The Birth of Goth

So, you think you might be a Goth?

1. You wear nothing but black (check)
2. You are paler than the illegitimate love-child of Voldemort and an albino ice queen (check)
3. Your hair is not a natural shade of black (check)
4. You believe lipstick and eyeshadow come only in black, grey, blood red or purple (check)
5. You have black nail varnish on even as you read this (check)
6. You are currently sitting in a graveyard, clutching a black rose under a full moon as you practice witchcraft (check)

If you have answered yes to any of the above, you are probably a Goth. But where did the Gothic genre originate? Here at e-Mo, Geek Girl will reveal all…

THE ORIGINS OF GOTH

Gothic fiction is believed to have originated in 1764, when an English author Horace Walpole wrote his subliminal novel “The Castle of Otranto”. Walpole was a bit of a nut, and loved Gothic architecture. He even built his house, called Strawberry Hill, in a Neo-Gothic style, which is considered by many architects as one of the best surviving pieces of Neo-Gothic architecture.

Walpole created a new genre of literature with his innovative novel, which combined a mixture of terror, mystery, the supernatural, ghoulies and ghosties, haunted houses, Gothic architecture, castles, darkness, bats, death, decay, doppelgangers, loonies, dark secrets and family curses.

A gothic novel could also be identified by the stock characters, namely: tyrants, bandits, evil doers, maniacs, damsels in distress, the femme fatale, vampires, werewolves, skeletons, ghosts and the Devil.

Gothic novels had similar themes running throughout them, such as Anti-Catholicism (especially towards the Inquisition), melodrama, romanticism of the Mediaeval era and parody.

The term “gothic” soon became synonymous with an appreciation of extreme emotions, thrill seeking, a love of fear, and a quest for atmosphere. Goths truly came into their own in the 19th Century, when fake ruins were built around the English landscape to provide rich goths with mysterious and dark places to enjoy scaring themselves.

ISN'T IT ROMANTIC?

The gothic writers were obsessed with gothic architecture, dark themes, extreme emotion and romanticism. Walpole’s “The Castle of Otranto” heralded the first wave of gothic literature, but it wasn’t until the super-Goth Ann Radcliffe started publishing her novels that gothic literature came into its own. Indeed, many credit Radcliffe with transforming the original gothic novel into its now common form.

Radcliffe, who was clearly horny the whole time, developed the character of the moody gothic villain, who then developed into the ‘Byronic hero’. (Byron was a Romantic poet of the early 19th Century, who spent most of his time fighting in rebellions, writing very long epic poetry and sleeping with his half-sister!).

Her novels, beginning with the brilliant “The Mysteries of Udolpho” (1794), were instant best-sellers, although they were considered sensationalist and suitable only for women. (In the 19th Century men considered themselves too intellectually superior to read any novels, and it was only acceptable for the more emotional and ‘less educated’ women to read them).

Jane Austen, in her wonderful gothic parody, “Northanger Abbey”, praises Radcliffe’s work, and mocks men who see themselves as too good to read a novel:

"The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid. I have read all Mrs. Radcliffe's works, and most of them with great pleasure. The Mysteries of Udolpho, when I had once begun it, I could not lay down again; I remember finishing it in two days – my hair standing on end the whole time." [said Henry]
...
"I am very glad to hear it indeed, and now I shall never be ashamed of liking Udolpho myself. " [replied Catharine]

 
— Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey (written 1798)

THE EURO GOTH

At the same time that goths were blossoming in England, the French and German writers decided to get in on the action, and the roman noir ("black novel") and the Schauerroman ("shudder novel") in were born. These works tended to be even more violent and graphic than the English gothic novel.

The best of these European gothic novels was Matthew Gregory Lewis's grisly story of naughty monks, black magic and Devil worship, “The Monk” (1796). His portrayal of depraved monks, evil inquisitors and ghostly nuns, were an important development in the genre and influenced established terror-writer Ann Radcliffe in her last novel “The Italian” (1797).

LAUGHING WITH YOU, NOT AT YOU - THE DEVELOPMENT OF PARODY

Gothic novels were excessive to the extreme, with ridiculous plots, absurd characters and melodrama, which was of course what made them so popular. It also opened up the gothic novel to a lot of satire from other writers.

The most famous parody of the gothic novel is Jane Austen's excellent novel “Northanger Abbey” (1818) in which the innocent protagonist Catherine, after reading too much gothic fiction, convinces herself that Northanger Abbey is a hot-bed of murder, deceit and evil-doing, when in fact it is all in her imagination.

WHAT RHYMES WITH GOTH?

It wasn’t only novelists who contributed to gothic literature, but Romantic poets added their own take to the genre. Perhaps the most famous of the Romantic poets was Lord Byron, referred by his ex-lover Lady Caroline Lamb as ‘mad, bad and dangerous to know'. His excessive and eccentric ways provided the archetype of the Byronic hero.

Byron also the hosted the famous ghost-story party, which included his close friends Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley and John William Polidori in 1816. Two major gothic classics were written during this party and later published, Mary Shelley's “Frankenstein” (1818) and Polidori's “The Vampyre” (1819).

“The Vampyre” is probably one of the most influential works of fiction ever written and spawned a craze for vampire fiction, film and theatre which has not ceased to this day.

Mary Shelley's “Frankenstein”, has also been credited as one of the first sci-fi novels, and has had an equal influence on culture as “The Vampyre”.

AMERICAN GOTHIC

It wasn’t only the Europeans who enjoyed a good gothic novel. During the Victorian era, the gothic novel started to decline in popularity, but the American writer Edgar Allan Poe helped re-invigorate the genre with his work "The Fall of the House of Usher" (1839) "The Pit and the Pendulum" (1842), "The Oval Portrait" (1842), and – of course – “The Raven”.

HEATHCLIFF, ITS ME, I'M CATHY AND I'M HOME...

The three Bronte sisters, Emily, Charlotte and Anne, were total Goths. Emily Bronte's “Wuthering Heights” (1847) moved the gothic setting to the forbidding Yorkshire Moors and features one of the most famous Byronic anti-hero in literature, the mental Heathcliff. Charlotte Bronte's “Jane Eyre” (1847) was one of the first novels to add the madwoman in the attic to the cast of gothic fiction.

The Brontes' fiction is often seen as prime examples of Female Gothic, exploring woman's entrapment within the domestic sphere and subjection to men’s authority, and their dangerous attempts to subvert and escape such restriction. Charlotte's Jane Eyre and Emily's Cathy are both examples of female protagonists in such a role.

TWENTIETH CENTURY GOTH

During the 20th Century, the gothic novel transformed into modern horror fiction. Work by writers such as Stephen King and Anne Rice have very strong gothic overtones, with their emphasis on the supernatural and monsters.

The Romantic strand of gothic was taken up by Daphne du Maurier's in her amazing novel “Rebecca” (1938) which is similar in plotline to “Jane Eyre”. Du Maurier's work inspired a substantial body of 'Female Gothics,' concerning heroines alternately swooning over or being terrified by scowling Byronic men in possession of gloomy mansions and large estates.