How I Taught Gothic Litt to my Creative Writing Class

[Rotipher of the FoS]

If it's still hard to get over their fluffy, Disneyfied "fairy tale" image, try replacing "faerie" with "forest spirits" when you think about them. The movie The Village does an excellent job of conveying that sort of wary, half-repressed dread of what the fey might do next, early on, even if the film's ending undermined that premise.

[Jack of Tears]

As I recall, the current trend toward seeing fae as cute little butterfly people began in the renaissance, as the stories became more main stream and appropriate to children.

Actually, the term "spirit" is even more appropriate than 'Forest Spirit', as many of the 'good people' were seen to be spirits of the dead. (though, not really in the same way as ghosts)

The actual 'good neighbors' were not spirits you wanted to offend and, I think, could not begin to recognize when their play became maliscious. (imagine the type of things children do to animals - since they are 'lesser creatures' they don't understand that hurting them is wrong.)

I agree that Pan's Labyrinth did a fine job of depicting fae the way they should be ...

[Ail]

For instance, read the Erlkönig and remember that means 'Elfking'.

I'm think that German romanticism, although I haven't read much of it, is full of a very gothic flavour in at least its surroundings.

You can also get an inkling into fairy's abducting nature in Lord Dunsany's 'Fairy Child' (http://selkywolf.com/hfriend/friend13.html) and Yeats' 'Stolen Child'.

As I understand it, the Irish fairies are mostly the Sídhe, which are a magical people that was subdued to the underworld by humans. Since then, they are ambiguous towards the human people, and they are treated like mischievous gods who have to be appeased or will be harmful to you. I think they take a role similar to that of witches in southern countries, where they wither crops and steal children. Stealing children and trading them for monsters actually seems to be a favourite pastime of fairies, either Irish or german-looking (the elf above).

In the literature I studied, I read nothing about Gothic. It's a genre that was not very popular here. But we do have a strong Romantic literature, and it focuses very much on these things: the supernatural, the force of nature as a possibly cruel opponent and actually personified thing, the ongoing evocation of death, the hearkening back to the middle ages and old tales, the power of emotion over reason and the idea that there is more beyond the rational.

As you can see, all of these traits have their place in the Gothic, so probaly the Gothic is a sub-genre of the Romantic literature.

But hey, I'm a layman there, I'm just saying what I've absorbed through the years.

Alex

[Le Noir Faineant]

In the literature I studied, I read nothing about Gothic. It's a genre that was not very popular here. But we do have a strong Romantic literature, and it focuses very much on these things: the supernatural, the force of nature as a possibly cruel opponent and actually personified thing, the ongoing evocation of death, the hearkening back to the middle ages and old tales, the power of emotion over reason and the idea that there is more beyond the rational.

As you can see, all of these traits have their place in the Gothic, so probaly the Gothic is a sub-genre of the Romantic literature.

Enter me here...

As some of you might already know, I am working on my exam paper for quite some time already; it deals with Gothic literature in Spain (Gothic heremeaning the original Gothic movement, rom the 1760s to the 1820s), and also touches the Portuguese literary history.

There was a horror literature on the Iberian peninsula; problem is just that its main authors either were not good or are now forgotten. Most of their stuff appeared in literary magazines, such as the Spanish El Artista, and it's pretty hard to get the texts nowatdays.
- Yet, one may say that at least in Spain, a big part, if not the majority of Romantic writers wrote tales we would label as "Gothic" (more of the Arabesque kind).

As to if the Romantic spawned Gothic, that's idle to discuss: In fact, European Gothic horror goes back to the works of late 17th century German writers (for example, Daniel Casper von Lohenstein, also not a particularly famous author nowatdays), and thus could be labeled older than the Romantic movement.

Now, there are no clear borders between Gothicism and Romanticism.
In fact, the terms themselves are totally arbitrary. Nearly all narrative prose of the early 19th century was influenced by three main lliterary icons: Shakespeare, Boileaux, and Burke. Traditionally, only Burke's followers are regarded Gothic writers, but if one looks on what people actually wrote, such classifications make no sense (at least to me).

[Ail]

Hey, thanks, Rafael. But I'd like to take the cue to ask you about Portuguese Romantic literature, if you know enough of it.

The thing I'd most immediately classify as gothic is a poem called "Noivado do sepulcro". You can check it here http://alfarrabio.di.uminho.pt/vercial/passos.htm

I don't know much of this. I didn't study it in school and the references I read about it classed it mostly in an ultra-romantic-almost-silly current that is, by the way, well criticised by Eça de Queirós in 'Os Maias'.

Besides this, I think you can class some of Bocage's poetry as nearly gothic, but I can't think of any prose I'd classify as such. I don't know much, it's true, I've only read Herculano's romances and a few other books, but even if there are dark secrets and a very high emotional content there, in particular 'Eurico, o Presbítero' and 'O Monge de Cister', I don't recall any supernatural intervention.

So, if you're familiar with it, could you guide me to some gothic prose in Portuguese, please?
Thanks.

Alex

[LordGodefroi]

(Gothic here meaning the original Gothic movement, from the 1760s to the 1820s)

If you want to get technical, the original Gothic movement was a medieval art and architecture movement from the mid-12th century to the beginning of the Renaissance. Anything during the Romantic period is Gothic Revival.

Sure, anything resembling standard Gothic literature didn't appear until Walpole's Castle of Otranto of 1764. But it's still part of the Gothic Revival period. (In fact, the castle in "Otranto" is based on Walpole's own residence of Strawberry Hill, the cornerstone piece of Gothic Revival architecture.)

Signed
Picky Pete

[HuManBing]

Don't forget: the lich represents man's disdain for having to pay rent. Phylactery > Apartment, any day of the week.

[Ail]

(Gothic here meaning the original Gothic movement, from the 1760s to the 1820s)

If you want to get technical, the original Gothic movement was a medieval art and architecture movement from the mid-12th century to the beginning of the Renaissance. Anything during the Romantic period is Gothic Revival.

Sure, anything resembling standard Gothic literature didn't appear until Walpole's Castle of Otranto of 1764. But it's still part of the Gothic Revival period. (In fact, the castle in "Otranto" is based on Walpole's own residence of Strawberry Hill, the cornerstone piece of Gothic Revival architecture.)

Signed
Picky Pete

I think those are two different things entirely. Gothic in Art as you put it is pretty well delimited in time, and refers to architecture, painting, jewelry and what not, but NOT literature.

The term Gothic Literature developed after the fact and it was, if I recall correctly, derrogatory. It came from the impression that most of the works included in it had as main setting a decrepit Gothic Building of some sort. As for Gothic revival in architecture, I even think it came from inspiration of that sort of literature. For example, Walpole (I think) had himself a castle built in neo-gothic fashion.

[Le Noir Faineant]

The term Gothic Literature developed after the fact and it was, if I recall correctly, derrogatory. It came from the impression that most of the works included in it had as main setting a decrepit Gothic Building of some sort. As for Gothic revival in architecture, I even think it came from inspiration of that sort of literature. For example, Walpole (I think) had himself a castle built in neo-gothic fashion.

Actually, it is pretty sure that the subtitle "A Gothic Novel", as used by Walpole in the later editions of "The Castle of Otranto", refers to German authors he took his inspirations for his novel from.
It has nothing to do with the style of architecture that bears the same name,
but is indeed based on the literary undestatement of the time. Creepy medieval tales were supposed to come from Germany. Currently I am working on what exact tales, novels or theatrical plays from German authors were considered "creepy".

[LordGodefroi]

I think those are two different things entirely. Gothic in Art as you put it is pretty well delimited in time, and refers to architecture, painting, jewelry and what not, but NOT literature.

The relationship is loose but not non-existent.

The term Gothic Literature developed after the fact and it was, if I recall correctly, derrogatory. It came from the impression that most of the works included in it had as main setting a decrepit Gothic Building of some sort. As for Gothic revival in architecture, I even think it came from inspiration of that sort of literature. For example, Walpole (I think) had himself a castle built in neo-gothic fashion.

Right line of thinking. Wrong period. The original term for Gothic architecture was Ogive, named for the arched windows common to the style. It wasn't until the Renaissance, particularly the Baroque period when artists were being flamboyant and eschewing the old-fashioned, that Ogive was considered barbaric and thus named "Gothic" after the barbarian tribes of Germany. In fact, it was the ostentatiousness of Baroque art that led some to look back to the simplicity of the Gothic.

As for inspiration for Gothic fiction, it is the other way around. Walpole purchased the villa Strawberry-Hill-at-Twickenham in 1748 and began renovation in Gothic style in 1749. This was sixteen years before the publication of his The Castle of Otranto, the first Gothic novel. By the time "Otranto" was published, Strawberry Hill was already four years into a second round of Gothic renovations.

So, Gothic Revival architecture came first. Walpole is the crux of the Gothic Revival movement and The Castle of Otranto (1764) is a key piece of it.

It has nothing to do with the style of architecture that bears the same name, but is indeed based on the literary undestatement of the time.

As much as my English professors wanted us to believe that writers, and literary movements, were influenced only by other writers, my art and art history professors quickly disabused me of that idea. NO mode of art (visual art, music, literature, etc), and no art movement, exists in a vacuum and develops independently.

If it weren't for the original Gothic movement of the 13th century, you would not have had Gothic Revival. And without Gothic Revival, you would not have had The Castle of Otranto.

[Le Noir Faineant]

Of course you're right in the sense that no cultural movement is based on only one cultural slot, but as to Gothic and the overuse of the word in the 19th century, that's a different thing.

Problem is indeed that the term "Gothic" is used so many times in so many contexts that it becomes misleading.

In the context of art and architecture, landscaping, etc. "Gothic" means "medievalistic". (No idea if this word actually exists in English, but I am sure everyone gets the sense.) This was done to distinguish their art from the neoclassical movement.

Walpole and the other "Gothic" writers used the term not as an indication of historical, but of horrifying content of their books. So, people came to label Hawthorne and Poe as "American Gothic" writers, or Stevenson's "Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" and Stoker's "Dracula" as "Victorian Gothicism".

Now, specifically Walpole was one of the first English medievalists, AND one of the earliest "Gothic" writers. Yet, it is apparently scientific consensus that he used the term "Gothic" in another sense when talking about literature than when talking about architecture.

[LordGodefroi]

In the context of art and architecture, landscaping, etc. "Gothic" means "medievalistic". (No idea if this word actually exists in English, but I am sure everyone gets the sense.) This was done to distinguish their art from the neoclassical movement.

The original Gothic artists didn't call their work "Gothic." This was a descriptor given to them by other artists about three hundred years after Ogive was out-of-fashion.

Walpole and the other "Gothic" writers used the term not as an indication of historical, but of horrifying content of their books. So, people came to label Hawthorne and Poe as "American Gothic" writers, or Stevenson's "Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" and Stoker's "Dracula" as "Victorian Gothicism".

This is actually a key element of the Gothic Revival aesthetic overall and is what distinguishes it from the original 13th century Gothic: An element of fantasy.

Original 13th century Gothic, particularly the architecture with its vaulted ceilings and elongated arched windows with trefoil and quatrefoil apertures, was religious in nature.

Gothic Revival, however, was more fanciful and romantic. In terms of architecture, Gothic elements served a decorative purpose than a religious one and reinforced dream-like allusions rather than spiritual attainment. As a result, Gothic Revival tended to be a bit ostentatious while the original was simpler.

As you well know already, literature embraced this too with its suave aristocratic villains, fantastic almost anthropomorphic environments, and spiritually pristine heroes (and, later, the Byronic hero.)

It is of these fantastic elements, as well as it being product of the same period and aesthetic, why I include Gothic literature in "Gothic Revival" and use the term "Gothic Revival" when talking about it.

[Ail]

I found this in Wikipedia.

The term "Gothic" came to be applied to the literary genre precisely because the genre dealt with such emotional extremes and very dark themes, and because it found its most natural settings in the buildings of this style — castles, mansions, and monasteries, often remote, crumbling, and ruined. It was a fascination with this architecture and its related art, poetry (see Graveyard Poets), and even landscape gardening that inspired the first wave of gothic novelists. For example, Horace Walpole, whose The Castle of Otranto (1764) is often regarded as the first true gothic romance, was obsessed with medieval gothic architecture, and built his own house, Strawberry Hill, in that form, sparking a fashion for gothic revival. Indeed Margaret Drabble suggests in the The Oxford Companion to English Literature (ed.; 5th & 6th edns) (1985, 2000), that the term 'Gothic' originally meant medieval, as in Castle of Otranto, a Gothic Tale.

Walpole's novel arose out of this obsession with the medieval. He originally claimed that the book was a real medieval romance he had discovered and republished. Thus was born the gothic novel's association with fake documentation to increase its effect. Indeed, The Castle of Otranto was originally subtitled "A Romance" — a literary form held by educated taste to be tawdry and unfit even for children, due to its superstitious elements — but Walpole revived some of the elements of the medieval romance in a new form. The basic plot created many other gothic staples, including a threatening mystery and an ancestral curse, as well as countless trappings such as hidden passages and oft-fainting heroines.

This is not the place where I first read about what Gothic is 4 or 5 years ago. I'm a bit forgotten now, but I always kept the impression I gave you above. First, that Gothic was a prejudiced name and secondly that it was given to the literature also because of its favoured settings.

Anyhow, let me just add that Gothic means German in a certain sense, and that for some time (my sources are a book called 'The Gothic', issued if I'm not mistaken by Konnemann, but I have to reread it, I'm writing from memory) the Germans had to accept unwillingly that it had been a French invention. Still, even if that period can be called Gothic and any art form from the period be equally called Gothic, I feel there is no direct continuation between the literature of the time and what we now call Gothic Literature. At least in Portugal, I can say that the literature of the time consisted of, from the XII to XVI century, sentimental poetry, 'canções de gesta' (sorry I don't know how to translate, but think 'Chanson de Roland'), chronicles of kings, annals of noble families, a later form of poetry suitable to the court and the palace (sec XIV onwards), the matter of Britain (that is, Arthurian romance), Chivalry romance (sec XVI), criticism of social costumes, epic poetry and exaltation of the military expansion. Anyhow, the book I am reading on the theme actually says that from the chivalry romance evolved almost anything, as they put, the policial (sp?), the indian and cowboy, the murder mistery, the adventure tale and so forth... they said that simply the chivalrous theme disappeared.

This shows that there is a continuation of some sorts, but I would not relate them more than that, as we also do not group Arthurian romance with Agatha Christie surely.

Alex

[yergerjo]

Well, you might laugh, but I actually had a Catholic priest as a music instructor and he let us play Iron Maiden tunes when we told him how tired we were of the religious music. (it was a secular school). So its worth a try anyway.

Did nobody catch the irony here? Sorry, minor thread jack. Return to normal discussion.

[HuManBing]

Yes, very clever. Iron Maiden = Irony. My literary diet is complete.