GOTHIC MEAN & HISTORY

""GOTH""

Word History: The combination Gothic romance represents a union of two of the major influences in the development of European culture, the Roman Empire and the Germanic tribes that invaded it. The Roman origins of romance must be sought in the etymology of that word, but we can see clearly that Gothic is related to the name Goth used for one of those invading Germanic tribes. The word Gothic, first recorded in 1611 in a reference to the language of the Goths, was extended in sense in several ways, meaning "Germanic," "medieval, not classical," "barbarous," and also an architectural style that was not Greek or Roman. Horace Walpole applied the word Gothic to his novel The Castle of Otranto, a Gothic Story (1765) in the sense "medieval, not classical." From this novel filled with scenes of terror and gloom in a medieval setting descended a literary genre still popular today; from its subtitle descended the name for it.