The the original meaning of the term Gothic was literally 'to do with the Goths,' referring to the barbarian tribes of northern Europe present during the fall of the Roman Empire and throughout the medieval period (Punter 5). This term gradually changed to be concerned less with the actual geographical significance of the word and focused more on the historical aspects. 'Gothic' came to signify those things medieval, including architecture, art, and literature. The barbaric connotations remained; Gothic became synonymous with uncivilized, uncultivated, and chaotic, the antithesis of classical. The eighteenth century culture began to view "the medieval, the primitive, the wild,...with positive value in and for itself" (Punter6). Gothic stood for the old-fashioned, the crude, the archaic, and the pagan values which were not accepted and tabooed in English society at that time. Many writers felt these qualities of the past history were being neglected. Those in the literary field felt these qualities were badly needed in English culture and thus began to re-establish relations with this forgotten 'Gothic' past (Punter 6).
In a literary context, 'Gothic' is usually applied to a group of novels written between the 1760s and 1820s by such authors as Horace Walpole, the author of the first Gothic novel, Ann Radcliffe, Matthew Lewis, C. R. Martin, and Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein. Though different in some respects these and other Gothic novels have several general characteristics in common: "emphasis on portraying the terrifying, a common instance on archaic settings, a prominent use of the supernatural, the presence of highly stereotyped characters and the attempt to deploy and perfect techniques of literary suspense." (Punter 1)
The early American Gothics, led by authors such as Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) and Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), carry the same general characteristics of gothic fiction yet, is a change in view from the English perspective to a distinctly American perspective. One obvious difference is the influence of Puritanism in American life and writing. Many of the concepts and uses of sin and guilt stem from this prominence of Puritan morals in America. Also American writers did not have the proximity of history that the English writers had at hand and therefore the task of imagining a distant past was more difficult. This could explain the darkness prevalent in American Gothic as well as the absorption with powerful and evil Europeans (Punter 189). Good examples that typify American Gothic are "Rappaccini's Daughter" by Hawthorne and the "Raven" and "The Cask of Amontillado" by Poe. These works are considered to be some of the finest short stories by either author and are excellent examples of American Gothic literature.
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