Chapter 1: Introduction to the History of Gothic and Irish Gothic with Le Fanu’s Carmilla

Gothic is a complex cultural term, and its meanings have changed significantly over the 400 years of its existence in English. The term ‘Gothic’ comes from the Germanic tribe—Goths, who settled in much of Europe from the third to fifth centuries AD. Historically, a pejorative synonym for barbarism and vulgarity, the term came to be used in the mid-eighteenth century, in part because of its association with a spectacular but by then archaic tradition in northern European architecture, as an appropriate umbrella term for an innovative form of literature: the Gothic novel (Hughes). Before coming into the world of Fiction Writing, especially Gothic Fiction Writing, it was commonly used to describe the architectural style prevalent in Europe from the late twelfth to the sixteenth century. The prime example is the Basilica of Saint-Denis, France, built in 1144, the first Gothic Cathedral in history.