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Literature vocabulary · Literary Movements

Gothic fiction

Meaning in literature, with examples

nounCommon term

In literature, Gothic fiction means: A type of fiction that combines horror, mystery and romance, usually with gloomy settings such as old castles, secret passages, ghosts and family curses.

In Turkish: gotik edebiyat, gotik roman, gotik kurmaca

How it is used

Usually traced to Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto (1764); later classics include Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Bram Stoker's Dracula. Critics speak of Gothic elements, the Gothic novel and Southern Gothic in American literature.

Example sentences

  1. Frankenstein mixes Gothic fiction with early science fiction.

  2. The crumbling mansion and the locked room are typical features of Gothic fiction.

Common collocations

  • Gothic novel
  • Gothic elements
  • Southern Gothic
  • Gothic horror
  • Victorian Gothic
  • RomanticismA movement in literature and art from the late eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century that valued emotion, imagination, nature and the individual over reason and rules.
  • settingThe time and place in which a story happens, including its social background, historical period and atmosphere.
  • moodThe general feeling or atmosphere that a text creates in the reader, such as tension, sadness, peace or fear.
  • genreA category of literature defined by shared features of form, style or subject, such as poetry, drama and the novel, or crime, fantasy and romance.

More terms: Literary Movements

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