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Gothic Literature
The Goths, as recounted by a Gothic historian named Jordanes (mid 6th Century AD), were a Teutonic-Germanic people whose original homeland was, according to this same Jordanes, in southern Sweden. At that time, this half-barbaric band was ruled by a king called Berig. It was King Berig who led his people south to the shores of the Baltic Sea, where they split up into two groups: the Ostrogoths (or Eastern Goths), and the Visigoths (Western Goths).
Also according to Jordanes, the Goths reached the pinnacle of their power around the 5th Century AD, when they conquered Rome and most of Spain.
The original Goths — and this is important — have no real connection with what that word eventually came to mean.
It was, you see, many centuries later that a certain non-classical style of architecture emerged. And because this style of architecture wasn’t classical, it was pejoratively termed Gothic, which meant “barbaric.”
Gothic literature came about centuries after this and is so called because a great number of these novels are set in Gothic monasteries and Gothic abbeys.
That is how the genre of Gothic literature came to be.
Setting is the crucial component to Gothic fiction. As Ann Blaisde Tracy wrote in her 1981 book The Gothic Novel, this literature depicts “a fallen world,” a world of ruin and desuetude, dilapidation and disrepair, death, decay — a vital and thriving world no more.
The English author Horace Walpole is generally credited with writing the first Gothic novel, and that novel, written in 1764, is called The Castle of Otranto.
Though she didn’t originate Gothic literate, the enigmatic Anne Radcliffe (1764 – 1823) is undoubtedly that genre’s greatest early popularizer, and her Gothic novel The Mysteries of Udolopho was immediately parodied by the likes of Jane Austin and Thomas Love Peacock, among others.
The early Gothic novels are, however, diffuse and stylistically difficult to our modern-day eyes and ears, the pace often bogging down in its baroque prose. Among the best of the early Gothic novels is Melmoth the Wanderer, by Charles Robert Maturin (whom Honoré de Balzac, Charles Baudelaire, Oscar Wilde, Victor Hugo and Lord Byron all admired for his rather Byronic book).
Yet for all its difficulty now, Gothic literature employed wildly intriguing plot devices which at the time were quite new — secret closets, mysterious manuscripts, ghostly abbeys, unspeakable deeds — so that at its best, there is an undeniable sense of strangeness and fascination that pervades Gothic literature. That is the reason some of the world’s greatest writers have used Gothic literature as a model for their own non-Gothic novels.
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I love gothic novels. Daphne DuMaurier, Wuthering Heights etc, Dracula, Dr. Jekyll & Mr Hyde.
I do like Daphne DuMaurier — though I admit I’d forgotten about her — and I regard Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde as a miniature masterpiece. It took someone far more insightful than me (i.e. you) to point out that that book is gothic to the core.
Thank you for dropping by!
One branch of the Goths wound up in Crimea, and the Gothic language was still used as a “House Speech,” i.e. first language, by families there as late as the Eighteenth Century.
I didn’t have any idea, my friend. Thank you!
And thank you for dropping by
So how did they get to Sweden in the first place, & when?
I was for sure this was going to be about The cure. It’s not. I don’t understand. Thank you for the nice story about those lovely people who went to Rome-
My sister and mother in law are fans of Daphne – I have one of her books but never read it. You can spot a Goth a mile away in today’s culture. That may be different….
I’ll object in the strongest terms. Dr.J & Mr.H is not Gothic. It’s way closer to horror; it’s closer to sci-fi; & it’s a great companion piece to Frankenstein–also not a Gothic novel!
I took a class in college called “Devils , vampires , and other horrible creatures in 19th century literature.”
I also had a date with a Goth chick once. Pale gal with tats and piercings. Low energy.
Sometime before the First Century AD, since that’s when they probably left. How? Probably by boat. From where? The same place the other Germanic tribes came from: what is now the Siberian steppes.
Yes Dr J is horror for sure, but also Gothic. It has the mad scientist laboratory, the cobblestoned streets of London, it has the elements.
Science no gothic!
Indeed that is likely where all Indo-European branches originated.
There is a podcast out called The History Of English, by Kevin Stroud, and he takes a great deal of time in the early episodes to convey how and when the various branches (Greeks, Romans, Goths, Hittites, Persians, Celts) all split up.
The Cure! My dear fellow, that’s one of my all-time favorite bands — and they may actually be my very favorite, if you catch me on the right day (and today is one such).
Just incidentally, Titus Groan is one of my all-time favorite books. Surely no stranger piece of fiction exists in the English language.
Thank you for dropping by. I wish I had a good answer for your opening question, but I’m afraid I’m not historian enough: I’d just be winging it — not that that’s any different from how I handle most things in my life …
Once!?
Low energy, high sex drive?
Beautiful and brilliant.
I agree with this.
It has the elements.
Oh, I like that very much.
Her books take a little work, in my opinion, but if you push through, you can get wrapped up in them pretty good.
Thank you for dropping by!
I have read several Daphne DuMaurier books. I remember liking them, but the only one I really remember is Rebecca. That one is great, and one of reasons is something I can’t talk about, because it would ruin it.
Between the two of us, Doc, I used to run around with those Goth girls all the time back in high school. I was something of a jock, understand — and that’s also just between the two of us — and so it never really made any sense to anyone, myself included.
I don’t identify as a Goth, I used to think to myself. So what am I doing at Pizza Hut drinking Coke after Coke with these busty, black-haired weirdies, with their tight pants and black lingerie, their blood-colored lipstick and that strange air of thanatotic gloom?
Now at last, writing it out to you here, Doc, the question answers itself.
Good talk!
Thank you.
I completely agree.
It’s a pleasure to meet you, Nancy. Thank you for dropping by.
RA, I just read Daphne’s My Cousin Rachael, followed by Jamaica Inn. Before that all I’d read was, of course, Rebecca.
I was blown away.
When I started My Cousin Rachael, I had a feeling I don’t get from most contemporary novels: the author “settling” the reader, offering a lap rug and tucking it in–there! Comfortable? Now–let me tell you a story. She is great. Did you know she wrote The Birds?
It reminded me of when someone gave me a tip about Dawn Powell a few years ago. Wow–there’s a forgotten jewel….
Yes it’s one of the biggies in the way of surprise endings–like Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd…..
…and I just have to say: I hope all the devotés of Gothic following this thread have read the great parodies:
Austen’s Northanger Abbey
and Wilde’s The Canterville Ghost.
By the way, Ray, did you notice Midge was trying to volunteer you for something?
No, I didn’t notice! Thank you.
I’m on it, like a duck on a June-bug.
I loved all of those! I read everything she ever wrote by the time I was 20. Carol Burnett did a hilarious spoof of Rebecca once. “Rebecky” hahaha
*edit* No, I didn’t know she’d written The Birds, so I guess I didn’t read everything she wrote.
Northanger Abbey is my least favorite Jane Austen book, but since I love them all that is like saying blueberry is my least favorite cheesecake. She couldn’t quite decide whether to keep doing parody like her juvenilia, or mild satire, like her other books. Her parody is very good, but not as good as her satire.
My favorite Jane Austen quote: “This humidity keeps me in a constant state of inelegance.”