Gothic fiction, sometimes called Gothic horror, is a loose literary aesthetic of fear and haunting. The name refers to Gothic architecture of the European Middle Ages, which was characteristic of the settings of early Gothic novels.
"Bluebeard" is a French folktale, the most famous surviving version of which was written by Charles Perrault and first published by Barbin in Paris in 1697 in Histoires ou contes du temps passé. The tale tells the story of a wealthy man in the habit of murdering his wives and the attempts of the present one to avoid the fate of her predecessors. "The White Dove", "The Robber Bridegroom", and "Fitcher's Bird" are tales similar to "Bluebeard". The notoriety of the tale is such that Merriam-Webster gives the word Bluebeard the definition of "a man who marries and kills one wife after another". The verb bluebearding has even appeared as a way to describe the crime of either killing a series of women, or seducing and abandoning a series of women.
Jan Švankmajer is a Czech film director, animator, writer, playwright and artist. He draws and makes free graphics, collage, ceramics, tactile objects and assemblages. In the early 1960s, he explored informel, which later became an important part of the visual form of his animated films. He is a leading representative of late Czech surrealism. In his film work, he created an unmistakable and quite specific style, determined primarily by a compulsively unorthodox combination of externally disparate elements. The anti-artistic nature of this process, based on collage or assemblage, functions as a meaning-making factor. The author himself claims that the intersubjective communication between him and the viewer works only through evoked associations, and his films fulfil their subversive mission only when, even in the most fantastic moments, they look like a record of reality. Some of the works he created together with his wife Eva Švankmajerová.
The Castle of Otranto is a novel by Horace Walpole. First published in 1764, it is generally regarded as the first gothic novel. In the second edition, Walpole applied the word 'Gothic' to the novel in the subtitle – A Gothic Story. Set in a haunted castle, the novel merged medievalism and terror in a style that has endured ever since. The aesthetic of the book has shaped modern-day gothic books, films, art, music, and the goth subculture.
Gareth is a Knight of the Round Table in Arthurian legend. He is the youngest son of King Lot and Queen Morgause, King Arthur's half-sister, thus making him Arthur's nephew, as well as brother to Gawain, Agravain and Gaheris, and either a brother or half-brother of Mordred. Gareth is particularly notable in Le Morte d'Arthur, where one of its eight books is named after and largely dedicated to him, and in which he is also known by his nickname Beaumains.
Brave Little Tailor is a 1938 American animated short film produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by RKO Radio Pictures, being shown in theaters with Fugitives for a Night. It is an adaptation of the fairy tale The Valiant Little Tailor with Mickey Mouse in the title role. It was directed by Bill Roberts and Burt Gillett and features original music by Albert Hay Malotte. The voice cast includes Walt Disney as Mickey, and Eddie Holden as the Giant. It was the 103rd short in the Mickey Mouse film series to be released, and the fifth for that year.
Gothic, also known as Gothic: A Romance, is a 1990 Batman comic book storyline that ran through the Legends of the Dark Knight monthly series and was later compiled into trade paperback form. It was written by Grant Morrison and illustrated by Klaus Janson.
Matilda, also spelled Mathilda and Mathilde, is the English form of the Germanic female name Mahthildis, which derives from the Old High German "maht" and "hild".
Zdeněk Liška was a Czech composer who produced a large number of film scores across a prolific career that started in the 1950s. He was revelatory in his contribution to the development of electronic music. His music in this field is noticeable and dramatic, based on a unique musical feeling achieved through using quite unusual instrumental combinations and various electronic and electroacoustic techniques.
The Romance of the Forest is a Gothic novel by Ann Radcliffe that was first published in 1791. It combines an air of mystery and suspense with an examination of the tension between hedonism and morality. The novel was her first major, popular success, going through four editions in its first three years. Furthermore, "this novel also established her reputation as the first among her era's writers of romance. There is surprisingly little essential difference in characterization, Gothic décor, or plot outline to distinguish this novel from its predecessors. Its superior merit lies in the expansive and subtle use which the author makes of these elements so that the characters are relatively well realized, the Gothic décor is blended into the sensibility of the reader rather than imposed upon it, and the plot is an intricate and often dramatic series of congruent incidents and living tableaux, not a congeries of barely related and stillborn scenes and surprises.” Most critics who have given any attention to Radcliffe as a novelist have decided that she is important chiefly for her use of the supernatural, and for her emphasis upon landscape.
A Sicilian Romance is a gothic novel by Ann Radcliffe. It was her second published work, and was first published anonymously in 1790.
The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne is a gothic novel by Ann Radcliffe, first published in London by Thomas Hookham in 1789. In her introduction to the 1995 Oxford World Classic's edition of the text, Alison Milbank stated that the novel's plot "unites action of a specifically Scottish medieval nature with the characterization and morality of the eighteenth-century cult of sensibility."
The Old English Baron is an early Gothic novel by the English author Clara Reeve. It was first published under this title in 1778, although it had anonymously appeared in 1777 under its original name of The Champion of Virtue, before Samuel Richardson's daughter, Mrs Bridgen, had edited it for her. Apart from typographical errors, the revision was trifling.
The Castle of Wolfenbach (1793) is the most famous novel written by the English Gothic novelist Eliza Parsons. First published in two volumes in 1793, it is among the seven "horrid novels" recommended by the character Isabella Thorpe in Jane Austen's novel Northanger Abbey and an important early work in the genre, predating Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho and Monk Lewis's The Monk.
Dear creature! How much I am obliged to you; and when you have finished Udolpho, we will read The Italian together; and I have made out a list of ten or twelve more of the same kind for you.
Have you, indeed! How glad I am! What are they all?
I will read you their names directly; here they are, in my pocketbook. Castle of Wolfenbach, Clermont, Mysterious Warnings, Necromancer of the Black Forest, Midnight Bell, Orphan of the Rhine, and Horrid Mysteries. Those will last us some time.
Yes, pretty well; but are they all horrid, are you sure they are all horrid?
The Midnight Bell is a gothic novel by Francis Lathom. It was first published anonymously in 1798 and has, on occasion, been wrongly attributed to George Walker. It was one of the seven "horrid novels" lampooned by Jane Austen in her novel Northanger Abbey.
Dear creature! How much I am obliged to you; and when you have finished Udolpho, we will read the Italian together; and I have made out a list of ten or twelve more of the same kind for you.
Have you, indeed! How glad I am! What are they all?
I will read you their names directly; here they are, in my pocketbook. Castle of Wolfenbach, Clermont, Mysterious Warnings, Necromancer of the Black Forest, Midnight Bell, Orphan of the Rhine, and Horrid Mysteries. Those will last us some time.
Yes, pretty well; but are they all horrid, are you sure they are all horrid?
—Northanger Abbey, ch. 6
The Orphan of the Rhine is a gothic novel by Eleanor Sleath, listed as one of the seven "horrid novels" by Jane Austen in her novel Northanger Abbey.
The Valley of the Bees is a 1968 Czechoslovak historical drama film directed by František Vláčil. The film follows a young man Ondřej who's sent to join Teutonic order by his father. When he flees the order and returns home, his friend Armin is determined to bring him back.
Ogrodzieniec Castle is a ruined medieval castle in Podzamcze, near Ogrodzieniec, the south-central region of Poland called Polish Jura. Originating in the 14th century the castle was rebuilt several times in its long history. It is situated on the top of 515.5-metre-high Castle Mountain, the highest hill of the Kraków-Częstochowa Upland. The ruins are open to visitors and are a part of Trail of the Eagles' Nests, a hiking trail that connects a number of well known castles in the region.
Princess Jasnenka and the Flying Shoemaker is a 1987 Czechoslovak fantasy film directed by Zdeněk Troška and starring Michaela Kuklová and Jan Potměšil. It is based on a fairy tale by Czech writer Jan Drda.
