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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.
Happy Halloween!
Published in Literature
Titus Groan, yikes. I started that one many years ago and just couldn’t get into it. Although I did blast through the entire four books of The Book of the New Sun one Christmas vacation. Does Severian count as Goth?
Don’t forget Dickens. Everybody knows A Christmas Carol, that’s just the only one that made it big, but he wrote many Christmas stories with supernatural themes.
Speaking of that–we’re coming up on All Souls Day. Day of the Dead, when the veil between this world and the next is thinnest…..okay, but why is Christmas Eve traditionally associated with ghost stories, as it was for Dickens? Is it just, if this is when God became incarnate, anything can happen? Remember Anne Rices scary climax in The Mayfair Chronicles?
And speaking of Rice, what do you Gothic horror fans think? She’s kinda out of fashion now, but I feel she’ll be rediscovered some day…
I loved all her books. She’s a little strange as a person, but who cares. She wrote Lestat with Rutger Hauer in mind, and he would have been perfect IMO. But by the time the movie was made, the studio thought he was too old (I disagree) and they cast Tom Cruise just because he was the biggest box office draw of the moment, with no regard for anything else, and over Rice’s objections. They dyed his hair blonde but it came out kind of orange, and I thought he was a really stupid choice. I saw the movie anyway.
Does Severian count as Goth?
Me too. And I thought it was okay. Not horrible. I thought Antonio Banderas somewhat stole the show.
I agree that she’ll be rediscovered.
And I know for a fact that certain of her fans have completely turned on her.
Yuh, I dk–I even thought Christopher Walken for Lestat…but you know, there were so many books after that, so wide-ranging. Did you read Memnoch the Devil? I just ordered her new one…
Yes!
I liked him, I always do! But the movies are just fluff compared to the books. Who even cares about the movies?
He’s the main character who is kicked out of a very decaying old structure for a flaw in his character. He has visions of demons and hears voices. I don’t think his inner voice sounds like Robert Smith though.
One of my most popular pieces! ;-)
I did read that, actually. I liked it.
Oh, I almost thought I had imagined those books! The Torturers’ Guild and all–wow, I’m glad this came up. I’m not sure how many I read.
But when I tried to go back to Gene Wolfe, I got a novel about a guy whose memory was erased every night…I think the word “mist” was in the title. I found it as effortful at the protagonist must have…
Soldier of the Mist. I couldn’t get through that.
His books are oddly difficult to get your hands on.
I surprisingly wasn’t interested after the answer to every question was,”whatever”.
Lots of interesting points and ideas in this post and comments. Thanks for being Ricochet people and entertaining me.
Me too.
A great article! Philip K. Dick?!?
Thank you!
Did someone say Dick?
Click-click!
I just grabbed The Man in the High Castle by Phillip K Dick at Powell’s Books in Portland yesterday. It’s my book club pick and I expect to like it, therefore I will.
I always feel at home among the lefty weirdos there because I think of it like a zoo. Observe, take photos, and don’t feed.
I like that philosophy!
Doc, you gotta do one of your inimitable takes on the book!