139-645: Filimer was an early Gothic king, according to Jordanes . He was the son of Gadaric and the fifth generation since Berig settled with his people in Gothiscandza . When the Gothic nation had multiplied Filimer decided to move his people to Scythia where they defeated the Sarmatians . They then named their new territory Oium , meaning "in the waterlands". This migration would have allegedly taken place about 2030 years before Jordanes wrote his " Origin of
278-684: A 10-year hiatus, the Goths and the Heruli , with a raiding fleet of 500 ships, sacked Heraclea Pontica , Cyzicus and Byzantium . They were defeated by the Roman navy but managed to escape into the Aegean Sea , where they ravaged the islands of Lemnos and Scyros , broke through Thermopylae and sacked several cities of southern Greece ( province of Achaea ) including Athens , Corinth , Argos , Olympia and Sparta . Then an Athenian militia, led by
417-508: A Roman army led by Claudius advancing from the north. The battle most likely took place in 269, and was fiercely contested. Large numbers on both sides were killed but, at the critical point, the Romans tricked the Goths into an ambush by pretending to retreat. Some 50,000 Goths were allegedly killed or taken captive and their base at Thessalonika destroyed. Apparently Aurelian , who was in charge of all Roman cavalry during Claudius' reign, led
556-578: A century later, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World . While their main force had constructed siege works and was close to taking the cities of Thessalonica and Cassandreia , it retreated to the Balkan interior at the news that the emperor was advancing. Learning of the approach of Claudius, the Goths first attempted to directly invade Italy. They were engaged near Naissus by
695-598: A counter to the naive and persecuted heroines usually featured in female Gothic of the time, and instead feature more sexually assertive heroines in their works. When the female Gothic coincides with the explained supernatural , the natural cause of terror is not the supernatural, but female disability and societal horrors: rape , incest , and the threatening control of a male antagonist. Female Gothic novels also address women's discontent with patriarchal society, their difficult and unsatisfying maternal position, and their role within that society. Women's fears of entrapment in
834-616: A devastating defeat upon the Romans at the Battle of Adrianople in 378. Roman forces regained a level of control but many Goths and other eastern peoples were quickly settled in and near the empire. One group of these, initially led by their king Alaric I , were the precursors of the Visigoths , and their successors eventually establishing a Visigothic Kingdom in Spain at Toledo . Meanwhile, Goths under Hunnic rule gained their independence in
973-466: A fashion which was loudly denounced by conservatives. The 4th-century Greek bishop Synesius compared the Goths to wolves among sheep, mocked them for wearing skins and questioned their loyalty towards Rome: A man in skins leading warriors who wear the chlamys , exchanging his sheepskins for the toga to debate with Roman magistrates and perhaps even sit next to a Roman consul , while law-abiding men sit behind. Then these same men, once they have gone
1112-555: A female named Catherine, conceives herself as a heroine of a Radcliffean romance and imagines murder and villainy on every side. However, the truth turns out to be much more prosaic. This novel is also noted for including a list of early Gothic works known as the Northanger Horrid Novels . The poetry, romantic adventures, and character of Lord Byron —characterized by his spurned lover Lady Caroline Lamb as "mad, bad and dangerous to know"—were another inspiration for
1251-487: A female vampire, is notable for its treatment of vampirism as both racial and medicalized. The vampire, Harriet Brandt, is also a psychic vampire , killing unintentionally. In the United States, notable late 19th-century writers in the Gothic tradition were Ambrose Bierce , Robert W. Chambers , and Edith Wharton . Bierce's short stories were in the horrific and pessimistic tradition of Poe. Chambers indulged in
1390-490: A ghostly nun, and its view of Roman Catholicism as exotic and heathenistic. Nathaniel Hawthorne 's novel The House of the Seven Gables , about a family's ancestral home, is colored with suggestions of the supernatural and witchcraft ; and in true Gothic fashion, it features the house itself as one of the main characters, The genre also heavily influenced writers such as Charles Dickens , who read Gothic novels as
1529-549: A little way from the senate house, put on their sheepskins again, and when they have rejoined their fellows they mock the toga, saying that they cannot comfortably draw their swords in it. In the 4th century, Geberic was succeeded by the Greuthungian king Ermanaric , who embarked on a large-scale expansion. Jordanes states that Ermanaric conquered a large number of warlike tribes, including the Heruli (who were led by Alaric),
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#17327655603311668-462: A number of stories that fall within the Gothic genre or contain Gothic elements. They include " Saint John's Eve " and " A Terrible Vengeance " from Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka (1831–1832), " The Portrait " from Arabesques (1835), and " Viy " from Mirgorod (1835). While all are well known, the latter is probably the most famous, having inspired at least eight film adaptations (two now considered lost), one animated film, two documentaries, and
1807-465: A persecuted heroine fleeing from a villainous father and searching for an absent mother. At the same time, male writers tend towards the masculine transgression of social taboos . The emergence of the ghost story gave women writers something to write about besides the common marriage plot, allowing them to present a more radical critique of male power, violence, and predatory sexuality. Authors such as Mary Robinson and Charlotte Dacre however, present
1946-464: A portion of his people and asked to be allowed to settle on the south bank of the Danube. Valens permitted this, and even assisted the Goths in their crossing of the river (probably at the fortress of Durostorum ). The Gothic evacuation across the Danube was probably not spontaneous, but rather a carefully planned operation initiated after long debate among leading members of the community. Upon arrival,
2085-499: A rational age. Initiating a literary genre, Walpole's Gothic tale inspired many contemporary imitators, including Clara Reeve 's The Old English Baron (1778), with Reeve writing in the preface: "This Story is the literary offspring of The Castle of Otranto ". Like Reeve, the 1780s saw more writers attempting his combination of supernatural plots with emotionally realistic characters. Examples include Sophia Lee 's The Recess (1783–5) and William Beckford 's Vathek (1786). At
2224-477: A single mass migration of an entire people, scholars open to hypothetical Scandinavian origins envision a process of gradual migration in the 1st centuries BC and AD, which was probably preceded by long-term contacts and perhaps limited to a few elite clans from Scandinavia. Similarities between the name of the Goths , some Swedish place names and the names of the Gutes and Geats have been cited as evidence that
2363-421: A story in a Gothic building serves several purposes. It inspires feelings of awe, implies that the story is set in the past, gives an impression of isolation or dissociation from the rest of the world, and conveys religious associations. Setting the novel in a Gothic castle was meant to imply a story set in the past and shrouded in darkness. The architecture often served as a mirror for the characters and events of
2502-473: A teenager and incorporated their gloomy atmosphere and melodrama into his works, shifting them to a more modern period and an urban setting; for example, in Oliver Twist (1837–1838), Bleak House (1854) and Great Expectations (1860–1861). These works juxtapose wealthy, ordered, and affluent civilization with the disorder and barbarity of the poor in the same metropolis. Bleak House, in particular,
2641-501: A video game. Gogol's work differs from Western European Gothic fiction, as his cultural influences drew on Ukrainian folklore , the Cossack lifestyle, and, as a religious man, Orthodox Christianity . Other relevant authors of this era include Vladimir Fyodorovich Odoevsky ( The Living Corpse , written 1838, published 1844, The Ghost , The Sylphide , as well as short stories), Count Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy ( The Family of
2780-669: A widescale rebellion in Thrace, in which he was joined not only by Gothic refugees and slaves, but also by disgruntled Roman workers and peasants, and Gothic deserters from the Roman Army. The ensuing conflict, known as the Gothic War , lasted for several years. Meanwhile, a group of Greuthungi, led by the chieftains Alatheus and Saphrax , who were co-regents with Vithericus, son and heir of the Greuthungi king Vithimiris , crossed
2919-475: Is characterized by an environment of fear, the threat of supernatural events, and the intrusion of the past upon the present. The setting typically includes physical reminders of the past, especially through ruined buildings which stand as proof of a previously thriving world which is decaying in the present. Characteristic settings in the 18th and 19th centuries include castles, religious buildings such as monasteries and convents , and crypts . The atmosphere
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#17327655603313058-514: Is credited with introducing urban fog to the novel, which would become a frequent characteristic of urban Gothic literature and film. Miss Havisham from Great Expectations , is one of Dickens' most Gothic characters. The bitter recluse shuts herself away in her gloomy mansion ever since being jilted at the altar on her wedding day. His most explicitly Gothic work is his last novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood , which he did not live to complete and
3197-453: Is immediately in front of us." The mysterious imagination necessary for Gothic literature to have gained any traction had been growing for some time before the advent of the Gothic. The need for this came as the known world was becoming more explored, reducing the geographical mysteries of the world. The edges of the map were filling in, and no dragons were to be found. The human mind required a replacement. Clive Bloom theorizes that this void in
3336-590: Is in the late 3rd century that the name Goths ( Latin : Gothi ) is first mentioned. Ancient authors do not identify the Goths with the earlier Gutones. Philologists and linguists have no doubt that the names are linked. On the Pontic steppe the Goths quickly adopted several nomadic customs from the Sarmatians. They excelled at horsemanship , archery and falconry , and were also accomplished agriculturalists and seafarers . J. B. Bury describes
3475-603: Is inducing Terror – or else "a great deal of the apprehension vanishes"; Obscurity is necessary to experience the Terror of the unknown. Bloom asserts that Burke's descriptive vocabulary was essential to the Romantic works that eventually informed the Gothic. The birth of Gothic literature was thought to have been influenced by political upheaval. Researchers linked its birth with the English Civil War , culminating in
3614-475: Is often described with words such as "wonder" and "terror." This sense of wonder and terror that provides the suspension of disbelief so important to the Gothic—which, except for when it is parodied, even for all its occasional melodrama , is typically played straight, in a self-serious manner—requires the imagination of the reader to be willing to accept the idea that there might be something "beyond that which
3753-426: Is particularly important, as his 1833 short story The Queen of Spades was so popular that it was adapted into operas and later films by Russian and foreign artists. Some parts of Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov's A Hero of Our Time (1840) are also considered to belong to the Gothic genre, but they lack the supernatural elements of other Russian Gothic stories. The following poems are also now considered to belong to
3892-557: Is set in the twenty-second century and speculates on fantastic scientific developments that might have occurred three hundred years in the future, making it and Frankenstein among the earliest examples of the science fiction genre developing from Gothic traditions. During two decades, the most famous author of Gothic literature in Germany was the polymath E. T. A. Hoffmann . Lewis's The Monk influenced and even mentioned it in his novel The Devil's Elixirs (1815). The novel explores
4031-596: Is strongly associated with the Gothic Revival architecture of the same era. English Gothic writers often associated medieval buildings with what they saw as a dark and terrifying period, marked by harsh laws enforced by torture and with mysterious, fantastic, and superstitious rituals . Similar to the Gothic Revivalists' rejection of the clarity and rationalism of the Neoclassical style of
4170-501: Is typically claustrophobic , and common plot elements include vengeful persecution, imprisonment, and murder. The depiction of horrible events in Gothic fiction often serves as a metaphorical expression of psychological or social conflicts. The form of a Gothic story is usually discontinuous and convoluted, often incorporating tales within tales, changing narrators, and framing devices such as discovered manuscripts or interpolated histories. Other characteristics, regardless of relevance to
4309-696: The 18th century . Gothic literature Gothic fiction , sometimes called Gothic horror (primarily in the 20th century), is a loose literary aesthetic of fear and haunting . The name refers to Gothic architecture of the European Middle Ages , which was characteristic of the settings of early Gothic novels. The first work to call itself Gothic was Horace Walpole 's 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto , later subtitled "A Gothic Story". Subsequent 18th-century contributors included Clara Reeve , Ann Radcliffe , William Thomas Beckford , and Matthew Lewis . The Gothic influence continued into
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4448-636: The Aegean Sea and a detachment ravaged the Aegean islands as far as Crete , Rhodes and Cyprus . According to the Augustan History , the Goths achieved no success on this expedition because they were struck by the Cyprianic Plague . The fleet probably also sacked Troy and Ephesus , damaging the Temple of Artemis , though the temple was repaired and then later torn down by Christians
4587-646: The Aesti and the Vistula Veneti , who, although militarily weak, were very numerous, and put up a strong resistance. Jordanes compares the conquests of Ermanaric to those of Alexander the Great , and states that he "ruled all the nations of Scythia and Germany by his own prowess alone." Interpreting Jordanes, Herwig Wolfram estimates that Ermanaric dominated a vast area of the Pontic Steppe stretching from
4726-476: The Balkan provinces. In the meantime, a second and larger sea-borne invasion had started. An enormous coalition consisting of Goths (Greuthungi and Thervingi), Gepids and Peucini, led again by the Heruli, assembled at the mouth of river Tyras (Dniester). The Augustan History and Zosimus claim a total number of 2,000–6,000 ships and 325,000 men. This is probably a gross exaggeration but remains indicative of
4865-581: The Burgundians , Vandals and others they belong to the East Germanic group. Roman authors of late antiquity did not classify the Goths as Germani . In modern scholarship the Goths are sometimes referred to as being Germani . A crucial source on Gothic history is the Getica of the 6th-century historian Jordanes , who may have been of Gothic descent. Jordanes claims to have based
5004-633: The Danube . Around 275 the Goths launched a last major assault on Asia Minor , where piracy by Black Sea Goths was causing great trouble in Colchis , Pontus, Cappadocia , Galatia and even Cilicia . They were defeated sometime in 276 by Emperor Marcus Claudius Tacitus . By the late 3rd century, there were at least two groups of Goths, separated by the Dniester River : the Thervingi and
5143-536: The Enlightened Establishment, the literary Gothic embodies an appreciation of the joys of extreme emotion, the thrills of fearfulness and awe inherent in the sublime , and a quest for atmosphere. Gothic ruins invoke multiple linked emotions by representing inevitable decay and the collapse of human creations – hence the urge to add fake ruins as eyecatchers in English landscape parks. Placing
5282-521: The Geats , from mainland Sweden, whose name is reconstructed as * Gautōz . Though these names probably mean the same, their exact meaning is uncertain. They are all thought to be related to the Proto-Germanic verb * geuta- , which means "to pour". The similarity of these Scandiavian names has long been noted by scholars in connection with the 6th-century book Getica ( c. 551 ), by
5421-494: The Getica on an earlier lost work by Cassiodorus , but also cites material from fifteen other classical sources, including an otherwise unknown writer, Ablabius . Many scholars accept that Jordanes' account on Gothic origins is at least partially derived from Gothic tribal tradition and accurate on certain details, and as a result the Goths are often identified as originating from south-central Sweden. According to Jordanes,
5560-584: The Gothic language , the Goths were called the * Gut-þiuda ('Gothic people') or * Gutans ('Goths'). The Proto-Germanic form of the Gothic name is recostructed as * Gutōz , but it is proposed that this co-existed with an n-stem variant * Gutaniz , attested in Gutones , gutani , or gutniskr . The form * Gutōz is etymologically identical to that of the Gutes from Gotland, Sweden, and closely related to that of
5699-572: The Graveyard poets . They were also present in novels such as Daniel Defoe 's A Journal of the Plague Year , which contains comical scenes of plague carts and piles of corpses. Even earlier, poets like Edmund Spenser evoked a dreary and sorrowful mood in such poems as Epithalamion . All aspects of pre-Gothic literature occur to some degree in the Gothic, but even taken together, they still fall short of true Gothic. What needed to be added
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5838-595: The Greuthungi . The Gepids , who lived northwest of the Goths, are also attested as this time. Jordanes writes that the Gepids shared common origins with the Goths. In the late 3rd century, as recorded by Jordanes, the Gepids, under their king Fastida , utterly defeated the Burgundians, and then attacked the Goths and their king Ostrogotha. Out of this conflict, Ostrogotha and the Goths emerged victorious. In
5977-522: The Jacobite rising of 1745 which was more recent to the first Gothic novel (1764). The collective political memory and any deep cultural fears associated with it likely contributed to early Gothic villains as literary representatives of defeated Tory barons or Royalists "rising" from their political graves in the pages of early Gothic novels to terrorize the bourgeois reader of late eighteenth-century England. The first work to call itself "Gothic"
6116-636: The Nordic Bronze Age and the Lusatian culture . Its inhabitants in the Wielbark period are usually thought to have been Germanic peoples, such as the Goths and Rugii. Jordanes writes that the Goths, soon after settling Gothiscandza , seized the lands of the Ulmerugi (Rugii). The Goths are generally believed to have been first attested by Greco-Roman sources in the 1st century under
6255-746: The Roman–Persian Wars , notably participating at the Battle of Misiche in 244. An inscription at the Ka'ba-ye Zartosht in Parthian , Persian and Greek commemorates the Persian victory over the Romans and the troops drawn from gwt W g'rmny xštr , the Gothic and German kingdoms, which is probably a Parthian gloss for the Danubian (Gothic) limes and the Germanic limes . Meanwhile, Gothic raids on
6394-707: The Vandals , with whom they were certainly closely affiliated. The Vandals are associated with the Przeworsk culture , which was located to the south of the Wielbark culture. Wolfram suggests that the Gutones were clients of the Lugii and Vandals in the 1st century AD. In 77 AD, Pliny the Elder mentions the Gutones as one of the peoples of Germania . He writes that the Gutones, Burgundiones , Varini , and Carini belong to
6533-653: The fall of the Western Roman Empire and the emergence of medieval Europe . They were first reported by Graeco-Roman authors in the 3rd century AD, living north of the Danube in what is now Ukraine, Moldova and Romania. From here they conducted raids into Roman territory, and large numbers of them joined the Roman military. These early Goths lived in the regions where archaeologists find the Chernyakhov culture , which flourished throughout this region during
6672-581: The trope of vampires having sharpened teeth. Another notable English author of penny dreadfuls is George W. M. Reynolds , known for The Mysteries of London (1844), Faust (1846), Wagner the Wehr-wolf (1847), and The Necromancer (1857). Elizabeth Gaskell 's tales "The Doom of the Griffiths" (1858), "Lois the Witch", and "The Grey Woman" all employ one of the most common themes of Gothic fiction:
6811-412: The witches , who were called haliurunnas . These witches were condemned to seek refuge far away and were said to have given birth to the first Huns . The Danish scholar Arne Søby Christensen has suggested that the name Filimer was made up by Cassiodorus , a suggestion that was favourably received among historians. Goths The Goths were a Germanic people who played a major role in
6950-546: The " Hlöðskviða " (The Battle of the Goths and Huns), a medieval Icelandic saga. The sagas recall that Gizur , king of the Geats , came to the aid of the Goths in an epic conflict with the Huns, although this saga might derive from a later Gothic-Hunnic conflict. Although the Huns successfully subdued many of the Goths who subsequently joined their ranks, Fritigern approached the Eastern Roman emperor Valens in 376 with
7089-416: The 1790s." The popularity and influence of The Mysteries of Udolpho and The Monk saw the rise of shorter and cheaper versions of Gothic literature in the forms of Gothic bluebooks and chapbooks , which in many cases were plagiarized and abridgments of well known Gothic novels. The Monk in particular, with its immoral and sensational content, saw many plagiarized copies, and was notably drawn from in
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#17327655603317228-560: The 1st century, where they are associated with the archaeological Wielbark culture . More recent genetic evidence has confirmed that Wielbark culture Goths from the Vistula carry Scandinavian Y-haplogroups , strongly suggesting that Gothic clans formed with migration from Southern Scandinavia. From the 2nd century, the Wielbark culture expanded southwards towards the Black Sea in what has been associated with Gothic migration, and by
7367-574: The 3rd and 4th centuries. In the late 4th century, the lands of the Goths in present-day Ukraine were overwhelmed by a significant westward movement of Alans and Huns from the east. Large numbers of Goths subsequently concentrated upon the Roman border at the Lower Danube , seeking refuge inside the Roman Empire. After they entered the Empire, violence broke out, and Goth-led forces inflicted
7506-795: The 5th century, most importantly the Ostrogoths . Under their king Theodoric the Great , these Goths established an Ostrogothic Kingdom in Italy at Ravenna . The Ostrogothic Kingdom was destroyed by the Eastern Roman Empire in the 6th century, while the Visigothic Kingdom was largely conquered by the Umayyad Caliphate in the early 8th century, with a remnant in Asturias which would go on to initiate
7645-480: The Baltic Sea to the Black Sea as far eastwards as the Ural Mountains , encompassing not only the Greuthungi, but also Baltic Finnic peoples , Slavs (such as the Antes ), Rosomoni (Roxolani), Alans, Huns , Sarmatians and probably Aestii ( Balts ). According to Wolfram, it is certainly possible that the sphere of influence of the Chernyakhov culture could have extended well beyond its archaeological extent. Chernyakhov archaeological finds have been found far to
7784-415: The Danube without Roman permission. The Gothic War culminated in the Battle of Adrianople in 378, in which the Romans were badly defeated and Valens was killed. Following the decisive Gothic victory at Adrianople, Julius, the magister militum of the Eastern Roman Empire , organized a wholesale massacre of Goths in Asia Minor , Syria and other parts of the Roman East. Fearing rebellion, Julian lured
7923-470: The German Schauerroman and the French R oman noir . Eighteenth-century Gothic novels were typically set in a distant past and (for English novels) a distant European country, but without specific dates or historical figures that characterized the later development of historical fiction. The saturation of Gothic-inspired literature during the 1790s was referred to in a letter by Samuel Taylor Coleridge , writing on 16 March 1797, "indeed I am almost weary of
8062-435: The Gothic and influenced Bram Stoker 's vampire novel Dracula (1897). Stoker's book created the most famous Gothic villain ever, Count Dracula , and established Transylvania and Eastern Europe as the locus classicus of the Gothic. Published in the same year as Dracula , Florence Marryat 's The Blood of the Vampire is another piece of vampire fiction. The Blood of the Vampire , which, like Carmilla, features
8201-444: The Gothic genre made it rich territory for satire. Historian Rictor Norton notes that satire of Gothic literature was common from 1796 until the 1820s, including early satirical works such as The New Monk (1798), More Ghosts ! (1798) and Rosella, or Modern Occurrences (1799). Gothic novels themselves, according to Norton, also possess elements of self-satire, "By having profane comic characters as well as sacred serious characters,
8340-426: The Gothic genre: Meshchevskiy's "Lila", Katenin's "Olga", Pushkin 's "The Bridegroom", Pletnev 's "The Gravedigger" and Lermontov 's Demon (1829–1839). The key author of the transition from Romanticism to Realism, Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol , who was also one of the most important authors of Romanticism, produced a number of works that qualify as Gothic fiction. Each of his three short story collections features
8479-403: The Gothic novel, providing the archetype of the Byronic hero . For example, Byron is the title character in Lady Caroline's Gothic novel Glenarvon (1816). Byron was also the host of the celebrated ghost-story competition involving himself, Percy Bysshe Shelley , Mary Shelley , and John William Polidori at the Villa Diodati on the banks of Lake Geneva in the summer of 1816. This occasion
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#17327655603318618-407: The Gothic novelist could puncture the balloon of the supernatural while at the same time affirming the power of the imagination." After 1800 there was a period in which Gothic parodies outnumbered forthcoming Gothic novels. In The Heroine by Eaton Stannard Barrett (1813), Gothic tropes are exaggerated for comic effect. In Jane Austen 's novel Northanger Abbey (1818), the naive protagonist,
8757-404: The Gothic period as "the only non-nomadic episode in the history of the steppe." William H. McNeill compares the migration of the Goths to that of the early Mongols , who migrated southward from the forests and came to dominate the eastern Eurasian steppe around the same time as the Goths in the west. From the 240s at the earliest, Goths were heavily recruited into the Roman Army to fight in
8896-413: The Gothic tradition, Mary Shelley's novel is often considered the first science fiction novel, despite the novel's lack of any scientific explanation for the animation of Frankenstein's monster and the focus instead on the moral dilemmas and consequences of such a creation. John Keats ' La Belle Dame sans Merci (1819) and Isabella, or the Pot of Basil (1820) feature mysteriously fey ladies. In
9035-403: The Gothic. Emily Brontë 's Wuthering Heights (1847) transports the Gothic to the forbidding Yorkshire Moors and features ghostly apparitions and a Byronic hero in the person of the demonic Heathcliff. The Brontës' fictions were cited by feminist critic Ellen Moers as prime examples of Female Gothic, exploring woman's entrapment within domestic space and subjection to patriarchal authority and
9174-473: The Goths ". The archaeological record shows that the population of the Gothic Wielbark culture (Poland) had indeed moved and settled in Ukraine and mixed with the previous populations of the Zarubintsy culture , where they formed the Chernyakhiv culture . This cultural movement is identified as the migration of the Goths from Gothiscandza to Oium , but not all scholars find the evidence compelling. Jordanes (XXIV:121) also relates that Filimer expelled
9313-445: The Goths and other Germanic groups such as the Heruli . It nevertheless also included Iranian , Dacian , Roman and probably Slavic elements as well. The first incursion of the Roman Empire that can be attributed to Goths is the sack of Histria in 238. The first references to the Goths in the 3rd century call them Scythians , as this area, known as Scythia, had historically been occupied by an unrelated people of that name. It
9452-462: The Goths into the confines of urban streets from which they could not escape and massacred soldiers and civilians alike. As word spread, the Goths rioted throughout the region, and large numbers were killed. Survivors may have settled in Phrygia . With the rise of Theodosius I in 379, the Romans launched a renewed offensive to subdue Fritigern and his followers. Around the same time, Athanaric arrived in Constantinople, having fled Caucaland through
9591-412: The Goths originated in Gotland or Götaland . The Goths, Geats and Gutes may all have descended from an early community of seafarers active on both sides of the Baltic. Similarities and dissimilarities between the Gothic language and Scandinavian languages (particularly Gutnish ) have been cited as evidence both for and against a Scandinavian origin. Scholars generally locate Gothiscandza in
9730-407: The Goths originated on an island called Scandza (Scandinavia), from where they emigrated by sea to an area called Gothiscandza under their king Berig . Historians are not in agreement on the authenticity and accuracy of this account. Most scholars agree that Gothic migration from Scandinavia is reflected in the archaeological record, but the evidence is not entirely clear. Rather than
9869-447: The Goths were to be disarmed according to their agreement with the Romans, although many of them still managed to keep their arms. The Moesogoths settled in Thrace and Moesia . Mistreated by corrupt local Roman officials, the Gothic refugees were soon experiencing a famine; some are recorded as having been forced to sell their children to Roman slave traders in return for rotten dog meat. Enraged by this treachery, Fritigern unleashed
10008-569: The Gotones (or Gothones) and the neighbouring Rugii and Lemovii were Germani who carried round shields and short swords, and lived near the ocean, beyond the Vandals. He described them as "ruled by kings, a little more strictly than the other German tribes". In another notable work, the Annals , Tacitus writes that the Gotones had assisted Catualda , a young Marcomannic exile, in overthrowing
10147-665: The Greuthungi and Thervingi became heavily Romanized during the 4th century. This came about through trade with the Romans, as well as through Gothic membership of a military covenant, which was based in Byzantium and involved pledges of military assistance. Reportedly, 40,000 Goths were brought by Constantine to defend Constantinople in his later reign, and the Palace Guard was thereafter mostly composed of Germanic warriors, as Roman soldiers by this time had largely lost military value. The Goths increasingly became soldiers in
10286-556: The Greuthungi and were subjects of the Huns. Procopius interpreted the name Visigoth as "western Goths" and the name Ostrogoth as "eastern Goth", reflecting the geographic distribution of the Gothic realms at that time. A people closely related to the Goths, the Gepids, were also living under Hunnic domination. A smaller group of Goths were the Crimean Goths , who remained in Crimea and maintained their Gothic identity well into
10425-763: The Gythones (or Gutones) as living east of the Vistula in Sarmatia, between the Veneti and the Fenni . In an earlier chapter he mentions a people called the Gutae (or Gautae) as living in southern Scandia . These Gutae are probably the same as the later Gauti mentioned by Procopius. Wolfram suggests that there were close relations between the Gythones and Gutae, and that they might have been of common origin. Beginning in
10564-589: The Hunnic thrust into Europe and the Roman Empire was an attempt to subdue the independent Goths in the west. The Huns fell upon the Thervingi, and Athanaric sought refuge in the mountains (referred to as Caucaland in the sagas). Ambrose makes a passing reference to Athanaric's royal titles before 376 in his De Spiritu Sancto (On the Holy Spirit). Battles between the Goths and the Huns are described in
10703-583: The Reconquista under Pelagius . Remnants of Gothic communities in Crimea , known as the Crimean Goths , established a culture that survived for more than a thousand years, although Goths would eventually cease to exist as a distinct people. Gothic architecture , Gothic literature and the modern-day Goth subculture ultimately derive their names from the ancient Goths, though the Goths themselves did not directly create or influence these art forms. In
10842-620: The Roman Empire continued, In 250–51, the Gothic king Cniva captured the city of Philippopolis and inflicted a devastating defeat upon the Romans at the Battle of Abrittus , in which the Roman Emperor Decius was killed. This was one of the most disastrous defeats in the history of the Roman army. The first Gothic seaborne raids took place in the 250s. The first two incursions into Asia Minor took place between 253 and 256, and are attributed to Boranoi by Zosimus . This may not be an ethnic term but may just mean "people from
10981-488: The Roman Empire. Soon afterwards, Fritigern , a rival of Athanaric, converted to Arianism, gaining the favor of Valens. Athanaric and Fritigern thereafter fought a civil war in which Athanaric appears to have been victorious. Athanaric thereafter carried out a crackdown on Christianity in his realm. Around 375 the Huns overran the Alans , an Iranian people living to the east of the Goths, and then, along with Alans, invaded
11120-621: The Roman armies in the 4th century leading to a significant Germanization of the Roman Army. Without the recruitment of Germanic warriors in the Roman Army, the Roman Empire would not have survived for as long as it did. Goths who gained prominent positions in the Roman military include Gainas , Tribigild , Fravitta and Aspar . Mardonius , a Gothic eunuch, was the childhood tutor and later adviser of Roman emperor Julian , on whom he had an immense influence. The Gothic penchant for wearing skins became fashionable in Constantinople,
11259-598: The Roman army. In the aftermath of the Hunnic onslaught, two major groups of the Goths would eventually emerge, the Visigoths and Ostrogoths . Visigoths means the "Goths of the west", while Ostrogoths means "Goths of the east". The Visigoths, led by the Balti dynasty , claimed descent from the Thervingi and lived as foederati inside Roman territory, while the Ostrogoths, led by the Amali dynasty , claimed descent from
11398-626: The Romans, the Thervingi invaded the territory of the Sarmatians of the Tisza . In this conflict, the Thervingi were led by Vidigoia , "the bravest of the Goths" and were victorious, although Vidigoia was killed. Jordanes states that Aoric was succeeded by Geberic , "a man renowned for his valor and noble birth", who waged war on the Hasdingi Vandals and their king Visimar , forcing them to settle in Pannonia under Roman protection. Both
11537-463: The Romans. After Gallienus was assassinated outside Milan in the summer of 268 in a plot led by high officers in his army, Claudius was proclaimed emperor and headed to Rome to establish his rule. Claudius' immediate concerns were with the Alamanni , who had invaded Raetia and Italy. After he defeated them in the Battle of Lake Benacus , he was finally able to take care of the invasions in
11676-664: The Screw (1898), and the stories of Arthur Machen . In Ireland, Gothic fiction tended to be purveyed by the Anglo-Irish Protestant Ascendancy . According to literary critic Terry Eagleton , Charles Maturin , Sheridan Le Fanu , and Bram Stoker form the core of the Irish Gothic subgenre with stories featuring castles set in a barren landscape and a cast of remote aristocrats dominating an atavistic peasantry, which represent an allegorical form
11815-513: The Sublime and Beautiful , which "finally codif[ied] the gothic emotional experience." Specifically, Burke's thoughts on the Sublime, Terror, and Obscurity were most applicable. These sections can be summarized thus: the Sublime is that which is or produces the "strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling"; Terror most often evoked the Sublime; and to cause Terror, we need some amount of Obscurity – we can't know everything about that which
11954-758: The Terrible, having been a hireling in the Critical Review for the last six or eight months – I have been reviewing the Monk , the Italian , Hubert de Sevrac &c &c &c – in all of which dungeons, and old castles, & solitary Houses by the Sea Side & Caverns & Woods & extraordinary characters & all the tribe of Horror & Mystery, have crowded on me – even to surfeiting." The excesses, stereotypes, and frequent absurdities of
12093-464: The Thervingi, there were also populations of Taifali , Sarmatians and other Iranian peoples, Dacians , Daco-Romans and other Romanized populations. According to Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks (The Saga of Hervör and Heidrek), a 13th-century legendary saga , Árheimar was the capital of Reidgotaland , the land of the Goths. The saga states that it was located on the Dnieper river. Jordanes refers to
12232-512: The Thervingian king Ariaric , was captured. Eusebius , a historian who wrote in Greek in the third century, wrote that in 334, Constantine evacuated approximately 300,000 Sarmatians from the north bank of the Danube after a revolt of the Sarmatians' slaves. From 335 to 336, Constantine, continuing his Danube campaign, defeated many Gothic tribes. Having been driven from the Danube by
12371-643: The Vandili. Pliny classifies the Vandili as one of the five principal "German races", along with the coastal Ingvaeones , Istvaeones , Irminones , and Peucini . In an earlier chapter Pliny writes that the 4th century BC traveler Pytheas encountered a people called the Guiones . Some scholars have equated these Guiones with the Gutones, but the authenticity of the Pytheas account is uncertain. In his work Germania from around 98 AD, Tacitus writes that
12510-668: The Vourdalak , 1839, and The Vampire , 1841), Mikhail Zagoskin ( Unexpected Guests ), Józef Sękowski / Osip Senkovsky ( Antar ), and Yevgeny Baratynsky ( The Ring ). By the Victorian era , Gothic had ceased to be the dominant genre for novels in England, partly replaced by more sedate historical fiction . However, Gothic short stories continued to be popular, published in magazines or as small chapbooks called penny dreadfuls . The most influential Gothic writer from this period
12649-574: The area of the Wielbark culture . This culture emerged in the lower Vistula and along the Pomeranian coast in the 1st century AD, replacing the preceding Oksywie culture . It is primarily distinguished from the Oksywie by the practice of inhumation, the absence of weapons in graves, and the presence of stone circles . This area had been intimately connected with Scandinavia since the time of
12788-651: The beginning of the Marcomannic Wars . By 200 AD, Wielbark Goths were probably being recruited into the Roman army . According to Jordanes, the Goths entered Oium , part of Scythia, under the king Filimer , where they defeated the Spali . This migration account partly corresponds with the archaeological evidence. The name Spali may mean "the giants" in Slavic , and the Spali were thus probably not Slavs . In
12927-513: The cheaper pamphlets. Other notable Gothic novels of the 1790s include William Godwin 's Caleb Williams (1794), Regina Maria Roche 's Clermont (1798), and Charles Brockden Brown 's Wieland (1798), as well as large numbers of anonymous works published by the Minerva Press established by William Lane at Leadenhall Street , London in 1790. In continental Europe, Romantic literary movements led to related Gothic genres such as
13066-429: The collective imagination was critical in developing the cultural possibility for the rise of the Gothic tradition. The setting of most early Gothic works was medieval, but this was a common theme long before Walpole. In Britain especially, there was a desire to reclaim a shared past. This obsession frequently led to extravagant architectural displays, such as Fonthill Abbey , and sometimes mock tournaments were held. It
13205-512: The day Would quake to look on. — Lines from Shakespeare's Hamlet The components that would eventually combine into Gothic literature had a rich history by the time Walpole presented a fictitious medieval manuscript in The Castle of Otranto in 1764. The plays of William Shakespeare , in particular, were a crucial reference point for early Gothic writers, in both an effort to bring credibility to their works, and to legitimize
13344-488: The decisive attack in the battle. Some survivors were resettled within the empire, while others were incorporated into the Roman army. The battle ensured the survival of the Roman Empire for another two centuries. In 270, after the death of Claudius, Goths under the leadership of Cannabaudes again launched an invasion of the Roman Empire , but were defeated by Aurelian , who, however, did surrender Dacia beyond
13483-587: The domestic, their bodies, marriage, childbirth, or domestic abuse commonly appear in the genre. After the characteristic Gothic Bildungsroman -like plot sequence, female Gothic allowed readers to grow from "adolescence to maturity" in the face of the realized impossibilities of the supernatural. As protagonists such as Adeline in The Romance of the Forest learn that their superstitious fantasies and terrors are replaced by natural cause and reasonable doubt,
13622-935: The early 19th century; works by the Romantic poets , like Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Lord Byron , and novelists such as Mary Shelley , Charles Maturin , Walter Scott and E. T. A. Hoffmann frequently drew upon gothic motifs in their works. The early Victorian period continued the use of gothic aesthetic in novels by Charles Dickens and the Brontë sisters , as well as works by the American writers Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne . Later well-known works were Dracula by Bram Stoker , Richard Marsh's The Beetle and Robert Louis Stevenson 's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde . Twentieth-century contributors include Daphne du Maurier , Stephen King , Shirley Jackson , Anne Rice , and Toni Morrison . Gothic fiction
13761-524: The early 3rd century AD, western Scythia was inhabited by the agricultural Zarubintsy culture and the nomadic Sarmatians . Prior to the Sarmatians, the area had been settled by the Bastarnae , who are believed to have carried out a migration similar to the Goths in the 3rd century BC. Peter Heather considers the Filimer story to be at least partially derived from Gothic oral tradition. The fact that
13900-470: The emerging genre as serious literature to the public. Tragedies such as Hamlet , Macbeth , King Lear , Romeo and Juliet , and Richard III , with plots revolving around the supernatural, revenge, murder, ghosts, witchcraft , and omens , written in dramatic pathos, and set in medieval castles, were a huge influence upon early Gothic authors, who frequently quote, and make allusions to Shakespeare's works. John Milton 's Paradise Lost (1667)
14039-536: The expanding Goths appear to have preserved their Gothic language during their migration suggests that their movement involved a fairly large number of people. By the mid-3rd century AD, the Wielbark culture had contributed to the formation of the Chernyakhov culture in Scythia. This strikingly uniform culture came to stretch from the Danube in the west to the Don in the east. It is believed to have been dominated by
14178-482: The female Gothic allowed women's societal and sexual desires to be introduced. In many respects, the novel's intended reader of the time was the woman who, even as she enjoyed such novels, felt she had to "[lay] down her book with affected indifference, or momentary shame," according to Jane Austen . The Gothic novel shaped its form for woman readers to "turn to Gothic romances to find support for their own mixed feelings." Female Gothic narratives focus on such topics as
14317-401: The height of the Gothic novel's popularity in the 1790s, the genre was almost synonymous with Ann Radcliffe , whose works were highly anticipated and widely imitated. The Romance of the Forest (1791) and The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) were particularly popular. In an essay on Radcliffe, Walter Scott writes of the popularity of Udolpho at the time, "The very name was fascinating, and
14456-538: The historian Dexippus , pushed the invaders to the north where they were intercepted by the Roman army under Gallienus . He won an important victory near the Nessos ( Nestos ) river, on the boundary between Macedonia and Thrace , the Dalmatian cavalry of the Roman army earning a reputation as good fighters. Reported barbarian casualties were 3,000 men. Subsequently, the Heruli leader Naulobatus came to terms with
14595-399: The historian Jordanes who wrote that the Goths originated on Scandza many centuries earlier, and moved to the Vistula delta. However, the accuracy of Jordanes' account for such early gothic history has been questioned by scholars. A people called the Gutones – possibly early Goths – are documented living near the lower Vistula River in current Poland in
14734-410: The last decades of the 3rd century, large numbers of Carpi are recorded as fleeing Dacia for the Roman Empire, having probably been driven from the area by Goths. In 332, Constantine helped the Sarmatians to settle on the north banks of the Danube to defend against the Goths' attacks and thereby enforce the Roman border. Around 100,000 Goths were reportedly killed in battle, and Aoric , son of
14873-400: The late 3rd century it contributed to the formation of the Chernyakhov culture . By the 4th century at the latest, several Gothic groups were distinguishable, among whom the Thervingi and Greuthungi were the most powerful. During this time, Wulfila began the conversion of Goths to Christianity . The Goths are classified as a Germanic people in modern scholarship. Along with
15012-446: The latter poem, the names of the characters, the dream visions, and the macabre physical details are influenced by the novels of premiere Gothicist Ann Radcliffe. Although ushering in the historical novel, and turning popularity away from Gothic fiction, Walter Scott frequently employed Gothic elements in his novels and poetry. Scott drew upon oral folklore , fireside tales, and ancient superstitions, often juxtaposing rationality and
15151-493: The main plot, can include sleeplike and deathlike states, live burials , doubles , unnatural echoes or silences, the discovery of obscured family ties, unintelligible writings, nocturnal landscapes, remote locations, and dreams. Especially in the late 19th century, Gothic fiction often involved demons and demonic possession , ghosts , and other kinds of evil spirits . Gothic fiction often moves between " high culture " and " low " or " popular culture ". Gothic literature
15290-487: The middle of the 2nd century, the Wielbark culture shifted southeast towards the Black Sea . During this time the Wielbark culture is believed to have ejected and partially absorbed peoples of the Przeworsk culture. This was part of a wider southward movement of eastern Germanic tribes, which was probably caused by massive population growth. As a result, other tribes were pushed towards the Roman Empire , contributing to
15429-637: The most celebrated Realists, wrote Faust (1856), Phantoms (1864), Song of the Triumphant Love (1881), and Clara Milich (1883). Another classic Russian Realist, Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky , incorporated Gothic elements into many of his works, although none can be seen as purely Gothic. Grigory Petrovich Danilevsky , who wrote historical and early science fiction novels and stories, wrote Mertvec-ubiytsa ( Dead Murderer ) in 1879. Also, Grigori Alexandrovich Machtet wrote "Zaklyatiy kazak", which may now also be considered Gothic. The 1880s saw
15568-704: The motive of Doppelgänger , a term coined by another German author and supporter of Hoffmann, Jean-Paul , in his humorous novel Siebenkäs (1796–1797). He also wrote an opera based on Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué 's Gothic story Undine (1816), for which de la Motte Fouqué wrote the libretto. Aside from Hoffmann and de la Motte Fouqué, three other important authors from the era were Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff ( The Marble Statue , 1818), Ludwig Achim von Arnim ( Die Majoratsherren , 1819), and Adelbert von Chamisso ( Peter Schlemihls wundersame Geschichte , 1814). After them, Wilhelm Meinhold wrote The Amber Witch (1838) and Sidonia von Bork (1847). In Spain,
15707-517: The name Gutones . The equation between Gutones and later Goths is disputed by several historians. Around 15 AD, Strabo mentions the Butones, Lugii , and Semnones as part of a large group of peoples who came under the domination of the Marcomannic king Maroboduus . The "Butones" are generally equated with the Gutones. The Lugii have sometimes been considered the same people as
15846-521: The north in the forest steppe , suggesting Gothic domination of this area. Peter Heather on the other hand, contends that the extent of Ermanaric's power is exaggerated. Ermanaric's possible dominance of the Volga - Don trade routes has led historian Gottfried Schramm to consider his realm a forerunner of the Viking -founded state of Kievan Rus' . In the western part of Gothic territories, dominated by
15985-452: The north". It is unknown if Goths were involved in these first raids. Gregory Thaumaturgus attributes a third attack to Goths and Boradoi, and claims that some, "forgetting that they were men of Pontus and Christians," joined the invaders. An unsuccessful attack on Pityus was followed in the second year by another, which sacked Pityus and Trabzon and ravaged large areas in the Pontus . In
16124-566: The political plight of Catholic Ireland subjected to the Protestant Ascendancy. Le Fanu's use of the gloomy villain, forbidding mansion, and persecuted heroine in Uncle Silas (1864) shows direct influence from Walpole's Otranto and Radcliffe's Udolpho . Le Fanu's short story collection In a Glass Darkly (1872) includes the superlative vampire tale Carmilla , which provided fresh blood for that particular strand of
16263-495: The power of ancestral sins to curse future generations, or the fear that they will. M. R. James , an English medievalist whose stories are still popular today, is known as the originator of the "antiquarian ghost story." In Spain, Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer stood out with his romantic poems and short tales, some depicting supernatural events. Today some consider him the most-read Spanish writer after Miguel de Cervantes . In addition to these short Gothic fictions, some novels drew on
16402-672: The priest Pascual Pérez Rodríguez was the most diligent novelist in the Gothic way, closely aligned to the supernatural explained by Ann Radcliffe. At the same time, the poet José de Espronceda published The Student of Salamanca (1837–1840), a narrative poem that presents a horrid variation on the Don Juan legend. In Russia, authors of the Romantic era include Antony Pogorelsky (penname of Alexey Alexeyevich Perovsky), Orest Somov , Oleksa Storozhenko , Alexandr Pushkin , Nikolai Alekseevich Polevoy , Mikhail Lermontov (for his work Stuss ), and Alexander Bestuzhev-Marlinsky . Pushkin
16541-518: The public, who rushed upon it with all the eagerness of curiosity, rose from it with unsated appetite. When a family was numerous, the volumes flew, and were sometimes torn from hand to hand." Radcliffe's novels were often seen as the feminine and rational opposite of a more violently horrifying male Gothic associated with Matthew Lewis . Radcliffe's final novel, The Italian (1797), responded to Lewis's The Monk (1796). Radcliffe and Lewis have been called "the two most significant Gothic novelists of
16680-461: The reader may grasp the heroine's true position: "The heroine possesses the romantic temperament that perceives strangeness where others see none. Her sensibility, therefore, prevents her from knowing that her true plight is her condition, the disability of being female." 'Tis now the very witching time of night, When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out Contagion to this world. Now could I drink hot blood, And do such bitter business as
16819-539: The region as Oium. In the 360s, Athanaric , son of Aoric and leader of the Thervingi, supported the usurper Procopius against the Eastern Roman Emperor Valens . In retaliation, Valens invaded the territories of Athanaric and defeated him , but was unable to achieve a decisive victory. Athanaric and Valens thereupon negotiated a peace treaty, favorable to the Thervingi, on a boat in the Danube river, as Athanaric refused to set his feet within
16958-485: The revival of the Gothic as a powerful literary form allied to fin de siecle , which fictionalized contemporary fears like ethical degeneration and questioned the social structures of the time. Classic works of this Urban Gothic include Robert Louis Stevenson 's Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), Oscar Wilde 's The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), George du Maurier 's Trilby (1894), Richard Marsh 's The Beetle (1897), Henry James ' The Turn of
17097-469: The rule of Maroboduus. Prior to this, it is probable that both the Gutones and Vandals had been subjects of the Marcomanni. Sometime after settling Gothiscandza , Jordanes writes that the Goths defeated the neighbouring Vandals. Wolfram believes the Gutones freed themselves from Vandalic domination at the beginning of the 2nd century AD. In his Geography from around 150 AD, Ptolemy mentions
17236-509: The scale of the invasion. After failing to storm some towns on the coasts of the western Black Sea and the Danube ( Tomi , Marcianopolis ), the invaders attacked Byzantium and Chrysopolis . Part of their fleet was wrecked, either because of the Goth's inexperience in sailing through the violent currents of the Propontis or because they were defeated by the Roman navy. Then they entered
17375-506: The scheming of Fritigern. Athanaric received a warm reception by Theodosius, praised the Roman Emperor in return, and was honoured with a magnificent funeral by the emperor following his death shortly after his arrival. In 382, Theodosius decided to enter peace negotiations with the Thervingi, which were concluded on 3 October 382. The Thervingi were subsequently made foederati of the Romans in Thrace and obliged to provide troops to
17514-468: The story. The buildings in The Castle of Otranto , for example, are riddled with tunnels that characters use to move back and forth in secret. This movement mirrors the secrets surrounding Manfred's possession of the castle and how it came into his family. From the castles, dungeons , forests, and hidden passages of the Gothic novel genre emerged female Gothic. Guided by the works of authors such as Ann Radcliffe , Mary Shelley , and Charlotte Brontë ,
17653-649: The supernatural. Novels such as The Bride of Lammermoor (1819), in which the characters' fates are decided by superstition and prophecy , or the poem Marmion (1808), in which a nun is walled alive inside a convent, illustrate Scott's influence and use of Gothic themes. A late example of a traditional Gothic novel is Melmoth the Wanderer (1820) by Charles Maturin , which combines themes of anti-Catholicism with an outcast Byronic hero. Jane C. Loudon 's The Mummy! (1827) features standard Gothic motifs, characters, and plot, but with one significant twist; it
17792-420: The territory of the Goths. A source for this period is the Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus , who wrote that Hunnic domination of the Gothic kingdoms in Scythia began in the 370s. It is possible that the Hunnic attack came as a response to the Gothic expansion eastwards. Upon the suicide of Ermanaric (died 376), the Greuthungi gradually fell under Hunnic domination. Christopher I. Beckwith suggests that
17931-538: The third year, a much larger force devastated large areas of Bithynia and the Propontis , including the cities of Chalcedon , Nicomedia , Nicaea , Apamea Myrlea , Cius and Bursa . By the end of the raids, the Goths had seized control over Crimea and the Bosporus and captured several cities on the Euxine coast, including Olbia and Tyras , which enabled them to engage in widespread naval activities. After
18070-459: The transgressive and dangerous attempts to subvert and escape such restriction. Emily Brontë's Cathy and Charlotte Brontë 's Jane Eyre are examples of female protagonists in such roles. Louisa May Alcott 's Gothic potboiler, A Long Fatal Love Chase (written in 1866 but published in 1995), is also an interesting specimen of this subgenre. Charlotte Brontë's Villette also shows the Gothic influence, with its supernatural subplot featuring
18209-412: Was Horace Walpole 's The Castle of Otranto (1764). The first edition presented the story as a translation of a sixteenth-century manuscript and was widely popular. Walpole, in the second edition, revealed himself as the author which adding the subtitle "A Gothic Story." The revelation prompted a backlash from readers, who considered it inappropriate for a modern author to write a supernatural story in
18348-612: Was a notable Gothic writer, and converted from Catholicism to Anglicanism. In Switzerland, Jeremias Gotthelf wrote The Black Spider (1842), an allegorical work that uses Gothic themes. The last work from the German writer Theodor Storm , The Rider on the White Horse (1888), also uses Gothic motives and themes. After Gogol, Russian literature saw the rise of Realism, but many authors continued to write stories within Gothic fiction territory. Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev , one of
18487-422: Was also very influential among Gothic writers, who were especially drawn to the tragic anti-hero character Satan , who became a model for many charismatic Gothic villains and Byronic heroes . Milton's "version of the myth of the fall and redemption, creation and decreation, is, as Frankenstein again reveals, an important model for Gothic plots." Alexander Pope , who had a considerable influence on Walpole,
18626-461: Was an aesthetic to tie the elements together. Bloom notes that this aesthetic must take the form of a theoretical or philosophical core, which is necessary to "sav[e] the best tales from becoming mere anecdote or incoherent sensationalism." In this case, the aesthetic needed to be emotional, and was finally provided by Edmund Burke 's 1757 work, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of
18765-555: Was not merely in literature that a medieval revival made itself felt, and this, too, contributed to a culture ready to accept a perceived medieval work in 1764. The Gothic often uses scenery of decay, death, and morbidity to achieve its effects (especially in the Italian Horror school of Gothic). However, Gothic literature was not the origin of this tradition; it was far older. The corpses, skeletons, and churchyards so commonly associated with early Gothic works were popularized by
18904-527: Was productive of both Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus (1818), and Polidori's short story " The Vampyre " (1819), featuring the Byronic Lord Ruthven . "The Vampyre" has been accounted by cultural critic Christopher Frayling as one of the most influential works of fiction ever written and spawned a craze for vampire fiction and theatre (and, latterly, film) that has not ceased to this day. Although clearly influenced by
19043-578: Was published unfinished upon his death in 1870. The mood and themes of the Gothic novel held a particular fascination for the Victorians, with their obsession with mourning rituals, mementos , and mortality in general. Irish Catholics also wrote Gothic fiction in the 19th century. Although some Anglo-Irish dominated and defined the subgenre decades later, they did not own it. Irish Catholic Gothic writers included Gerald Griffin , James Clarence Mangan , and John and Michael Banim . William Carleton
19182-679: Was the American Edgar Allan Poe , who wrote numerous short stories and poems reinterpreting Gothic tropes. His story " The Fall of the House of Usher " (1839) revisits classic Gothic tropes of aristocratic decay, death, and insanity . Poe is now considered the master of the American Gothic. In England, one of the most influential penny dreadfuls is the anonymously authored Varney the Vampire (1847), which introduced
19321-463: Was the first significant poet of the 18th century to write a poem in an authentic Gothic manner. Eloisa to Abelard (1717), a tale of star-crossed lovers, one doomed to a life of seclusion in a convent, and the other in a monastery, abounds in gloomy imagery, religious terror, and suppressed passion. The influence of Pope's poem is found throughout 18th-century Gothic literature, including the novels of Walpole, Radcliffe, and Lewis. Gothic literature
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