Contributing Writer, Lord Typhon
Gothic horror originated from gothic literature, a genre that combines elements of both horror and romance. Gothic horror is generally believed to have been invented by the English author Horace Walpole, with his 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto. English Gothic writers often associated medieval buildings as dark and terrifying, characterized by harsh laws enforced by torture, and with mysterious, fantastic, and superstitious rituals. In English literature, such “Anti-Catholicism” featured Roman Catholic excesses such as the Inquisition, in countries such as Italy and Spain.
The origin of gothic came out of the darkness of the Holy Roman Empire (500 to 1500 AD), which gave rise two distinct worldviews, Renascence and Gothic (1250 to 1450). The Renascence favoured the belief that nature and life could be comprehended best through the faculty of reason. The watchword of the Renascence was enlightenment. The watchword for the Gothic was, reform, a blending of old world spirituality and Roman Catholicism.
In the opening chapter of The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole, this gothic novel reveals terror (both psychological and physical), mystery, the supernatural, ghosts, haunted houses, gothic architecture, castles, darkness, death, decay, doubles, madness, secrets and hereditary curses: “Shocked with these lamentable sounds, and dreading he knew not what, he advanced hastily, - but what a sight for a father’s eyes! - he beheld his child dashed to pieces, and almost buried under an enormous helmet, an hundred times more large than any casque ever made for human being, and shaded with a proportionable quantity of black feathers.” Walpole brings together elements of the supernatural and horrific, and models his ruined castle setting after his real-life residence, Strawberry Hill, a modern version of a medieval castle. Here is an excerpt of chapter one of The Castle of Otranto, the first gothic novel.
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