The stock characters of Gothic fiction include tyrants, villains, bandits, maniacs, Byronic heroes, persecuted maidens, femmes fatales, monks, nuns, madwomen, magicians, vampires, werewolves, monsters, demons, angels, fallen angels, revenants, ghosts, perambulating skeletons, the Wandering Jew and the Devil himself. Prominent features of Gothic fiction include terror (both psychological and physical), mystery, the supernatural, ghosts, haunted houses and Gothic architecture, castles, darkness, death, decay, doubles, madness, secrets, and hereditary curses. In literature such anti-Catholicism had a European dimension featuring Roman Catholic excesses such as the Inquisition (in southern European countries such as Italy and Spain). English Gothic writers often associated medieval buildings with what they saw as a dark and terrifying period, characterized by harsh laws enforced by torture, and with mysterious, fantastic, and superstitious rituals. The ruins of gothic buildings gave rise to multiple linked emotions by representing the inevitable decay and collapse of human creations - thus the urge to add fake ruins as eye catchers in English landscape parks. In a way 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. Gothic literature is intimately associated with the Gothic Revival architecture of the same era. ![]() Melodrama and parody (including self-parody) were other long-standing features of the Gothic initiated by Walpole. The effect of Gothic fiction feeds on a pleasing sort of terror, an extension of Romantic literary pleasures that were relatively new at the time of Walpole's novel. Gothic fiction is considered to be the parent genre for both Horror and Mystery, among other genres. As a genre, it is generally believed to have been invented by the English author Horace Walpole, with his 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto. ![]() Melodrama and parody (including self-parody) were other long-standing features of the Gothic initi Gothic fiction is a genre of literature that combines elements of both the uncanny and romance. ![]() Gothic fiction is considered to be the parent genre for both Horror and Mystery, among other genres. Gothic fiction is a genre of literature that combines elements of both the uncanny and romance. Gothic fiction is a genre of literature that combines elements of both the uncanny and romance.
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