"Goth" is a term that was applied to various Germanic tribes who ransacked southern Europe from 376-410 CE.  Because the Goths were credited with bringing about the fall of Rome and its classical culture, Renaissance and Enlightenment critics later applied the term "Gothic" negatively, to mean "medieval" or that which was considered barbaric. Medieval or "Gothic" architecture, for example, did not follow the classical ideals of simplicity, unity, and symmetry—instead, soaring towers, pointed vaults or arches, flying buttresses, gargoyles and other intricate or "wild" elements prevailed in churches, castles, and monasteries. "Gothic" gradually lost its negative connotation and was used to refer to an ancient past, often in a nostalgic way.

The Gothic movement in literature, like Romanticism, is viewed as a reaction to Enlightenment rationalism, a return to the primitive. The 18^th century was an "Age of Reason" concerned with classical principles and scientific progress. The novel, a young genre, was predominantly realistic and didactic. Appearing near the end of the 18^th century, however, Gothic novels drew upon the conventions of the medieval (chivalric) romances that told of knights battling with magic and monsters. Gothic novels presented a protagonist’s immersion into a dark, horrific realm of some kind and reintroduced supernatural elements into fiction.

Gothic texts characteristically deal with difficult-to-express issues and anxieties. Boundaries or limits (political, philosophical, sexual, etc.) are both established and challenged in Gothic fiction. Blurring or disruptions of borders are common (e.g., inside/outside, illusion/reality, masculine/feminine, material/spiritual, good/evil), and the tensions between the scientific and the supernatural are often prominent.  Originally called "Gothic romances," Gothic novels were consumed by a popular audience—often women—and initially considered to be of low literary quality.  The Gothic novel's "golden age" is generally cited as lasting from 1764-1840; however, the Gothic influence remains visible not only in literature, but also in film, television, music, and even dance.
 

Conventions of the Gothic Novel: wild landscapes  remote or exotic locales dimly lit, gloomy settings  ruins or isolated crumbling castles or mansions (later cities and houses)  crypts, tombs  dungeons, torture chambers  dark towers, hidden rooms  secret corridors/passageways  dream states or nightmares  found manuscripts or artifacts  ancestral curses  family secrets  damsels in distress  marvellous or mysterious creatures, monsters, spirits, or strangers  enigmatic figures with supernatural powers  scientific tone (fantastic events observed empirically)  specific reference to noon, midnight, twilight (the witching hours)  use of traditionally "magical" numbers such as 3, 7, 13  unnatural acts of nature (blood-red moon, sudden fierce wind, etc.)

J.H. Fuseli, The Nightmare, 1781

The Ghost Story and the Horror Story: The ghost story and the horror story are influenced by Gothic novels and appear early in the 19th century. Both stories have elements of horror, but while a ghost story usually deals with the reappearance of the repressed and must have a ghost (hence the name), a horror story does not; a confrontation with something unknowable/unexplainable is at the core of the horror story. Both types of stories explore the limits of what people are capable of doing/experiencing (e.g., fear, violence, madness) in a world where the "normal" rules of cause and effect do not necessarily apply.  The stories present an attempt to find adequate descriptions/symbols for deeply rooted energies and fears related to death, afterlife, punishment, darkness, evil, violence, and destruction.  Traditionally considered as existing in another location or plane (e.g., Dante's Inferno), Hell has been re-envisioned as residing in the mind or consciousness.
 

Gargoyle, Notre Dame

Common Motifs:  murder  suicide  torture  madness  lycanthropy (werewolves)  ghosts  vampires  doubles and doppelgängers  demons  poltergeists  demonic pacts  diabolic possession/exorcism  witchcraft  voodoo

 

Sources: Fred Botting, Gothic (London & New York: Routledge, 1996); J.A. Cuddon, Dictionary of Literary Terms (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991); Markman Ellis, The History of Gothic Fiction (Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2000); Thomas Woodson, ed., Twentieth-Century Interpretations of The Fall of the House of Usher (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1969).