Gothic Literature in Britain and America
Gothic literature has been a fascination of mine since boyhood, so it was inevitable that I should jot down some thoughts upon the subject sooner or later. Since those thoughts are both nebulous and extensive, I doubt I can make a definitive statement of them at this time in my life, when I am distracted by many things. For that reason, I should like to reshape some simple pedagogical materials I have previously prepared for the classroom and hope that this may provide an outline of the subject matter that is not entirely redundant and that contains something of my feeling for the genre.
First of all, my relationship with the Gothic is that of both insider and outsider. When I discovered Gothicism I recognised some deep part of myself within it, but at the same time, recognised its remoteness and exoticism. I never really attempted to study the subject until relatively late in thirty two years of my existence so far. Instead, being the dreamer that I am, I merely allowed my imagination to play with the associations that the literature, and the word ‘Gothic’ itself provided me. For some reason the word ‘Gothic’ seems particularly resonant with association. To a degree, it is almost preferable for me simply to daydream on the word itself rather than to sample the often flawed productions of the genre; such is the dense power of association the word possesses. When we look at that word’s history we may find that some of it corresponds with those associations in a way that almost seems to argue for the reality of race memory. Some of it, however, is strange and counterintuitive. This phenomenon corresponds with my feeling of being at once an insider and an outsider to the genre. In any case, it is the history of the word and its associations that I wish to explore briefly here.
The word ‘Goth’ derives originally from certain Germanic tribes who made attacks on the Roman Empire between the 3rd and 5th centuries AD. Since Rome and Greece were the seat of civilisation, the people of Northern Europe were considered barbarians. Indeed, the words ‘Goth’ and ‘Gothic’ have become synonymous with barbarism.
You may also be familiar with the word ‘Gothic’ as an architectural term. Gothic architecture was prevalent in Western Europe between the 12th and 16th centuries. The style is best known for the pointed-arch that was a feature of Gothic churches.
Gothic literature, however, has little to do with Gothic architecture. In literature, the word ‘Gothic’ refers to a mode of fiction dealing with supernatural or horrifying events. At least, that is the dictionary definition. However, if we look more closely we will find that not all Gothic literature is concerned with the supernatural, and not all Gothic literature is horrifying. Rather, the term ‘Gothic’ as applied to literature refers to a kind of atmosphere or aesthetic that, while it is hard to define, may be understood at an instinctive level, in a way similar to that in which Japanese terms such as ‘wabi’ and ‘sabi’ are also hard to define, but are immediately evocative to someone with the right cultural background.
Gothic literature is generally believed to have begun in the year 1765 with the publication of The Castle of Otranto, by Horace Walpole. It should be noted that this novel was published in the 18th century, after the philosophical movement known as the Enlightenment had attempted to bring reason to the world, and to banish superstition. The Castle of Otranto, therefore, was consciously written, in an almost post-modern manner, as a means of recapturing the atmosphere of a barbaric past; Horace Walpole made use of the superstitions of the past, without believing in them, as a means of freeing the imagination. Walpole himself, again using a literary device that to our eyes may appear post-modern, presented the novel as a manuscript he had merely discovered and translated, writing of it in his introduction as follows:
…[this] work can only be laid before the public at present as a matter of entertainment. Even as such, some apology for it is necessary. Miracles, visions, necromancy, dreams, and other preternatural events, are exploded now even from romances. That was not the case when our author wrote; much less when the story itself is supposed to have happened. Belief in every kind of prodigy was so established in those dark ages, that an author would not be faithful to the manners of the time who should omit mention of them. He is not bound to believe them himself, but he must represent his actors as believing them.
The title of the novel also gives us a clue to some of the essential elements of Gothic literature. The key word here is ‘castle’. For Gothic literature often focuses on huge and ancient buildings such as castles. Those ancient buildings may be viewed as symbolic of the unique atmosphere of Gothic literature; the writing style of Gothic novels is as heavy as castle masonry, and as gloomy as the maze-like corridors of such a mediaeval building.
Chris Baldick, in his introduction to The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales, has suggested that Edgar Allan Poe marks a turning point in the Gothic genre; before ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’, he says, the keynote of Gothic fiction was cruelty, after, it was decay. In both cases the atmosphere is one of oppression and anxiety. Cruelty was part of the Gothic castle because of the dungeons where kidnapped damsels were imprisoned by evil monks or scheming Italian counts. In these dungeons all manner of unspeakable tortures were carried out. Decay was part of the castle because of its terrible age. I would add here that, although when I first read Baldick’s theory, it seemed to make intuitive sense to me – since I associated Gothicism with decay rather than the violence that one usually finds in what is simply called ‘horror’, and since I was surprised to discover the extent of the actual violence in early Gothic tales – I have come to wonder whether his theory is not based purely on personal impression. That is, both violence and decay seem to play a large part in Gothic literature before and after Poe. If this is true, then why does Baldick’s theory seem so intuitively correct? This is an interesting question that I feel is worth exploring further, but I lack the time and resources to do such at present. This, no doubt, is an area to be expanded upon if I live to write the extended version of this essay.
Although the original barbarian tribes known by the name ‘Goth’ were associated with Northern Europe, it is interesting to note that many Gothic writers set their tales in Southern Europe. In The Castle of Otranto, for instance, it is an Italian prince who schemes to avert the curse brought on his family when his grandfather usurped the principality of Otranto. For the writers of these early Gothic tales, Southern Europe is now the source of barbarism. One reason for this is probably the fact that most Gothic writers were Protestant. Catholicism was seen as a superstitious form of Christianity, and therefore closer to barbarism. In fact, in his introduction, Walpole fictitiously claims of the manuscript that:
[it] was found in the library of an ancient catholic family in the north of England… The principal incidents are such as were believed in the darkest ages of christianity…
This distrust of Catholicism can be seen in later Gothic works, such as The Monk, by Matthew Lewis, and Melmoth the Wanderer, by Charles Maturin, both of which feature evil Catholic monks who imprison innocent maidens in the darkest cells of their monasteries. Although some people (professor Edith Birkhead being one of them) believe Gothic fiction to have ended with Melmoth the Wanderer, the same anti-Catholic theme may even be seen in Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Pit and the Pendulum’, which depicts the tortures of the Spanish Inquisition. In fact, Poe, who came after Charles Maturin – the latter of whom professor Birkhead named "the greatest as well as the last of the Goths" – is quite possibly the writer whom most readers today would first associate with the term ‘Gothic’.
After Matthew Lewis and Charles Maturin, other famous writers in the Gothic tradition are Mary Shelley, who wrote Frankenstein, Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, the author of Dracula, Emily Bronte, author of Wuthering Heights, H. P. Lovecraft and Mervyn Peake.
Looking at the list of writers above, we may begin to see how inadequate the dictionary definition of Gothic literature is. The supernatural plays no part in Shelley’s Frankenstein, for instance. In fact, Frankenstein may also be considered an early work of science fiction. In that sense it represents a development in the Gothic genre. H. P. Lovecraft brought about another such shift in the genre by abandoning all notions of a Christian god and the battle between good and evil; he represented the universe as being ruled by forces entirely alien to mankind. Often decayed Gothic buildings appear in his stories, but it is the atmosphere and use of language that are Gothic, rather than the technical details of the content. Lovecraft’s brand of fiction has also been called ‘cosmic horror’.
Mervyn Peake is another writer whose work is Gothic without adhering to the dictionary definition of that term. For there are no supernatural events in the Gormenghast trilogy that form Peake’s most famous work, and though some of the episodes in the three books are horrifying, horror is not an outstanding feature of the stories. Gormenghast, in true Gothic tradition, does have a vast decaying castle – the Gormenghast of the title – but this fact aside, it is only really the inherited aesthetic, the oppressive atmosphere and the writing style that makes Peake’s work Gothic.
Of course, whether or not such writers fall technically within the confines of the Gothic genre is a matter of debate, and since some declare the Gothic genre to have finished with Melmoth the Wanderer, presumably they would also deny that the works of Lovecraft or Peake are Gothic. Yet who today can read ‘The Call of Cthulhu’ or Titus Groan and not be tempted to attach the epithet ‘Gothic’ to these works? As I stated at the outset, the word ‘Gothic’ works by way of deep instinctive associations that are hard to define. Perhaps a study could be devised whereby new readers were asked to classify a variety of writers with single words. In such a case, my guess is that readers’ subjective responses could be found to be empirically consistent, for whatever reason, on the matter of the Gothic nature of certain works not recognised by many scholars as Gothic.
As to whether the Gothic tradition still exists today, I would say that it does. The most obvious heir to the throne in the crumbling castle of the Gothic is the American writer Thomas Ligotti. He follows H. P. Lovecraft in depicting a universe that is, from the point of view of humanity, entirely evil. He deals in the supernatural with a writing style that is heavy and oppressive, and he has a fascination with decay.
In one of his most recent tales, My Work is Not Yet Done, the hero, who spends much time in photographing derelict, decaying buildings, states that:
…I was seeking… the sabi of things utterly dejected and destitute, alone and forgotten – whatever was submitting to its essential impermanence, its transitory nature, whatever was teetering on the brink of non-existence…
Although I am not aware that Ligotti has described himself as Gothic, I do know that he has placed Edgar Allan Poe squarely within the Gothic tradition, and placed himself squarely within the tradition of Poe and Lovecraft.
It seems that The Castle of Otranto has cast a long shadow, which extends to the present day. The Gothic genre has shifted from an emphasis on superstition and cruelty, to an emphasis on decay, to an emphasis on cosmic horror. I await future developments with keen interest.
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a stabbed little mole writes:this website is so camp i wanted to kill myself when i read it so i want to tell you to change it or i will shoot you with a gun knife shooter mule and ity will sting so much you weill eat a beach ball so you will not live for another 7 years only 8 and 3 eighths AND I ALSO WANT TO NOT EAT A CRAB PUFFABLE GIRAFEE CALLED ALEX HANRDXTON AND IF YOU DONT READ THIS I WILL EAT YOUR CHILDREN AND NOT PICK YOUR NOSE WIV A SPANNER BUT A SEED DRILL.
a stabbed little mole writes:this website is so camp i wanted to kill myself when i read it so i want to tell you to change it or i will shoot you with a gun knife shooter mule and ity will sting so much you weill eat a beach ball so you will not live for another 7 years only 8 and 3 eighths AND I ALSO WANT TO NOT EAT A CRAB PUFFABLE GIRAFEE CALLED ALEX HANRDXTON AND IF YOU DONT READ THIS I WILL EAT YOUR CHILDREN AND NOT PICK YOUR NOSE WIV A SPANNER BUT A SEED DRILL.
Anonymous writes:a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z :yikes:
Anonymous writes:hi cool
Anonymous writes:hi cool
“this website is so camp i wanted to kill myself when i read it”Why didn’t you? Obviously I have failed in my job.
Sir Poe-a-lot writes:interesting, good info for school, may the horror of Poe, Stoker and Shelley be upon all your heads, you dont even understand the importance of the Gothic influence in your pitiful lives.Molie molie!
Thank you, Sir Poe-a-lot.I think you have noticed what I believe are called ‘trolls’, cluttering up the comments section of this entry. I considered deleting them, but I’m not fond of censorship. However, it occurred to me after discussion with another blogger that, since anyone is free to set up their own blog and, for instance, dedicate it to the criticism of Quentin S Crisp, that to delete comments here is not really censorship. It is merely acting as the editor of one’s own blog. Even so, I have refrained from deleting any of the troll comments here, because they are basically harmless, and even vaguely amusing. My only concern is that they might constitute an eyesore to readers such as yourself, so, if they do, I apologise. I may yet delete comments, and will feel no compunction if I do so.As you say, some of those here are lamentably unconscious of the forces of which they are mere puppets – the long Gothic shadows of history.They probably don’t even know that the Goths and the Vandals were allied tribes.
Anonymous writes:i hate goths they are faggs
Anonymous, you clearly have no idea what the word ‘goth’ means. The same is true of many who call themselves goths. Of course, had you actually read my post you might have been able to learn something, but clearly you made your own comment without reading, thus exposing your ignorance.
Anonymous writes:SCREW YALL
Hello. Thanks for writing. There are citations. I mean, I actually referred to specific books in order to write the essay, but I suppose I didn’t put them in out of laziness (because I wasn’t sure how to format footnotes for a blog). But a great deal of the information comes from the very general but also very informative essays of Mario Praz, whose essay forms the introduction to the Penguin publication Three Gothic Novels (at least in the edition I have), and of Chris Baldick, whose introduction to The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales goes a long way to defining what may ultimately be an undefinable genre.Apart from that, there are, of course, the novels and stories mentioned, and probably a few specific references I can’t recall off the top of my head.For some reason the trolls have been attracted to this post like a magnet. I don’t know why. They hardly ever appear elsewhere on my blog. I can only guess that they are deliberately Googling ‘goth’, in order to go goth-bashing. All very silly, anyway.
A Fellow Scholar writes:Hi,I appreciated your essay but was a little taken back that there are no citations. The definitions and quotes would be much more powerful if I had someway of tracking the source down and reading it myself. None the less I found your essay insightful and stimulating.As for the trolls out there, I find it amazing that you would sit and read a scholastic essay like this, only to spew trash, and show your true colors.A Fellow Scholar
Some people are dumb writes:Why the hell are you people talking about moles and stuff? That is not the point of this, and youre dumb to say it. You are stupid, immature, and just plain lame. Get a life.
ste writes:I thought it was very interesting. I’m doing an essay on gothic fiction for my english lit degree and this has helped me a lot!
Hello ste. Thank you. I’m glad it’s been of help.
Anonymous writes:Hey Crisp, I really liked your essay. I’m just trying to help cancel out all the negativity on this page. Clearly those who have left insults are jealous of your intelligence, as they know they could never produce something half as coherent as this. And it’s been really helpful to me also, as I’m studying “Dracula” and needed some background ideas and what not on Gothic literature. So thanks! By the way, I like the way you talk. You cut them all down like a tree! It’s quaint!
Hello. Thank you for commenting.I should just note here that, believe it or not, the negative comments keep coming, but I have been deleting the more recent ones without compunction. It’s not the negativity that I mind particularly, it’s the fact that I can’t have a dialogue because there’s no one at home to have a dialogue with. So, I’m a little tired of letting trolls clutter up the place. The ones that are already here I’ll let be. Or if someone does want to make a negative comment, please at least show that you’ve read the article first and that you are actually responding to it rather than spewing juvenile prejudices. The last negative comment I had was about ’emo bitches’ or something. It’s so very tiresome. I know there’s no point in trying to explain that what I wrote has nothing to do with ’emo’, so, I simply deleted the irrelevant comment. Anyway, I wrote some entries on the whole troll issue here:http://my.opera.com/quentinscrisp/blog/no-commentAnd here:http://my.opera.com/quentinscrisp/blog/available-for-commentnot-available-forAnyway, good luck with your studies.
Hayley writes:thsi site is very helpful as it hels you inderstand Gothic Literature espeically when i’m having to study it for my english. Cheerz..cool site 🙂
Hello Hayley.Thanks for dropping by. I hope you’re finding your studies interesting.
Wendy Koenigsmann writes:I liked your article and enjoyed reading it.Gothic is the best genre ever and I love it.(I’m sorry to see so many “trolls” leaving rude comments in your blog though.)
Hello Wendy.Thank you for the comment.I’m glad the article was of interest. What’s your favourite work in the genre?
“u guys r so weird!!!!!!!! get a life”Just thought I’d let another example of the kind of moron who keeps coming here slip through.If this person or thing has ‘a life’ itself, why does it bother leaving a comment here? Surely it has better things to do? But apparently not. Oh well.
Anonymous writes:u guys r so weird!!!!!!!! get a life
ryan flynn writes:this is alright but u lo are crap hahahahahahahaha
etc.
WoW. I am in 10th grade and working on a project and this is a life saver. Thank you for writing this, though it seems some people are unappreciative. I love the way you write. You seem very intellegent and thank you once again for writing this. The only time I can ever come close to writing like you is after reading Frankenstein haha.
Hello Killer-in-Action.Thank you. Happy to be of service.
Killerinaction is my gamer name hahaha. So what would u consider to be the essentials of Gothic literature and what makes a Gothic novel “tick”?
I suppose my own take on what makes a Gothic novel different to other novels is a concern for decay (a kind of thanatophilia) that reaches the point of being otherworldly, as well as an oppressive sense of history dwarfing the individual and bearing down on the reader like a solid weight.This is embodied most sucessfully, of course, in the form of the ruined castle, which is oppressive, ancient and decaying – all the ingredients of the Gothic. But I don’t think you have to have such a building.I believe Chris Baldick makes the point that we tend to think of the Gothic as dealing with universal fears, but actually it’s a genre very much tied up with European history, and, I would add, with European architecture. I don’t necessarily mean Gothic architecture, either, as that’s not directly connected with the literature. I simply mean that it’s difficult to find something truly Gothic in Eastern literature, and I wonder if this is because buildings were not generally made to last in the same way. They tended to be made more of wood, paper and so on. In Eastern philosophy and so on, the ephemerality, the diaphanous illusory nature of all things seems emphasised, whereas in the West, it’s possible for history to seem something that becomes solid in the form of an ancient building. From this point of view, it’s also important to make a distinction between the Gothic and horror. Gothic fiction can and does intersect with horror, however, whereas the main function of horror is, of course, to create horror and fear, I think (for me at least) the function of Gothic literature is to revel in a more generalised atmosphere of oppresion, anxiety and decay. Perhaps, for this reason, one of the most essential works of Gothic fiction for me is the Gormenghast trilogy by Mervyn Peake. There are horrific incidents, but somehow they are not given the same climactic emphasis they would be given in a ‘horror’ story. They simply add to a general sense of quiet doom, providing no catharsis. Also, there is nothing really supernatural here, and yet, the very heaviness of the atmosphere of decay produces something so fantastical that it might as well be another world. In the West, though, it has to be said, the development of horror and Gothic literature are intertwined.
You ROCK!!! thany soo much. you are making my life so much easier (don’t worry I wont plagarise or anything like that, I’m a good 10th grader XD).
Nicolas writes:This outline of the gothic genre was very usefull helping me write and essay for my 11th grade english comparing 2 short stories and how the are or are not gothic thanks alot
Thank you, anonymous. Happy to be of service, as they say.It occurred to me, seeing it again that the other anonymous user who expressed herself thus:”u guys r so weird!!!!!!!! get a life”may have been referring to the trolls, and not to those of us discussing Gothic literature in a civilised manner. I just can’t tell either way – that’s the tragedy.
ink machine writes:thnx heaps u guys i finished my english assignment bcuz of u. u guys rock!!!!!
Phi writes:thank you, writer of this. it really helped me to understand what gothic actually means and where it originates from. also, i had no clue what i was meant to be doing with an essay defining gothic and you really helped me understand the history. i also totally agree about the bit where you wrote how the dictionary definition is slightly wrong, and that gothic literature refers to a kind of atmosphere etc. btw: dont you just love the way that every gothic novel seems different, but when you compare them you notice so many similarities? oh, i have a question. my friend disagrees with me, but would you say Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is kind of the first ever sci-fi?
Hello Ink Machine and Phi.Thanks for your comments. I’m just about to cook dinner, but will get back to you on the Frankenstein question.
If you had a club, anonymous, I wouldn’t be in it in the first place, so tough luck.
Anonymous writes:i hate all of you, if i had a club and you were all in it i would kick you all out.
Anonymous writes: very very helpful, thank you 🙂 you write so well, not flowering your writing with unnecessary words – very helpful for students such as myself who have a number of essays to do and very little time to do them! I would love to know your views on the gothicism of Ian Banks’ The Wasp Factory….
Hello. Sorry I haven’t been responding much lately. My eyes have been suffering and I’ve been limiting my computer time. I still have to answer the Frankenstein/SF question, too. I think that Frankenstein could be seen as the first SF novel, but I’m not an SF expert. Off the top of my head I can think of what might be called SF elements in Gulliver’s Travels, too. I like The Wasp Factory and will write more about it later. Thank you.
Charith writes:Thanks, Very helpful article!You should remove those comments at the top, initially when i saw them, I just closed this page and moved one but later on when I actually read the information, it was quite helpful ;)All thats left to say is good luck and hopefully your eyes will recover 🙂
Hello Charith.Thanks. Maybe I should remove them. I don’t know why I don’t really. I even wonder if I haven’t grown fond of them or something. I shouldn’t be so sentimental, really. Well, I shall be having a rest in Gay Paris for a while, so hopefully my eyes will recover. I also plan to see a doctor soon after I get back.
Anonymous writes:it aint tht bad trust me ! it ok, but it is quite boring but intrestiong at the same time but oh well they will live