The Gothic Revival is an architectural movement which began in the 1840s in England. In the early nineteenth century, increasingly serious and learned admirers of neo-Gothic styles sought to revive medieval forms, in contrast to the classical styles which were then prevalent. The movement has had significant influence throughout the United Kingdom as well as on the continent of Europe and in the Americas, and perhaps the number of Gothic Revival structures built in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries exceeds the number of authentic Gothic structures that had been built previously.

The Gothic Revival was paralleled and supported by medievalism, which had its roots in antiquarian concerns with survivals and curiosities. In English literature, the architectural Gothic Revival and classical Romanticism gave rise to the Gothic novel genre, beginning with Castle of Otranto (1764) by Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford, and inspired a 19th century genre of medieval poetry which stems from the pseudo-bardic poetry of "Ossian." Poems like "Idylls of the King" by Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson recast specifically modern themes in medieval settings of Arthurian romance. In German literature, the Gothic Revival also had a grounding in literary fashions.