The Student Room Group

Gothic literature.

So i was just wondering why literature containing themes of horror/darkness/the devil is referred to as 'Gothic'. It seems to make no sense at all seeing as Gothic architecture's main features are light and verticality, both of which imply god/heaven.
Reply 1
The Cultural Elite of the Renaissance Period saw Gothic architecture as crude and barbaric. The 'horrid novels' becoming popular at the time, such as Horace Walpole's 'Castle of Otranto' had a common theme of being set in dark, crumbling medieval castles or other ruins (monasteries were also popular). These 'horrid novels' were labelled 'gothic' due to the architecture that draws the imaginative impulse, and the label stuck.
Reply 2
Original post by BenAssirati
The Cultural Elite of the Renaissance Period saw Gothic architecture as crude and barbaric. The 'horrid novels' becoming popular at the time, such as Horace Walpole's 'Castle of Otranto' had a common theme of being set in dark, crumbling medieval castles or other ruins (monasteries were also popular). These 'horrid novels' were labelled 'gothic' due to the architecture that draws the imaginative impulse, and the label stuck.

Interesting. thanks very much. why did they see it as barbaric? surely it was far more sophisticated than the less intricate norman architecture that preceded it?
Reply 3
Original post by Gibus_pyro
Interesting. thanks very much. why did they see it as barbaric? surely it was far more sophisticated than the less intricate norman architecture that preceded it?


Way back in the Roman times, the Roman Empire was fighting with the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths, the two main Germanic tribes, for control of European territories. The Romans viewed these Gothic tribes as 'barbarians', stemming from the latin word 'barbarinus', meaning 'foreign country' or in this case 'foreigners'.

Those in the Renaissance viewed the Gothic destruction of Rome as the kickstarter of medievalism, and viewed anything linked with the Medieval era as inferior or barbaric, with those in the Enlightenment era associating the medieval era with the 'age of faith', an intellectually inferior prospect in their minds to the current 'age of reason' . Since this applied to the architecture as well, they linked them together and called it Gothic.
(edited 9 years ago)
Reply 4
Original post by BenAssirati
Way back in the Roman times, the Roman Empire was fighting with the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths, the two main Germanic tribes, for control of European territories. The Romans viewed these Gothic tribes as 'barbarians', stemming from the latin word 'barbarinus', meaning 'foreign country' or in this case 'foreigners'.

Those in the Renaissance viewed the Gothic destruction of Rome as the kickstarter of medievalism, and viewed anything linked with the Medieval era as inferior or barbaric, with those in the Enlightenment era associating the medieval era with the 'age of faith', an intellectually inferior prospect in their minds to the current 'age of reason' . Since this applied to the architecture as well, they linked them together and called it Gothic.

thanks. so it wasn't that the architecture was dark, it was the people who invented it.
(edited 9 years ago)

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