The Gothic Overlook

    It is what H.P. Lovecraft called "the shadow-haunted landscapes" (Lovecraft 23). Misty moors giving way to dark, menacing forests where the trees grow too close together. It is the overgrown graveyard left unattended too long. The ivy that has grown lush from unseen nutrients, that now threatens to engulf a house till its out of sight. It is the Gothic in the world around us, on the ground we trod and the gardens we search our way through. 

    The Gothic as a genre is as broad and diverse as the variety of tropical plants in a nursery. From its origins in the tribes of the dark forests of Eastern Europe, to the modern social tribes who take on the same name, to literature, art, architecture and more, the branches cover a wide swath of culture and history. For the purpose of this blog the examination will focus exclusively on the literary branch of the genre.

    While the publishing of Horace Walpole's Castle of Otranto is widely regarded as the birth of the Gothic novel, there is according to Nick Groom a "rich semantic history of the term in the centuries preceding Walpole's novel." (Groom xiv). Whether or not Walpole could be credited as the first matters not, as the themes he employs can be used to categorize key elements of Gothic works. They are, as Groom describes them, "sensational aspects of the Gothic, such as the workings of the unconscious and subconscious, the influence of unseen agencies, and trespass, abjection, sacrifice, and extinction." (Groom xv) 

    Although last in Groom's list, extinction is perhaps the most important element as it relates to Death, a key theme in all Gothic expressions. Death is also closely related to the Earth itself, becoming a part of the landscape, just as we all one day become a part of the landscape ourselves. This is a common theme routinely invoked in Gothic literature, and one that plays prominently in the works reviewed here. 

    There is also the unseen agencies, those forces outside our perception, lurking in the landscapes around us. It is the sense of dread at going into the woods alone, or swimming in murky water, or getting lost in the fog. All these tie back to the sense that somewhere around us there are forces waiting to afflict us, forces for which we cannot perceive a source. It is only when we stare into the brambles long enough that the pattern of a face should emerge, a face for whose intentions we do not know. 

Works Cited

Lovecraft, H. P. Supernatural Horror in Literature. Dover Publications, 1973. 

Groom, Nick. The Gothic: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2012.