Gothic Romanticism (German Schauerromantik, "horror Romanticism", Schwarze Romantik, "Dark [black] Romanticism") was not a period as such, although its zenith occurred within European Romanticism and was strongly influenced by it, but rather a very heterogeneous European and North American literary genre, the origins of which lay in the second half of the 18th century, associated with a new interest in the late Middle Ages (Middle Ages, reception of) and taking the form …