Gothic Genre

This sub-genre was started in 1764 by Horace Walpole. Walpole's The Castle of Otranto is considered to be the first gothic work.

Settings
- Castle/Manor
- Dark, mysterious places
- A gloomy setting
- An atmosphere of degeneration and decay
- Grotesque, mysterious, supernatural, or violent events
- An appreciation of the joys of extreme emotion
     - The thrills of fearfulness
- Awe inherent in the sublime, and a quest for atmosphere

Criteria
- Terror (psychological and physical), madness
- The supernatural, ghosts, and superstitious rituals
- Haunted houses, gothic architecture, castles
- Fascination with darkness, death, decay
- Secrets and hereditary curses
- Characterized by harsh laws enforced by torture

Elements
- Mystery
- Suspense
- Ancient Prophecies
- Inexplicable events
- Horror and romance

Characters
- Tyrants, villains, bandits
- Maniacs/Madwomen
- Byronic Heroes
- Persecuted Maidens, Femme Fatales
- Monks/Nuns
- Magicians
- Vampires, werewolves, dragons, monsters, demons, ghosts, perambulating skeletons, the Devil himself
- Angels, fallen angels, the 'wandering jew'

The Romantic Gothic Works
- The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Christabel
     - Coleridge
- La Belle Dame sans Merci
     - Keats
- Frankenstein
     - Mary Shelley
- Manfred
     - Lord Byron

The Victorian Gothic Works
- Dracula
     - Bram Stoker
- Wuthering Heights
     - Emily Bronte
- Great Expectations
     - Charles Dickens
- The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde    
     - Robert Louis Stevenson



American Gothic Fiction
- Sub-genre of Gothic Literature
- Often devoid of castles and objects which allude to a civilized history
- Differentiating between horror and terror is important in the study of these texts

America's Elements
- Rational vs. Irrational
- Puritanism
- Guilt
- Das Unheimliche - which is the strangeness within the familiar as Sigmund Freud defined
- Ghosts, monsters, and domestic abjection
- Concentrates more on issues specfic to life in the Americas:
     - The roots of these concepts lay in a past riddled with slavery
     - A fear of racial mixing
     - Hostile Native American relations and their genocide
     - The daunting wilerness present at the American Frontier

American Gothic Literature
- The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
     - Washington Irving
- Moby Dick
     - Herman Melville
- Young Goodman Brown
     - Nathaniel Hawthorne
- Fall of the House of Usher, Pit and the Pendulum, The Oval Portrait, Black Cat, Ligeia, etc.
     - Edgar Allan Poe

Settings
- Nature/Forests/ Early villages
- The South
- Manors/Castles
- Everyday locations, not necessarily considered supernatural or special

Plots
- Relating the experiences of an often ingenuous heroine imperiled where she typically becomes involved with a stern/mysterious but attractive man
- Some kind of Supernatural being is brought into everyday life

Post-Victorian Gothic Literature
- Psycho
     - Robert Bloch
- The Shining (and others)
     - Stephen King
- Vampire Chronicles, The Mummy, Witches trilogy
     - Anne Rice
- The Bluest Eyes, Beloved
     - Toni Morrison
- Blade
     - Marvel
- Tales from the Dark Tower, Legends of Darklore Manor
     - Joseph Vargo
- You Suck
     - Christopher Moore

Other Media
- Beetlejuice
- Corpse Bride/ Nightmare Before Christmas
- Tarot Cafe
- Wolfman
- Supernatural