Gothic Fiction
The literature of the haunted castle: terror, the past, and the family secret, from Otranto to Dracula.
Specifications & Metrics
- key figures
- Horace Walpole, Ann Radcliffe, Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, Edgar Allan Poe
- exemplar
- The Castle of Otranto (1764); Frankenstein (1818); Dracula (1897)
- introduced
- 1764
Core Principles & Analysis
- Walpole's 1764 Castle of Otranto, subtitled a Gothic story, named the mode.
- Radcliffe's explained supernatural and Poe's psychological terror split its methods.
- Without it there is no Frankenstein, no Dracula, and no horror genre.
Sources