ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -It draws its name and aesthetic inspiration from the Gothic architectural style of the Middle Ages ⁠-crumbling castles, isolated aristocratic estates, and spaces of decrepitude are familiar settings within the genre. Gothic fiction is rooted in blending the old with the new.

Detailed explanation-2: -Gothic fiction began as a sophisticated joke. Horace Walpole first applied the word ‘Gothic’ to a novel in the subtitle – ‘A Gothic Story’ – of The Castle of Otranto, published in 1764. When he used the word it meant something like ‘barbarous’, as well as ‘deriving from the Middle Ages’.

Detailed explanation-3: -Gothic literature arose at the end of the eighteenth century during a time of social, political, and economic unrest. Thus, it was and continues to be described as a reactionary genre devoted to returning repressed societal fears to our attention so we might expel them.

Detailed explanation-4: -Gothic fiction is characterized by an environment of fear, the threat of supernatural events, and the intrusion of the past upon the present. Gothic fiction is distinguished from other forms of scary or supernatural stories, such as fairy tales, by the specific theme of the present being haunted by the past.