The article deals with the problem of Gothic style in Western literature. The main part of the text is devoted to the issues of its origin and cultural background, the origin of the term itself and its application to fiction, the main stages of the classical Gothic novel and the rise of the Neo-gothic tradition. The main points of the article are illustrated by the examples from most typical Gothic texts, from Walpole’s ‘Otranto’ to Lewis’s ‘The Monk’, alongside with the crucial aesthetic and philosophical ideas of the period, the concept of the Sublime, developed by Burke, included. The article also touches upon the problems of academic studies of the Gothic literature and its reception by undergraduate audience.

aesthetics, genre, style, Gothic, the Enlightenment, mystery, preromanticism.