According to Joseph Addison, an eighteenth-century journalist and critic, the Gothic contained "all the extravagances of an irregular fancy." Although Addison meant this as a criticism, for the Romanticists of the next generation it was a compliment. For them, the term "Gothic" suggested whatever was medieval, natural, primitive, wild, free, authentic, romantic, various, rich, mysterious.
The word "Gothic" originally referred to the Goths, a Germanic tribe, then came to signify "Germanic," then "medieval." Thus, originally most Gothic novels were set in the middle ages; now the term refers more to atmosphere and setting. Often such novels incorporate events which are uncanny or macabre or melodramatically violent, and they often deal with aberrant psychological states.
C. Hugh Holman's Handbook to Literature notes that "magic, mystery, and chivalry are the chief characteristics" of the Gothic novel. The atmosphere is often brooding and filled with unknown terror. Horrors frequently abound: a suit of armor may come to life; ghosts, complete with clanking chains, may walk the halls of a castle; women may be entombed in dungeons. Frequently the emphasis is on setting and story rather than characterization.
According M.H. Abrams, recent feminist critics "have explored the mode as revealing the results of the suppression of female sexuality in a patriarchal society, and have analyzed the way this fiction challenged sexual hierarchy and values of male-dominated culture.
For more information on the Gothic generally, see: