Gothic ruins invoke multiple linked emotions by representing inevitable decay and the collapse of human creations вЂ“ hence the urge to add fake ruins as eyecatchers in English landscape parks. Similar to the Gothic Revivalists' rejection of the clarity and rationalism of the neoclassical style of the Enlightened Establishment, the literary Gothic embodies an appreciation of the joys of extreme emotion, the thrills of fearfulness and awe inherent in the sublime, and a quest for atmosphere. English Gothic writers often associated medieval buildings with what they saw as a dark and terrifying period, marked by harsh laws enforced by torture and with mysterious, fantastic, and superstitious rituals. Gothic literature is intimately associated with the Gothic Revival architecture of the same era. Strawberry Hill, an English villa in the ' Gothic Revival' style, built by Gothic writer Horace Walpole Gothic fiction often moves between ' high culture' and ' low' or ' popular culture'. The depiction of horrible events in Gothic fiction often serves as a metaphorical expression of psychological or social conflicts. The atmosphere is typically claustrophobic, and common plot elements include vengeful persecution, imprisonment, and murder. Especially in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, characteristic settings include castles, religious buildings like monasteries and convents, and crypts. The setting typically includes physical reminders of the past, especially through ruined buildings which stand as proof of a previously thriving world which is decaying in 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. Gothic fiction is characterized by an environment of fear, the threat of supernatural events, and the intrusion of the past upon the present. The ruins of Wolf's Crag castle in Walter Scott's The Bride of Lammermoor (1819) Twentieth-century contributors include Daphne du Maurier, Stephen King, Shirley Jackson, Anne Rice and Toni Morrison. Later prominent works were Dracula by Bram Stoker, Richard Marsh's The Beetle and Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. The early Victorian period continued the use of gothic, in novels by Charles Dickens and the BrontГ« sisters, as well as works by the American writers Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hoffmann frequently drew upon gothic motifs in their works. The Gothic influence continued into the early 19th century, works by the Romantic poets, and novelists such as Mary Shelley, Walter Scott and E. Subsequent 18th century contributors included Clara Reeve, Ann Radcliffe, William Thomas Beckford and Matthew Lewis. The first work to call itself Gothic was Horace Walpole's 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto, later subtitled 'A Gothic Story'.

The name is a reference to Gothic architecture of the European Middle Ages, which was characteristic of the settings of early Gothic novels. Gothic fiction, sometimes called Gothic horror in the 20th century, is a loose literary aesthetic of fear and haunting. The aesthetics of the book have shaped modern-day gothic books, films, art, music and the goth subculture. The Castle of Otranto (1764) is regarded as the first Gothic novel.

Gothic literature def