in Sweden, which took honor in being a Swede, for being purportedly related to the Goths.
The great Gothic wave, which stretches from 1764 with Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto to around 1818-1820, features ghosts, castles and terrifying characters; Satanism and the supernatural are favorite subjects; for instance, Ann Radcliffe presents sensitive, persecuted young girls who evolve in a frightening universe where secret doors open onto visions of horror, themes even more ...
The genre was consolidated, however, in the 20th century, when dark romanticism, Southern humor, and the new literary naturalism merged in a new and powerful form of social critique. [3] The themes largely reflected the cultural atmosphere of the South following the collapse of the Confederacy in the Civil War , which left a vacuum of cultural ...
The Latin American literary Gothic stands out for its predominantly female protagonism. The most widely known author working in this vein is arguably Mariana Enríquez , an Argentine writer whose works feature disturbed women, sinister children, and eerie physical environments and deal with themes such as the legacy of military dictatorships ...
Literary movements are a way to divide literature into categories of similar philosophical, topical, or aesthetic features, as opposed to divisions by genre or period. Like other categorizations, literary movements provide language for comparing and discussing literary works. These terms are helpful for curricula or anthologies. [1]
The Gothic double is a literary motif which refers to the divided personality of a character. Closely linked to the Doppelgänger, which first appeared in the 1796 novel Siebenkäs by Johann Paul Richter, the double figure emerged in Gothic literature in the late 18th century due to a resurgence of interest in mythology and folklore which explored notions of duality, such as the fetch in Irish ...