“How mutable are our feelings, and how strange is that clinging love we have of life even in the excess of misery!” -Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
The Gothic- the love for the dreary, dark and dilapidated, arose during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in England. It was a staple way in which Victorian society could satiate its thirst for the unconventional.
Mary Shelley, proclaimed as one of the first gothic science fiction writers, wrote Frankenstein (the first edition published 1818) whilst in Geneva with Claire Clairmont, Lord Byron and Percy Shelly.
Frankenstein is a story of a madman scientist who, in an attempt to usurp God, rebels against the divine ability to create life and stitches together a ‘creature’ from the dead body parts dug out from graves.
The gothic has been and will always be a staple of rebellion against the conventional, the known, and the mass consumed.
Early Gothic Films and Theatre
Phantasmagoric theatre (dating back to the 1770s in Europe) had a basic goal- to scare.
Through illusions and a ‘magic lantern’, a successor to the Camera Obscura. The Magic lantern, worked through the use of candlelight, lenses and transparent slides.
The phantasmagoric theatre, much like horror and Gothic film of today, is all based around human fears- at the time those being ones of fiends, demons, necromancy, spirits, and witchcraft.
Dr Cagliostro’s cabinet of curiosities (1920) and Nosferatu a symphony of horror (1922), are two of the most impactful examples of early horror film. Although not the earliest they helped lead to a rise in experimental techniques with a purpose to scare audiences.
Odd camera angles, intense shadows and lots of obtrusive body language from our main antagonist- Count Orlok, help certify the film in Gothic-horror history.
1980s- Being a Goth in London- The Batcave Club
1982- the Batcave club opens in Soho London and was witness to many goth and post-punk groups such as Siouxsie Sioux, members of Bauhaus and The Cure, and artists such as Nick Cave.
Even though it only ran till 1985, its profound impact has made it a staple in the bringing back of the Gothic in the 80s.
Today’s Gothic in Music
“I love being Goth because the community is so chill. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been goth for years or are just starting, everyone supports each other”- Ruby Hagerty
‘Lebanon Hanover- Scala London’
Lebanon Hanover’ have an artful skill in expressing love in the face of devastation, self-deprecation and isolation.
Lyrics on love and a flirtation with concepts of death, horror and damnation have a profound impact when played against bright red, green and blue lights scintillating against every object in an otherwise dark room.
The Gothics have a queer way to express a love for the world and an innate ability to embrace every aspect of life including the unknown and loneliness that is prevalent in the music, the film and the literature of the Gothics throughout the years.
Like the Romantics, they adore the sublime, but theirs is far more prevalent in the morbid nature of our world, and the incomprehensible largeness of this very terror.
