It was not supposed to be a compliment. Art critics labeled the flamboyant, dramatic, soaring style of Medieval architecture “Gothic” because it was (in their opinion) crass and overly emotional compared to the cool, rational perfection of Classical buildings. The Goths were barbarians who ruined Rome, and so the fancy architecture that followed Romanesque was, of course, Gothic.

And then along came the Romantic Movement (1780s-1900s or so) and a swing in popular culture from the cool, rational neoClassical of the Enlightenment to darker, more individual and emotional. George Gordon, Lord Byron and other Romantic poets claimed to be misunderstood and unique. The novel, The Castle of Otranto, published in 1764, had already begun some of the tropes of gothic literature, but only became a sort of model in the 1800s. It has ghosts, a medieval castle, dark, brooding settings, a convoluted and somewhat grim story, and is very dependent on atmosphere for the sense of looming darkness and terror that builds in the story.

If that sounds like a lot of later works of long and short fiction, you found the font of all tropes. Mary Shelly, Bram Stoker, Edgar Allen Poe, Mary Stewart, Tim Powers (The Stress of Her Regard) and a lot of others. Because it taps into the Romantic ideas of emotion and shadow, that places have memories and moods, Medievalism, ghosts and other supernatural elements (perhaps), and the like, the name “gothic” was applied to the writing genre just like to the buildings. It is emotional, flamboyant, out-of-date, and shadowy, unlike the clear, calm, rationality of Enlightenment writings and neoClassical buildings.

It fit the times. After the French Revolution, the idea of the lone individual shaping the world became prominent again. Too, the weather in the early 1800s turned cold and dark (“the Year Without a Summer”), inspiring people to write gloomy fiction, or at least fiction with gloomy settings. The glowing sun of the Enlightenment had been hidden by storm clouds, so to speak, so the gothic mood found a niche in popular literature. It faded out, too, although it never completely vanished. Victorian fascination with ghosts and other supernatural things kept the gothic alive. Psychological horror owes a debt to the atmospherics of gothic fiction (sense of unease, things are not as they seem, supernatural and/or unexplained events, isolation and growing feeling of looming doom, and so on.)

Fast forward to the 1960s and 1970s. The economy of post-War Britain and Europe stagnated, and at one low point, England had rolling blackouts and other delightful messes. Punk developed in rebellion to earlier music, and as a statement about the lousy stuff in English politics. Out of punk came goth culture, a Romantic nod to the past, with lost lovers, vampires, coping with hard times, and lots of emotion. “Gothic” fiction and tendencies can be found in the lineage of goth music, fashion, films (The Crow, Nightmare Before Christmas, Edward Scissorhands) Not that many would claim the link, but dark romance/dark romantasy fits into parts of the goth subculture.

I deliberately incorporated a chunk of the goth tendency and subculture into the Familiars series. The protagonists of the initial series are very much into the goth scene, and the music referenced in the stories often would be tagged as “goth.”* The characters as shown don’t follow the stereotypical pattern applied to goths, but they wear the title proudly. That is less prominent in the secondary series, because only one of the protagonists is a goth, and she keeps things to herself. Bless him, Jude would not understand. Shoim does, and likes to listen to dark music when he can.

“Gothic” began as a derogatory term for buildings that were not cooly Classical and thus good. It’s become a subgenre of music, a way to describe a certain mood and sensibility on literature, music, and film, and a trend that keeps being declared dead, and like Dracula, returns yet again.

(But Bela Lugosi’s still dead [undead, undead, undead ….])

*Many “goth” musicians assure listeners that they are not into the scene, are not goths, and so on. The rest of us nod, smile, and keep listening and dancing.