which dominated English literature from its conception in 1764 with the publication of The Castle of Ortanto by Horace Walpole has been continually criticized by numerous critics for its sensationalism, melodramatic qualities, and its play on the supernatural. The genre drew many of its intense images from the graveyard poets Gray and Thompson, intermingling a landscape of vast dark forest with vegetation that bordered on excessive, concealed ruins with horrific rooms, monasteries and a forlorn character who excels at the melancholy. A fabled ....