Here are nine simple ways to recognize the Gothic.

1: Beauty and horror are inseparably linked.
2: Places are characters.
3: The past is present, and inescapable.
4: Innocents shall suffer.
5: Evil is a compulsion to do wrong.
6: The evidence of decay is everywhere.
7: One shall inevitably be in darkness.
8: That which is rejected always returns.
9: Desire drives all things, and will not be denied.