Introduction
The Gothic is undead;
long live the Gothic.
It’s been roughly 40 years since the
Gothic genre was rejuvenated – after decades on the relative sidelines of
mainstream attention – by the fresh blood of a new musical style and the
community that grew out of it. A concept, a mood, a method,
an aesthetic; however
defined, the Gothic
was pulled from the bookshelf, dusted, and set to a soundtrack that gave birth
to a Goth subculture that has
ebbed and flowed over the decades, but has so far resisted being
fully staked by changing tastes.
However…
… the dead may travel fast, but even
they must slow down eventually. And so, years
after Goth’s heyday, we find the
number of nightclubs greatly diminished, legendary stores (like Toronto’s Siren) shuttered, and leading magazines out of print. Even Hot Topic, contentious among Goths
for its commercialism but somewhate underappreciated
for its efforts to celebrate alternative music and subcultures, has shed
much of its counter-culture charm by embracing pop-culture franchises. New
bands do emerge, of course, and a few dedicated Goth/Punk/Alternative retailers
like Tripp NYC, Lip Service, Heavy Red, and others remain
to leverage the Internet to cater to an international clientele. Yet for the
most part Goth has become stagnant for a number of reasons: aging demographics;
trends in youth culture; the diminishing popularity of Goth’s parent genre,
rock, in favour of hip hop and new country; and the niche status of its muse,
Gothic literature, at least in its classic form.
Another reason for Goth’s apparent
stagnation arises from the nature of group dynamics. Open arms and lack of
authority has made the culture
wonderfully decentralized, organic,
and welcoming to social “misfits,” but its vague definition all-too-easily reduces to style over substance. As the old saw
would have it, we don’t always know
what Goth is, but we know it when we see it. The consequence is that, like
almost anything, Goth’s original expression has been diluted by variations over
the years, some relevant, others tangential at best, and still others irrelevant.
(Illustrator Trellia demonstrates with a none-too-serious classification of
Goth stereotypes at DeviantArt). Without some sort of impartial reference, overly personal definitions sometimes become exclusionary
gestures in communal settings (e.g. the curious gother-than-thou snobbery), which hardly fosters a
sustainable cultural identity. It doesn’t help that Goth is easily caricatured
by both the sympathetic and unsympathetic.
As for the Gothic in literature and
other media, we could debate to what extent it really is marginal. With its
decayed architecture, gloomy landscapes, and Victorian sensibilities, Classical
Gothic memorably appears from time to time in films like Crimson Peak and Sleepy
Hollow but is otherwise a rare beast in today’s menagerie of genres. As a
general influence, however, the Gothic continues to exert pressure on modern
genre variations such as Southern
Gothic as well as contemporary horror, albeit in the crude
sense that the Gothic
is often used interchangeably with the supernatural and lurid.
What can be done to invigorate a near-moribund
genre and its supportive subculture? It would be too
much to suggest a restoration
of old regimes cleansed of their shortcomings and polished for the 21st
century; the past can’t be repeated. A revolutionary reinvention would present
another kind of problem, namely, that
of straying out of the Gothic altogether. The question, then, is what sort of evolutionary gesture can we propose?
To answer the question, it’s necessary to trace what we might
call the Gothic Idea – the unifying
thread between the Gothic from architecture through
music and culture.
The Gothic Idea – A Brief History
Architecture
“Gothic” was not the given name of
the architectural style that expanded
the Romanesque design philosophy. As a pejorative invoking
the barbarian hordes,
the label was used as a shorthand criticism of Middle
Age architecture by later Renaissance architects and critics who viewed
their own neo-classical approach as a superior and refined expression of
civilization. The label stuck, mostly without its negative connotation, and it
continues to describe a singularly unique architectural design philosophy.
Unlike Romanesque buildings that
feature a denser massing of building forms, simple ornamentation, and details
such as rounded arches, Gothic buildings use innovative structural elements
such as flying buttresses and a highly ornamental
design
vocabulary
including
pointed
arches,
stained
glass
windows,
and
ornate
facades. It’s
no
surprise that our
overall experience of Romanesque and Gothic buildings is quite different, and
it is in this difference that the Gothic Idea emerges. Where Romanesque conveys
a fortress-like impression, the Gothic uses space, light, and highly artistic
ornamentation
to create an
expansive experience. If
we
feel small
in
a
Gothic
volume, it’s
typically because we
are small. When
that feeling of smallness is contextualized by architectural and artistic
elements, it becomes, to the sympathetic, an
experience we could provisional label
as “awe;” beautiful yet terrifying,
comforting
yet alienating, sacred but fully aware of the profane. This last quality is
particularly noteworthy, because it points to why Gothic architecture can be
judged as both beautiful and grotesque/ugly:
it formally acknowledges the brutish aspects of living that later
renaissance styles suppressed in the pursuit of a bright, refined aesthetic (
i.e. a purified beauty).Of
course,
a Gothic cathedral’s
ecclesiastical function purposely interprets awe as an
encounter with
divinity.
The architecture shapes the congregant e
xperience to connect with the Church
and with the divine. But it isn’t necessary
for
the
meaning
of this
experience
to be
religious,
as demonstrated
by
the use
of
Gothic
architecture in the
academic realm.
Here,
the
experience of
awe is
not
that
associated
with
encountering
the divine,
but
with
our encounters with the mysteries of the
universe.
The Gothic in architecture, then,
can be described as using the built environment, though a specific design
vocabulary, to elicit an experience of awe (religious or secular), which we might also refer to as the uncanny or the sublime.
Literature
Unlike the ambiguity of
architectural experience, the clearest – although by no means absolute –
articulation of the
Gothic
Idea
comes
from
Gothic
literature. Scholars
generally
point
to
Horace
Walpole’s
The Castle
of Otranto, published in
1764, as the first definitive Gothic novel, but textual elements as well as the
author’s admitted indebtedness to Shakespeare makes a case that the Gothic
originated, in prototypical form, with
Hamlet. Walpole’s innovation
was
to
take
elements
of
Hamlet such
as
the
ghost
and
medieval
setting,
and heighten
them with
terror
in
a narrative
that
blends
the fantastical
with
romance.
Firmly
establishing
what later
became
genre
tropes, we find in the novel gloomy medieval buildings, dark passages, secrets
and mysteries, supernatural phenomena, lingering menace, and a sense of
foreboding and mystery. These DNA molecules positioned
The Castle of Otranto as the genetic ancestor from which the Gothic
genre evolved and splintered.
Following Walpole, and surpassing him, were two authors whose prominence marked
a split in the nascent Gothic genre. The first was Ann Radcliffe, a literate
genre innovator who proved a popular and respected novelist in her time with six Gothic novels, a book of poetry,
and a travelogue to her credit. Her work, as exemplified by Romance
of the Forest, The Mysteries of
Udolpho, and The Italian, was
notable for its romanticism, evocative (if lengthy) descriptions of nature, and
gothic plot elements involving a vulnerable heroine, menacing villain, and
remote castle setting. The
supernatural played a part in her novels as well, but in the form of the
“explained supernatural,” strange phenomena that eventually receive a rational
explanation. Only in Radcliffe’s turn to the sublime (in line with Edmund
Burke) is the supernatural left unexplained, its occurrence ultimately left to a broadly-hinted theistic
level: religious characters
will, naturally, leave God to God. The sublime also factors in her focus on
terror, a complex and related concept. In a posthumous essay titled On the Supernatural in Poetry, a
character discussing Shakespeare with another points out,
“The union of grandeur and obscurity, which Mr. Burke describes as a
sort of tranquility tinged with terror, and which causes the sublime, is to be
found only in Hamlet; or in scenes where circumstances of the same kind
prevail."
By contrast, Matthew Lewis caused a
scandal with the publication of The Monk in 1796, a lurid tale of a
pious monk corrupted by lust into treachery, rape,
murder, and demonic pacts. Grafted onto the prototypical expression of horror in German fiction of
earlier periods, it proved a milestone in establishing the horror branch of
Gothic. Less concerned with touching on the sublime, if at
all, and eager to depict rather than imply the menace (albeit in a
level of detail that’s tame by today’s standards) The Monk is the pulpy counterpart to Radcliffe’s work. Its lurid
character prompted Radcliffe to write The
Italian, also about a malevolent cleric,
in response before quitting writing altogether.
But despite Radcliffe’s low opinion
of The Monk, its stylistic
departure from Terror Gothic proved popular and enduring. Lewis’ indulgence of
the supernatural fantastic, along with an emphasis on the lurid, is arguably
one reason why the Gothic, the supernatural, and the grotesque are linked to
the point that the terms are often used concurrently.
As
to
the
distinction between
terror
and
horror,
once
again
we
can
turn to
On the Supernatural in Poetry for insight. Radcliffe highlights the
key distinction while proclaiming the two to be incompatible:
“Terror and horror are so far opposite, that the first expands the soul, and awakens the faculties to a high degree of life; the other contracts, freezes, and
nearly annihilates them. I apprehend, that neither Shakespeare nor Milton by their fictions, nor Mr. Burke
by his reasoning, anywhere
looked to positive horror
as a source of the sublime, though they all agree that terror is a very high one; and where
lies the great difference between horror and terror [note: terror and horror?],
but in the uncertainty and obscurity, that accompany the first, respecting the
dreaded evil?"
Where horror is direct, on account
of showing the particulars of a horror (the gory details, as it were), terror
is ambiguous, providing gaps that require
interpretation and imagination. Horror is a reaction to the
known, physical, and actual, while
terror is a confrontation with the unknown, psychological, and potential. As a
result, horror is something to be survived while terror is an ambiguity that
requires resolution into certainty. Terror leads to a greater awareness of life
while horror is merely deadening. Naturally, the distinction in practice became
blurred.
For
all that Radcliffe’s Gothic was informed by
theories of the sublime
and terror, another key distinction between her work
and that of Lewis’ is one of genre. As opposed
to Lewis’ prototypical “crime thriller” approach, Radcliffe’s narratives were structured as romances, with
stories typically dealing with young people
in love who must overcome circumstances and
misunderstandings before finally being allowed to marry. Whereas romantic
comedies will place mistaken identities and other obstacles between lovers,
Radcliffe’s novels place terror in between them. In this sense, we could more
usefully describe the Terror Gothic branch, as represented by Radcliffe, as
Gothic Romance – taking care to note that in
literary history “romances” were not strictly defined as love stories, but
more broadly as heroic, typically chivalric, adventures with fantastical
overtones.
Of the two branches, Horror
arguably became the most prolific. Where Gothic Romance delivered the Bronte
Sisters’ works and a
few others before quietly
retiring to the bookshelf in wait of the occasional revival in modern forms (e.g. Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca), Gothic Horror spawned the penny dreadfuls and grand
guignol that evolved into contemporary horror. Before the Horror genre began
shedding its original Gothic trappings as new narrative forms were developed, the Gothic found memorable expression in three well-known
genre milestones:
- Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Following Sheridan Le Fanu’s
Carmilla ,James Malcolm Rymer’s Varney the Vampire, and John Polidori’s The Vampyre,
Stoker’s classic is the
literary culmination of the
project Lewis began with The Monk. It
continues even today to serve as the standard-bearing model of supernatural
horror. Gothic in its presentation with remote castles, graveyards, and
night-bound monsters, Dracula memorably
blended terror and horror through the menace of death, implicit sexuality and,
worse, a predatory post-death in which a victim’s very identity is corrupted.
Significantly, Dracula anchored the vampire into the popular imagination; as
villain, as hero, as tragic figure, as a manifestation of morbid romance and
eroticism, as the iconic representative of Gothic Horror.
- Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. While often interpreted as a
cautionary tale on the hubris of scientists playing in God’s sandbox, Frankenstein is in my view less about forbidden
science than it is about the way
in which a lack of compassion leads to alienation, which in turns breeds
resentment and ultimately homicidal hatred.
It’s a tale of humankind’s inhumanity. Although the Creature’s murders are
horrific, the novel revolves around
Victor Frankenstein’s terror over artificially creating life – a terror of the
sublime knowledge of life and death that tragically blinds him to his failures
towards the Creature. As Terror Gothic’s counterpart to Horror Gothic’s Dracula; Frankenstein, or the Modern
Prometheus, evolved the explained supernatural of Radcliffe’s work to its logical form as science fiction. (A similar observation could be made of Robert Louis
Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.)
- Edgar Allan Poe’s works. Death, madness, grief,
guilt, insanity, and sometimes the supernatural – Poe’s stories encapsulated
the features of both Terror and Horror Gothic. Example: The Fall of the House of Usher in which the narrator arrives in a
quintessentially gothic environment (complete with gloomy, sublime weather),
meets with the borderline-insane Rodrick Usher, and is an unwitting observer
and participant in a live burial.
Poe’s work not only joined Shelley and Stoker’s in shaping later horror fiction, but paved the way for another
of Gothic’s descendants: detective fiction, in which the explained
mystery takes the place of the explained supernatural.
So
Gothic’s
genealogy
is
roughly
as
follows:
Shakespeare’s
Hamlet followed
by
Walpole’s
Castle of Otranto,
leading to Radcliffe, the Brontës, and
Shelley’s
Frankenstein in one branch
and Lewis’
The Monk and Stoker’s
Dracula in another – with many other
works in between. The branches hold hands in Poe’s works before penny dreadfuls
and grand guignol evolve into contemporary horror and contribute to erasing
distinctions between terror and horror gothic
. To this we could add the influence of romanticism, beginning
influential works such as Gottfried August Bürger poem Lenore, published in 1173, but I’ll leave that to the literary
scholars to explore.
What essential ideas unites these works in spite
of very significant genre differences
(e.g. horror, romance, science
fiction, mystery) and author idiosyncrasies? Two key points emerge:
The by-now stereotypical aesthetic of the
Gothic genre – medieval settings, remote
castles, stormy weather, ruins,
labyrinths, secret passages, graveyards, and so on
– all serve as reminders of change, impermanence, transformation, and mortality.Whether called the sublime,
the uncanny, or simply awe, the Gothic
goes beyond awareness of mortality to
emphasize existential ambiguity – ghosts, vampires, and other creatures that
defy death highlight a fundamental quality of life, namely, the mystery of
existence. But even without the supernatural, the universe itself, with its
fundamental mystery, provokes existential anxiety.
Stripping away the fear inherent in terror and horror, we are
left with impermanence/change and mortality
as the key concepts
underlying the Gothic in literature.
Music and Subculture
After the Gothic’s consignment to a covert undeath in the early 20th century,
it came back to overt
life as the Goth
musical genre via the late 70’s punk scene – an emergence made possible through
a feedback loop between the British music press, fans, and bands. Although it’s
debatable to what extent the first wave of gothic bands welcomed the Goth label
– as is typical for art, the categorization often came later and from the
outside – the label eventually stuck. What began as casual uses of the word “gothic”
by rock journalists in the
1970s to describe offerings by artists such as David
Bowie and the Doors eventually grew into the sustained recognition of a musical genre encompassing bands such as
Joy Division, Siouxie & the Banshees, the Damned, and others who pursued a
distinctive sound, lyrical content, and performance aesthetic very much
influenced by Gothic literature.
If there can be said to be
milestones to formally inaugurate Goth as a culture, even if only as a musical
appreciation community, then we
could begin with Bauhaus and the release of their seminal “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” in 1979. But it is with the Batcave, a London nightclub opened by Specimen lead singer Ollie Wisdom in 1982, that the
Goth culture finds its
most significant milestone. As the host for notable
gothic rock bands and musicians
such as Bauhaus, Sex Gang Children, Alien Sex Fiend, Nick Cave, Siouxie
Sioux, and Robert Smith, the Batcave gave the nascent genre a focal point for
both the genre’s innovators and the community that grew around their music.
The
growth of Goth culture was not confined
to the UK, however. While British bands certainly gained
popularity elsewhere around the world, the kindred genre of deathrock
evolved in the US through bands such as 45 Grave and, notably, the pioneering
Rozz Williams and Christian Death.
From these scattered beginnings,
Goth finally assumed an identity distinct from its punk progenitor as a musical
expression of Gothic literature and even architecture, one that increasingly
adapted a variety of musical genres from rock, punk, and electronic music
to classical and avant-garde. Succeeding waves of bands emerged, this time
deliberately adopting for themselves the Goth identity
while gathering around
them a community of Goths who made possible a cottage
industry spanning fashion, art, nightclubs, and festivals with often surprising
diversity.
What of the Gothic Idea? The content
of Goth was not essentially different from the content expressed in literature,
but the subculture that arose from music fandom succeeded in making the Gothic
Idea a lived rather than passively consumed experience. For a while, at least, Goth
served as the proverbial fertile ground for new ideas within a renewed
Gothic that could stand
as its own genre, unlike literature where the Gothic was
invariably grafted onto other genres (e.g. romance and horror). Most
importantly, Goth came to emphasize the role of the “Other,” whether literally
in terms of being inclusive of marginalized identities (i.e. alternative
lifestyles, LGBTQ persons, etc.) or figuratively by embracing those “darker” aspects of life mainstream society strives to keep hidden (death, insanity, paganism,
depression, and so on).
Defining the Gothic Idea
With all that,
let’s define the Gothic Idea.
Gothic architecture
gives us the sublime, the uncanny, the awesome – what we might call an
existentialist experience. Literature confirms
the importance of impermanence and mortality in distinguishing the Gothic from other literary forms. Goth music and
culture emphasizes the importance of the Other. Put together, the Gothic Idea
we have been tracing is an existentialist awareness of mortality and impermanence in a mysterious universe.
Towards a Gothic Revival
By what criteria can we describe
a Goth/Gothic Revival? What would such a revival achieve?
First and foremost, the revival should have a specific definition, yet be open enough
to enable creativity. Like a
sandbox, it should have boundaries to distinguish it from its environment yet allow for considerable
freedom with the sand it contains.
Second, the Revival should be about
practice and not personality. Just as not everyone finds Gothic Cathedrals
beautiful or Goth music enjoyable to listen to, not everyone will be
drawn to Revival Gothic.
However this might be explained by psychology, explaining the revival by
turning to personality or other psychological contrivances risks creating
identity politics that, invariably, tend to be divisive. Far better to set
aside the intangibles and let it be personal choice – based on a clear
understanding of what Revival Gothic is and is not – that guides
participation in the effort. The Revival should be open and accessible to both
practitioners and spectators without a litmus test beyond choosing to adopt the
new Gothic framework as defined.
Finally, and rather obviously, the goal is not to rewrite
the book on Gothic
but to add a new chapter.
The Revival should be
enriched by its heritage without being chained to it.
Up to now, horror and terror have
served as the dominant (although not exclusive) paradigms for expressing the
Gothic Idea; both have reached a conceptual end. As a matter of general genre
practice, horror declares, if not outright celebrates, the triumph of evil; the
proof rests in the number of memorable (and recurring) villains and monsters
relative to heroes, the common pattern of depicting the gory slaughter of
innocents, and the “twist” endings that underscore
the futility of heroism.
(These endings are typically predictable based on the plot, hence: the failed exorcism, the
uncontained plague, the surviving or reproducing monster, insanity induced by
exposure to forbidden knowledge, and so on.) Horror is primarily a reactionary
genre, a reflection of societal anxiety that
is often cynical and nihilistic. Its best examples offer compelling characters and narratives, while at its worse the genre
is fetishistic and rooted
in the arbitrary magic of fantasy
storytelling. In either
case, it’s a question of craft and identifying
contemporary fears to replace old fears (of sexuality, for example) more so
than genre innovation that challenges how we conceive, and relate to, fear and violence. There is only so much to
be said of fight-or-flight survival scenarios, revenge-driven atrocities, and their ilk. The same applies to
terror, which today overlaps
so strongly with horror that the distinction is hardly useful.
So
where can a Gothic Revival
take inspiration from without resorting to a traditional association with horror and terror? We can find hints in two
sources:
- The sublime, uncanny,
or what we might term “awe,” in which terror
isn’t the only emotional
experience. As Immanuel Kant wrote in his Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime,
“melancholy characterizes those with a superb sense of the sublime” – an idea
expressed in an entire subgenre of melancholic art.
- The subset of Goth culture
that takes its cues from funerary practices, such as Victorian mourning garb and an affinity for cemeteries.
The answer, then, is sorrow and the
constellations of emotions associated with it – from the melancholy experience of solitude and alienation that arises when confronting
a mysterious, awe-inspiring universe to the
sorrows that come with living a life marked by change and transitions.
Of course, sorrow as the topic of art isn’t in itself a “new”
idea, not even within the Goth subculture. But its relatively marginal position
within Goth provides Revival Gothic with a thread
of continuity. And just as the Gothic
defined a particular approach to terror and horror in contrast to
non-Gothic approaches (for example, compare a Jane Austen romance with a Brontë
romance), the idea is to give form and function to a Gothic approach to drama.
What might we call it? Sorrow
Gothic? Melangothic? Winter Gothic?
What the Revival Coul BeAlthough the Gothic doesn’t explicitly
factor into English Professor Eric G. Wilson’s advocacy for melancholy in his
book Against Happiness, although he does offer an occasional disparaging
comment about Goths, he might as well have been talking about the core idea
underlying Sorrow Gothic when he writes:
“Once we accept these
seasons of mental
winter as inevitable parts of life –
indeed, once we affirm
them as essential elements of
existence – then the paradox comes truly alive. We actually feel, in the midst
of our sorrow, something akin to joy … We somewhere sense, probably deep in the
unconscious, that we are now in our melancholia participating in life’s vital
fluxes, in the profoundest forces of the
earth. We suddenly feel better – not
blissfully happy but tragically joyful. We die into life.”
With Horror and Terror having had
their time, and in no danger of disappearing, Sorrow Gothic offers a different
perspective from which Goth can evolve. But it’s not enough to think in terms
of adjusting mood and aesthetics. Fundamentally, the question is: how can the
art of Goth move beyond a nostalgic repetition of sounds and images past to
incorporating new influences? How can we push the technical skill in support of
ambitious artistic visions?
Of course, we can point to bands
like Dead Can Dance, Soporus Aerternus, Cinema Strange, and
even disbanded Bauhaus with its timelessly avant-garde sound as enduring
pioneers (to name but a few). But to thrive, any culture needs a regular influx
of new voices that aren’t simply repeating the past. While not identifying as
Goth, but unquestionably within its sphere of influence, the Kilimanjaro Darkjazz
Ensemble and its sibling, the Mt. Fuji Doom Corporation, offer an
avant-garde path to gloomy and contemplative new musical expressions drawing on
jazz rather than rock. Electronic musician Lorn, while again not
identifying as Goth, offers a melancholic groove on the theme of personal angst
and suffering. This too presents a possible direction forward. And I’m sure,
there are other examples that I’m not aware of (yet) that could influence a
Goth revival.
Whatever forms the influence take,
my feeling is that to succeed a Goth revival would do well to follow the
examples of cultural art movements such as Surrealism. While comprised by as
many distinct artistic visions as there were artists (e.g. Breton, Dali,
Duchamp, Apollinaire), there was nevertheless a general agreement on the
principles of the movement. (Only in the most general sense. Historically, the
Surrealist movement split into factions, one led by Yvan Goll and the other by
André Breton.) This was enough to create a recognizable identity for Surrealism
without placing strict limits on the artists who practiced within it. While the
elements of a Gothic Revival in the “Sorrow Gothic” vein are already present in
the subculture to various degrees, starting with the affinity for cemeteries and
funerary symbolism, a revival would benefit from a refocusing of these elements
under a coherent framework of guiding principles and vocabularies. There is the
risk of reinforcing the stereotype of the depressed Goth, perhaps, but that
shouldn’t be a hindrance. Instead, as with anything, it should be yet another
challenge to overcome in the pursuit of meaningful art.
And so, subject to revision ...
The Sorrow
Gothic Manifesto
With blackest moss the flower-plots
Were thickly crusted, one and all:
The rusted nails fell from the knots
That held the pear to the gable-wall.
The broken sheds look'd sad and strange:
Unlifted was the clinking latch;
Weeded and worn the ancient thatch
Upon the lonely moated grange.
She only said, "My life is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"
- Mariana / Alfred,
Lord Tennyson
Sorrow Gothic …
- … is an art movement spanning
multiple genres (e.g painting, sculpture, film, etc.) and media.
- … focuses on the experience of sorrow (melancholy, grief) with an uncanny awareness of mortality.
- … embraces melancholy as a positive
rather than negative
influence.
- … is a deconstruction of sorrow and joy in the context
of impermanence.
- … is symbolic in its approach rather
than abstract.
- … uses a vernacular of ruin, time, death, change, madness, sorrow, ecstasy, alienation,
solitude, liminality.
- … replaces the literal supernatural in narratives with allegories, dreams, and the operations of the mind.
- … views the nihilist’s task as overcoming nihilism, not embracing it.
-
… fosters compassion and understanding towards
its subject matter
rather than fear
and stigma.
- … insofar as it is political, champions
the marginalized, the ostracized, the silenced, the dispossessed, the disenfranchised, the societal others.
- … despite the above, should not always
take itself too seriously.
RESOURCES
While not an exclusive source of
information, the Wikipedia entry on Gothic Rock provides a good launching pad
to explore the history of Goth. Searching for the history of goth music online
will also yield some interesting resources. Of course, as with any research vetting
is recommended.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_rock
Also helpful is this curriculum
outline for a 2013 literary course on the Gothic Experience from Lilia Melani
at Brooklyn College’s Department of English
http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/gothic/index.html
