From the Gothic Novel to Horror Fiction : An Analysis of The Castle of Otranto and Dracula

Abstract

The differences between the Gothic novel and Horror fiction have been analysed by numerous literary critics and authors but there is no complete agreement on this subject. The Gothic novel is a literary subgenre of the Romantic trend that appeared in the eighteenth century as a reaction to the rationalism of the Enlightenment. The Gothic novel embodies the extreme emotions of the Romanticism but in a suspense atmosphere. The plots are related to families, identity, inheritance and love. This novel is associated to medieval settings, castles and malign aristocrats. Its principal features are suspense, supernatural events, darkness and mistery. Howard Phillips Lovecraft enumerates the elements of this kind of novel in his work Supernatural Horror in Literature (1927).