The third source of literature and culture in western Europe.
Keywords: Goth, mystery, horror, the third source
Summary of Research in Recent 20 Years
1. The characteristics of Gothic novels and their position in the history of literature
Brandon Hennessy summed up the characteristics of Gothic novels in his book Gothic Novels: "Gothic".
This term has three main meanings: barbarism, like medieval Gothic tribes; In the Middle Ages, castles, armored warriors and chivalry related to them; Supernatural, with its attendant horror, unknown and mystery.
The Oxford Concise History of English Literature says: Gothic novels refuse to be dull, preferring cliffs, torture, witchcraft, necrophilia and uncertainty. It is immersed in ghosts, sudden death, dungeons, witchcraft, hallucinations and prophecies. This critical term covers a large number of abnormal works, showing the aggregation and conflict between natural forces and supernatural forces. This kind of novels entered a prosperous period in the last few years of the18th century, and the aftermath of its influence and important aspects of its sensational techniques can be continuously felt from Bronte to Dickens to contemporary English literature.
Wright, an American critic, believes that in order to understand the literature in the past two hundred years, we must know something about Gothic novels.
Xiao and others also believe that Gothic novels have been widely read since they were born in Britain in the middle of18th century, which not only established their own position in Britain, but also influenced the literary creation of other countries, especially Germany and the United States. It has attracted writers of various periods and schools, and applied the techniques of Gothic novels to their creation to arrange plots, deepen themes and enhance the effect of their works, and achieved high artistic achievements. For more than 200 years, in Britain and America, not only popular writers are keen on the creation of Gothic works, but also many first-rate poets and writers, such as Scott, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, Keats, Dickens, Bronte sisters, Conrad, Foster, Golding and Brown, washington irving, Poe, Hawthorne, Mark Twain, James and Faulkner. Either the method of Gothic novels is widely used in creation, which makes Gothic novels enter the center of literature and the mainstream of literary development from the "marginal position" of popular novels, thus gradually forming a very prominent Gothic tradition in British and American literature.
Second, the interpretation of the word "Goth"
Anthropological significance: Goths are one of the so-called barbarians. A people in ancient Europe. They lived in the easternmost part of the Germanic tribes, occupied the land in the south of the Danube River basin and along the Black Sea, and were divided into two independent tribes, ostrogoths and Visigoth, by the Dnieper River. Visigoths were good at migration, captured Rome and were finally assimilated by Roman culture established in Spain. They were conquered by the Moors in the 8th century and mixed with Iberian Latin elements. Ostrogoths crossed the Balkans to Italy, occupied Italy in 493, and was incorporated into the Byzantine Empire in 555.
Artistic style: It appeared in the late12nd century, mainly in architecture and painting, and originated near Paris, France. From the source, Gothic art and architecture draw lessons from Roman technology, but put it in an innovative aesthetic view that is completely opposite to that of predecessors. Gothic style mainly uses cornices to support the wall, which can greatly reduce the burden on the wall, make it possible to open large glass windows on the wall, and at the same time make the whole building have strong upward characteristics. In this way, from the visual point of view, buildings-mainly churches-have a towering appearance, and their internal space gives people a strong sense of promotion under the dual effects of the blurred light transmitted by large stained glass windows and the high atrium, while at the same time being elegant and slender. Mainly used to build churches and castles. Notre Dame de Paris and St Paul's Cathedral in England are representative buildings. These buildings are characterized by towering spires, thick stone walls, narrow windows, stained glass, gloomy interiors, gloomy tunnels and even underground cemeteries. In the eyes of Renaissance thinkers who advocated the civilization of ancient Greece and Rome, this kind of architecture represents backwardness, barbarism and darkness, and only replaces a wonderful symbol of the so-called "dark age" of the splendid civilization of ancient Rome. Therefore, it is natural to refer to this architectural style with the names of the "barbaric", "fierce" and "ferocious" tribes that destroyed ancient Rome. In this way, under the influence of Renaissance thinkers, the word Goth was gradually endowed with many meanings, such as barbarism, terror, backwardness, mystery, dark age, middle ages and so on.
Goth, as a synonym of horror and darkness, has become a style in the narrative art of novels. Terrible, dark, grotesque and savage, just as "Byzantium" means unnecessary complexity, Goth has become an adjective. By the late18th century, the word Goth had become the name of a new novel genre. This kind of novel is usually set in castles, ruins or wilderness, and the story often takes place in the past, especially in the Middle Ages. The story is thrilling and exciting, full of murder, violence, revenge, rape, incest, and even ghosts and other supernatural phenomena often appear; The atmosphere of the novel is gloomy, mysterious, scary and full of suspense.
3. Gothic novels and works of representative writers who use Gothic techniques.
1764, the novel Otrantoberg was born in horace Walpole, England, which is the pioneering work of Gothic novels.
Other representative works are:
Richard Clarison of England
The Old Earl of England by Clara Lever, England
The Secret of Udolph and the Italians by Anna Rad Crever in Britain.
William baker Ford, England
The Monk in matthew lewis, England (1796).
Mathurin's Homeless Melmos.
The autobiography of Englishman James Hogg and the confession of an acquitted sinner
British Scott's Mamie Thought
Frankenstein by mary shelley, England
Most of Hoffman's works in Germany
British B. Stoke's Vampire Novels
Most of edgar allan poe's works in the United States
Works with a lot of Gothic techniques:
Bleak House and Great Expectations by Dickens, England
Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights by the British Bronte Sisters
British Hardy
Roth Browning, England
Venus and Loki Bear Statues in Merimi.
Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, go, Moses, as I lay dying, the temple, Absalom! Absalom! The intruder in the grave and the rose in memory of Emily
American writer Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter
Flannery O 'Connor's "Women are Hard to Find"
Truman Capote's other voices, other rooms.
Carson mccullers's Song of Sad Cafe and Reflection in Golden Eyes.
American Chad Wright's Native Son and Interview with Vampires.
Tailor and visit the bottle factory in bainbridge, England.
British Daphne du Maurier's Butterfly Dream
Steven King, USA
4. The psychological and aesthetic basis of Gothic novels.
The psychological basis of Gothic novels is people's innate fear. When reading gothic novels, we will feel strong fear, and at the same time we are sure of our own safety. We can be in danger in the illusion, but we know from the bottom of our hearts that danger will not really come to us. At this time, we can feel a strong pleasure.
The aesthetic foundation of Gothic novels is the magnificence related to fear. /kloc-in the 8th century, when discussing magnificence, edmund burke, a British aesthetician, already talked about that the strongest emotion of human beings is fear, and linked magnificence with fear. He divided beauty into beauty and sublimity. Generally speaking, beautiful things are small, exquisite, harmonious and familiar. They arouse the joy and excitement of sweetness, warmth, love and security in the hearts of the audience. In contrast, when faced with steep mountains, rolling rivers, ancient wasteland, vast forests, ancient ruins or lightning, we seem to experience a mysterious transcendental power, and our hearts are full of awe and even fear.
If we study these scenes carefully, we will find that they are all about the conflict between light and darkness, good and evil. From the Christian point of view, this conflict is, in the final analysis, an eternal conflict between God and the devil. The conflict between light and darkness, good and evil, and God and the devil is the most prominent, universal and lasting theme in Gothic novels, which runs through the whole history of Gothic novels.
The origin of gothic novels and the reasons for their appearance.
Han Ming, Jr. thinks that although Gothic novels have nothing to do with Goths, the extremely rich folk tales circulated among Teutons and medieval romantic stories based on these legends are important sources of Gothic novels. Another important source of Gothic novels is English Renaissance drama. British drama in this period was deeply influenced by seneca, an ancient Roman playwright. It was full of revenge, conspiracy, violence and murder, and even haunted by ghosts, so the plot was thrilling. Shakespeare's plays and James I's tragedies, in particular, have exerted great influence on the appearance and development of Gothic novels.
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3 Gothic tradition in Western European literature from the perspective of Gothic novels (a student's graduation thesis)
Bible and Christian legends are also important sources of Gothic novels. There are many horrible scenes in the Bible, and Christian legends have been trying to exaggerate the horror of hell. The most prominent in this respect is Revelation, which describes the war between angels and Satan, massacres, plagues, disasters and famines on the earth, and many other mysterious and terrible signs about the end of the world. Revelation, with its vivid language, peculiar imagination, rich symbols, vivid images and shocking momentum, has made great literary achievements and exerted great influence on western literature. From Milton's Lost Garden to many horror movies today, they are directly based on or inspired by Revelation. Many typical characters in Gothic novels, such as devil, villain hero and "wandering Jew", can find their archetypes (Satan, Cain, etc. ) In the Bible. Common themes in Gothic novels, such as cannibalism, wife stealing, vendetta, rape, incest, homosexuality, etc., all appear repeatedly in the Bible. As for the most prominent, universal and lasting theme in Gothic novels: the eternal conflict between good and evil, it is the main line of a Bible from beginning to end.
/kloc-the most important reason for the emergence and prosperity of gothic novels in the 0/8th century is the challenge of romanticism to rationalism. The Renaissance brought unprecedented development to humanism, and the alliance between the Reformation and humanism finally destroyed the unity of Roman Catholicism. However, the great development of humanism in turn dealt a heavy blow to the church and disintegrated the traditional Christian ideology centered on God. /kloc-in the 0/8th century, Europe entered a rational era. Enlightenment thinkers enthusiastically eulogize and vigorously promote human rationality, but ignore and suppress emotions, imagination and intuition, and deny mysterious and supernatural phenomena. The romantic movement sweeping Europe and America is a rebellion against rationalism and neoclassicism. Gothic novel is a special genre of romantic literature, which is called "black romanticism" by critics. Its so-called "black" is mainly manifested in two aspects: in the plot, it exaggerates violence and terror; Thematically, it doesn't focus on expressing its ideal social, political and moral concepts in a positive way like general romanticism, but mainly makes in-depth exploration, especially moral exploration, by revealing the evils of society, politics, church and morality and the dark side of human nature.
Professor Xiao also put forward a new viewpoint, that is, Gothic novels are the most prosperous and successful in some countries, such as Britain, America and Germany, which are the most important Protestant countries, and Britain and the United States have long been ruled by Puritanism. Puritanism is a fundamentalism in Christianity and an important school of Protestantism. Puritans believed in Calvinism and took every word in the Bible as the word of God.
Although the cruel persecution of Catholics and witches and wizards has become a thing of the past at the time of the rise of Gothic novels, its influence is still very obvious. Many early Gothic novels, such as The Castle of Otranto, The Mystery of Fort Udoff, The Italian, The Monk and Edgar Allan Poe's masterpiece Trap and Pendulum, are set in Catholic countries such as Italy, Spain or southern France, and most of them expose the evils of Catholicism and its priests. Similarly, the witch-clearing incident has also been widely used in literary creation, especially in American literature, such as 1692' s large-scale cruel persecution of so-called witches in Salem. For centuries, it has stimulated the artistic imagination of writers. Many writers, from john neal and Hawthorne to arthur miller, a modern playwright, and Stephen King, a contemporary writer, have created works with horrible atmosphere and profound meaning according to the Salem incident.
Sixth, the development of Gothic novels.
At the end of 18/at the beginning of 19, romanticism became the mainstream of literature, and Gothic novels also entered the most prosperous period. Almost all the major romantic poets and writers have created Gothic stories or used Gothic techniques, and promoted the further development of Gothic literature. In a sense, all romantics are rebels of realism, but the core of mainstream romantic literature lies in idealization, while Gothic novels are not. Although there are some idealized characters in Gothic novels, and they are indirectly expressing ideal values, the focus has always been on exposing evil and darkness.
In Victorian era, realism dominated literature, but realistic writers did not refuse to use Gothic techniques. In the works of these writers, the background of Gothic stories has shifted from the distant past and ancient castles to the industrialized metropolis in reality. In the Victorian era, an important development of Gothic novels was socialization and realism.
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4 Gothic tradition in western European literature from Gothic novels (a student's graduation thesis)
Although Gothic novels appeared and flourished in Britain, after the 1920s of 19, the development center of Gothic novels moved to the United States. The rapid prosperity and sustainable development of Gothic novels in America has profound historical, cultural and literary roots. Early immigrants to the United States experienced hunger, cold, plague and death. An American history can be said to be a history of their constant exploration, conflict and conquest in a strange and dangerous environment. Moreover, the rise of American novels happens to be the most prosperous time for Gothic novels in Britain and other European countries. However, the most important reason is the very prominent Puritanism tradition in American history and culture.
Charles B. Brown, the first influential American writer, published several novels at the end of 18, with gloomy and bloody plots, while Owen, the first American writer with international reputation, created gothic novels such as Sleepy Valley under the influence of Scott and German writers. American novels are Gothic from the beginning.
Seven, Gothic novels will not die.
A few years ago, people turned a blind eye to these evils, became accustomed to them, and even took evil as good, especially in today's world. Therefore, when people asked O 'Connor why she used Gothic techniques so extensively in her works, she replied: "For those who are hard of hearing, you must shout loudly;" For people who are going blind, you can only enlarge the picture. "In other words, only with the help of the unique shock of Gothic novels can people realize those evils and dangers. Therefore, as long as there is the evil of depriving people or trampling on human nature, Gothic novels will continue to develop.