Gothic horror
Gothic horror is a genre of literature that has
elements of both romance and horror. Although it is sometimes confused with
paranormal romance, according to some horror writers, gothic horror is
considered a more atmospheric type of literature.
“The
traditional gothic novel starred a young, usually very naïve woman who is
mesmerized by a dark, handsome man with a shrouded past. The plots vary from
that point, but the classic example is Rebecca by Dame Daphne du Maurier,” said
Lynn Stranathan, co-owner of Yard Dog press. “Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre is
another good example as is her sister’s much darker Wuthering Heights.”
The Importance of
Setting in Gothic Horror
According
to some writers, the setting of the gothic horror almost becomes another
character.
“Gothic
horror is dark, stormy full of eerie winds. Set in old mansion or castles on
high cliffs,” Said Gloria Oliver, author of Willing Sacrifice. “(There are)
18th and 19th century settings. Something old or feeling of antiquity needs to
be involved. Vampires tend themselves to gothic horror, that influx of
antiquity with aristocracy. I guess almost like blueblood horror.”
Gothic Horror Verses
Paranormal Romance
Richard
Dansky, artist and author of Firefly Rain, said that the
difference between Gothic Horror and Paranormal Romance is in the results.
“The
gothic builds up the protagonist until he achieves what he's after, and then
details the terrible consequences of achieving it. This sits in contrast to
paranormal romance, wherein the main character generally seems to be rewarded
for achieving (or dating) the forbidden.”
Dansky
said that the gothic is also generally associated with excess, and in the
original was extremely gory and explicit for its time. There was a strong
connection to the lurid anti-Catholic publications of the time, as demonstrated
by The Monk and the details of "The Spaniard's Tale" in Melmoth. Love
affairs in gothics were generally doomed to end horribly – witness Maturin's
loving couple who ended up cannibalizing each other, or Victor and Elizabeth in
Frankenstein. At the same time, lustful, forbidden, seductive or forced
relationships.
“Really,
the gothic was in many ways defined by over-the-top, and included sex, rape,
murder, cannibalism, Satanism, and all sorts of debauchery,” Dansky said.
Confusion Between
Paranormal Romance and Gothic Horror
According
to Brad Sinor, journalist and writer of short horror stories, the confusion
between paranormal romance and gothic horror comes from the gothic literature
of the sixties.
“Gothic
horror actually consisted of novels and shorter work likeDracula,
Frankenstein, Camilla and Varney the Vampire,” Sinor said. “There was always a
subtext of forbidden sex and stepping outside the accepted way things were done
in the Victorian era into the dark shadows that surrounded even the industrial
age. Gothic horror actually can trace its roots even further back into the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.”
According
to Sinor, The traditional sixties gothic novel had a direct connection to
science fiction. Donald A Wolheim, then an editor at ACE books, looked at the
sales figures of the gothic romances that they were publishing. He noticed that
the ones that sold better always had a woman running away from a brooding house
with a single light on it. Within a year or so all of the books in that genre had
covers like that.
“Paranormal
romance on the other hand didn't really get going until a few years ago,” Sinor
said. “It had its roots in urban fantasy novels such as the ones written by
Charles de Lint, Emma Bull and even Mercedes Lackey. In fact many paranormal
romance writers say that they aren't writing romance they are writing urban
fantasy.”
Examples of Gothic
Horror Authors
Unlike
modern urban fantasy like the Anita Blake and Sookie Stackhouse series, Gothic
Horror still draws its horror from the environment around it. Examples include
Edward Lee, Cailin R Kiernan, H. P. Lovecraft, Brian Keene and Karl Edward
Wagner, C.R. Maturin Elizabeth Kostova
