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Definition: Gothic novel from Philip's Encyclopedia

Genre of English fiction popular in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Gothic novels often rely on eerie medieval externals, such as old castles, monasteries and hidden trapdoors, for their symbolism. Horace Walpole wrote an important prototype, The Castle of Otranto (1764). Later examples include The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) by Ann Radcliffe and Frankenstein (1818) by Mary Shelley.

gothic novel

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide
Literary genre established by Horace Walpole 's The Castle of Otranto (1764) and marked by mystery, violence, and horror; other pre-20th century practitioners were the English writers Ann Radcliffe , Matthew ‘Monk’ Lewis, Mary Shelley , the Irish writer Bram Stoker , and the US writer Edgar Allen Poe . The late 20th century has seen a huge revival in interest in the genre, particularly in film, and the novels of the US writer Stephen King are carefully crafted examples. The gothic is best distinguished from horror by gothic's inbuilt morality. Whilst there are macabre and violent acts, no one dies unjustly in a true gothic novel. The vampire or creature unleashed is a scourge to test the righteous and bring weakness, evil, and folly to account. A plot requirement is one or two ordinary people, with whom the reader identifies, who survive and record events (for example, Jonathan Harker in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein , 1818). Evil is ultimately destroyed and has beneficial consequences…
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Full text Article Gothic novel, the

From Continuum Encyclopedia of British Literature
In the prologue to his play The Castle Spectre , published in 1791, M. G. LEWIS imagined Romance as an enchantress living in a dark rural retreat in locations such as churchyards, forests, dungeons, ecclesiastical and fortified ruins, exulting when storms disturbed moonlit nights. Such venues had…
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Full text Article GOTHIC FICTION

From Encyclopedia of the Romantic Era, 1760-1850
The term “Gothic fiction” refers to a literary form popular in the period between the publication of Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto in 1764 (the second edition was subtitled “A Gothic Story”) and Charles Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer in 1820. Walpole's novel is commonly thought to have…
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From the French for “kind” or “sort,” and etymologically derived from the Latin genus , the word “genre” has connotations of biological kind, and its use in relation to the arts begins in the late eighteenth century, not long after the establishment of Linnaean taxonomy. Theoretical and critical…
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Full text Article Gothic

From The American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language
Gothic fa.ade of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame...
a. Of or relating to the Goths or their language. b. Germanic; Teutonic. Of or relating to the Middle Ages; medieval. a. Of or relating to an architectural style prevalent in western Europe from the 12th through the 15th century and characterized by ... …
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Full text Article gothic novel

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide
Literary genre established by Horace Walpole 's The Castle of Otranto (1764) and marked by mystery, violence, and horror; other pre-20th century practitioners were the English writers Ann Radcliffe , Matthew ‘Monk’ Lewis, Mary Shelley , the Irish writer Bram Stoker , and the US writer Edgar Allen…
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Full text Article Science Fiction

From The Encyclopedia of Literary and Cultural Theory Full text Article Cultural Theory
Science fiction is a genre of popular culture, commonly considered to have emerged as a literature in the West in the nineteenth century, which addresses what it means to live in technologically saturated societies. Since its consolidation in mass cultural pulp magazines and novels in the 1920s, the…
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Full text Article FICTION: BRITAIN

From Encyclopedia of the Romantic Era, 1760-1850
During the Romantic period, narrative fiction was produced and widely read in both prose and verse. In fact, the 1810s and '20s were a golden age for the narrative poem; since poetry is considered elsewhere in this volume, this study discusses only fiction in prose. Apart from newspapers and…
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Full text Article Science Fiction

From Encyclopedia of American Studies
Dr. Isaac Asimov, prolific science fiction...
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Full text Article fantasy fiction

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide
Genre of unrealistic fiction. The term has been loosely applied to a range of works and attempts to define it more precisely have not been successful. However, a feature shared by most fantasy fiction is its reliance on strangeness of setting (often an imaginary or dream world) and of characters…
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Full text Article FICTION: GERMANY

From Encyclopedia of the Romantic Era, 1760-1850
German Romantic fiction is extremely diverse and heterogeneous. This is due in part to the successive waves of Romanticism in Germany and their different aims: early or Jena Romanticism, the middle phase of so-called Heidelberg Romanticism, and late Romanticism. A further factor is the span of time…
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