1. The Gothic
A presentation

2. The Goths
Heterogeneous East Germanic tribe around during the early few 100s
Participated in the sacking of Rome
Possibility of Swedish origin

3. Romanesque Preceded the Gothic movement.
Impacted Catholic Europe around 12c.
An anti-classical style, primary colours, stained glass popular.
Mainly biblical and pictorial
Angoulême’s 12th Century Romanesque Cathedral
Lisbon Cathedral
Tournai Cathedral, Belgium

4. Reims Cathedral Façade
Gothic Architecture
Was known as “the French style” 12c-16c.
Gothic art emanated from medieval ‘barbaric’ style
Features: the pointed arch, the ribbed vault and the flying buttress.
Reims Cathedral Façade

5. TiNGZ Themes Key Features Stock Characters
Dogs, cats, toads, bats, shrimps
Moon - werewolves
Blood – red/black
Vessels – familiars
Witches - occult
Castles – cold flagstones
Thresholds; pointed arches, windows
Daggers – murder-fever
Fire (places) – safe places
Terror and the Sublime
Pathetic Fallacy - storms
Mystery and tension (opposites)
Death, violence and ill-will
Distortions of nature
Excess of passions; melodrama
Confinement and transgression
Supernatural! Revenants, dreams, curses
Foiling and doubles
Religion and sin
Macabre and gruesome
Personified setting
Monsters/madness
Subplots
Stock Characters
Themes
Tyrants, villains/bandits, maniacs, Byronic Heroes, persecuted maidens, femmes fatales, monks/nuns, magicians, vampires, demons, (fallen) angels, revenants, skeletons, The Wandering Jew, the Devil !

6. Famous Literary Texts
Ann Radcliff's ‘The Mysteries of Udolpho’, 1794, is the quintessential Gothic Romance.
Much of her style, however, was a bit like Scooby Doo and had ‘“proper”’ heroines
‘The Castle of Otranto’ by Horace Walpole in 1764 is regarded as the first Gothic Novel.
Melodrama, parody and terror
Dracula 1897; Bram Stoker
Frankenstein 1818; Mary Shelley

7. Horror/Terror/Sublime
Horror is more gratuitous and explicit, making you feel queasy and/or freeze
Terror is more an anticipation of what is to come and sets the mind’s faculties at work at high tension
Gothic works inhabit the latter
They also talk about the sublime, linked with the ‘passion of fear’
According to Kant, objects may create a fearfulness without being scary themselves
This highlights the importance of symbolism and mystique to the Gothic genre