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Gothic Novel
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Gothic Novel, type of romantic
fiction that predominated in English literature in the last third of the 18th century and
the first two decades of the 19th, the setting for which was usually a ruined Gothic
castle or abbey. The Gothic novel, or romance, emphasized mystery and horror and was
filled with ghost-haunted rooms, underground passages, and secret stairways. The principal
writers of the English Gothic romance were Horace Walpole, author of The Castle of Otranto
(1764); Clara Reeve, who wrote The Champion of Virtue (1777); Ann Radcliffe, with The
Mysteries of Udolpho (1794); Matthew Gregory Lewis, with Ambrosio, or the Monk (1795);
Charles Robert Maturin, who wrote The Fatal Revenge (1807); and Mary Wollstonecraft
Shelley, who wrote Frankenstein (1818). Charles Brockden Brown, the first American
professional novelist, is best known for his Gothic romances. The genre was one phase of
the romantic movement in English literature and was also the forerunner of the modern
mystery novel. The term Gothic is used to designate narrative prose or poetry of which the
principal elements are violence, horror, and the supernatural.
"Gothic Novel," Microsoft (R) Encarta. Copyright (c) 1994 Microsoft Corporation.
Copyright (c) 1994 Funk & Wagnall's Corporation.
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Last updated: 31.08.02
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