The Gothic A presentation The Goths Heterogeneous East

The Gothic A presentation

The Goths • Heterogeneous East Germanic tribe around during the early few 100 s • Participated in the sacking of Rome • Possibility of Swedish origin

Romanesque • Preceded the Gothic movement. • Impacted Catholic Europe around 12 c. • An anti-classical style, primary colours, stained glass popular. • Mainly biblical and pictorial Angoulême’s 12 th Century Romanesque Cathedral Lisbon Cathedral Tournai Cathedral, Belgium

Gothic Architecture • Was known as “the French style” 12 c-16 c. • Gothic art emanated from medieval ‘barbaric’ style • Features: the pointed arch, the ribbed vault and the flying buttress. Reims Cathedral Façade

Key Features • • • Dogs, cats, toads, bats, shrimps Moon - werewolves Blood – red/black Vessels – familiars Witches - occult Castles – cold flagstones Thresholds; pointed arches, windows Daggers – murder-fever Fire (places) – safe places Stock Characters Tyrants, villains/bandits, maniacs, Byronic Heroes, persecuted maidens, femmes fatales, monks/nuns, magicians, vampires, demons, (fallen) angels, revenants, skeletons, The Wandering Jew, the Devil ! • • • • Terror and the Sublime Pathetic Fallacy - storms Mystery and tension (opposites) Death, violence and ill-will Distortions of nature Excess of passions; melodrama Confinement and transgression Supernatural! Revenants, dreams, curses Foiling and doubles Religion and sin Macabre and gruesome Personified setting Monsters/madness Subplots T e h s e m

Famous Literary Texts • Ann Radcliff's ‘The Mysteries of Udolpho’, 1794, is the quintessential Gothic Romance. • Much of her style, however, was a bit like Scooby Doo and had ‘“proper”’ heroines • ‘The Castle of Otranto’ by Horace Walpole in 1764 is regarded as the first Gothic Novel. • Melodrama, parody and terror Dracula 1897; Bram Stoker Frankenstein 1818; Mary Shelley

Horror/Terror/Sublime • Horror is more gratuitous and explicit, making you feel queasy and/or freeze • Terror is more an anticipation of what is to come and sets the mind’s faculties at work at high tension • Gothic works inhabit the latter • They also talk about the sublime, linked with the ‘passion of fear’ • According to Kant, objects may create a fearfulness without being scary themselves • This highlights the importance of symbolism and mystique to the Gothic genre