The Art of Gothic Review

It was interesting how the three programmes 'The Art of Gothic' explored not only into the obvious aspects of the Gothic genre (like the literature, art and architecture), but into some more of the symbolic resonances that the Gothic leaves on society. 

One element that particularly stood out to me was at the end of the third part where Andrew Graham-Dixon mentioned how our modern society has influences from the Gothic, by even going as far to say that we are using the element of escapism in our modern life through the influence of technology. He speaks of how we are always looking for a way to escape from modern life, and much like previous generations would've sought solace in the Gothic novels, we do so by engrossing ourselves in our phones- which is probably also due to the influence of technology and social media on our modern society. Another way that I think the Gothic is still having influence on our society is through our seeming fascination with the unknown, and the need to be shocked/scared. We are constantly being shown images that shock us as the Internet leaves little to the imagination in terms of horror being a singular thing that we hardly see, so we are continuously looking for different mediums that scare us, the most popular being what we know as 'real' being distorted. This could be seen to tie back to the Penny Dreadfuls, where the horrors of a changing society were brought out to install horror into the lives of the working class and so titles like 'Sweeney Todd' were brought out. In our modern society our versions of Penny Dreadfuls would probably be stories of mental illness affecting an average person which then causes a horrific event, as this is something that we have seen in some news stories across the years it is realistic and thus installing a new sense of fear into our hearts. 

An interesting part of the documentary was showing how historical events did influence the Gothic movement across the years. One such event which was such a big influence on the Gothic genre was the industrial revolution, it was intriguing how such a change can influence a genre like the Gothic. As the landscapes were changing, so were the Gothic novels; they were becoming a reflection of the turmoil that the country was in as their lives were changing. At the beginning of the industrial revolution, science was the enemy and people were scared of what it would do. They saw it as a way to play God and were worried at what would be the consequences of doing so, as is shown in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. It's intriguing that something that we take for granted in modern society was such a terrifying thing, we embrace the influence that science has on our society and yet just a few centuries previous they would've been cautious about the entire subject. 

As the landscape was changing along with the lives of everyone in Britain, the new Gothic novels would feature the plague of the mind and going into the recesses of it. Much like modern society, people would use drugs to escape the modern world and go deep into themselves, escaping the ever changing world. In modern society, recreational drug use is much more common, especially amongst young people, and is typically seen as a way to cope with the pressures of life. However there was a Gothic response to the dangers of using drugs in the form of De Quincey's 'Confessions of an Opium Eater', it being written as a recount of his experiences to put off those who are using. I think in the modern world, although people are told that it is an illegal act they still partake in it so that they can escape the world, which can also be seen as escaping into themselves much like the past generations. 

The Art of Gothic just shows how timeless the Gothic genre is and how it has stretched (and is still stretching) across so many generations of time. In a sense it is a timeless genre, even though we may not know that we are seeing something 'Gothic', if you look back into the origins there is probably and element or tie to the Gothic genre.