Grasping the Gothic part three: revival and rebirth
Ahead of the publication of Modern Gothic an eerie anthology from Fly on the Wall Press uneasywords is exploring the Gothic genre, its origins, influences and development.
The foolery on Strawberry Hill
Horace Walpole (1717–1797) is surely the principal benefactor of the Gothic genre. He was a pioneer of the Gothic Revival movement in architecture and interior design, wrote several Gothic stories, including what is generally regarded as the first Gothic novel, and coined the best descriptor of the mood that we now associate with the genre: gloomth.
The son of the long-serving Whig Prime Minister Robert Walpole, Horace was also an MP, elected while he was abroad on the ‘Grand Tour’. He never visited his Cornwall constituency. He later represented Castle Hill and King’s Lynn, both of which had previously returned his father to Parliament. He became an extensive chronicler of public events, social and artistic life, entertainments, and gossip of the period. In 1748 he purchased a house called ‘Chopp’d Straw Hall’ which he then set about converting, extending, and elaborating in the Gothic style.
Significantly, Walpole made no attempt to disguise the truth that the new house he created was anything other than fake. He referred to it as his ‘toy’ or ‘gingerbread’ house. Rather than demolishing the original he clad it in a new exterior, increased the overall footprint and decorated the interiors with wood, plaster and even papier mâché to create the illusions that he desired.
Pressing on
Horace Walpole installed one of the first private printing presses at the house he renamed (from historical maps) as Strawberry Hill. He printed limited copies of stories and plays that he would share with his friends at special readings. It was also the place where he wrote The Castle of Otranto which is regarded by many as being the first Gothic novel.
More Grail than Gothic
The Castle of Ortranto is generally considered to be the first Gothic novel, and yet modern readers find it by turns ludicrous and unreadable.[1]
Can there be a more damning first line of an introduction? Yet Nick Groom is not wrong as he gets the Oxford University Press edition underway. I have to confess I abandoned my first reading less than half way through. I have since managed the whole ninety pages, but must echo Groom’s warning by saying that, if you are seeking a typical Gothic work, you will be disappointed. It is more of a medieval fantasy than a spectral escapade. Yes, there are secret passages, dead things live, portraits and pieces of armour do strange things, and it is set in a castle – but an Italian castle. Italy is not renowned for being the cold bed of Gothic and the action is at times farcical and romantic to the point of melodrama. Perhaps Walpole was using this new northern-influenced style to make fools of the classically-spawned southerners but this is not what gloomth-lovers expect from the brand he forged. Nevertheless, he unleashed the puppies that would grow into the dogs of Goth. As Nick Groom goes on to argue, it is wrong to judge a pioneer by the standards of his successors.
The Castle of Otranto broke new ground, shocking eighteenth-century readers into what Groom describes as ‘astonished awe’. Walpole claimed his novel blended ancient and modern romance. It was only when the first edition was a success that he took proper ownership of it. The preface to edition one (published 1764) starts with:
The following work was found in the library of an ancient Catholic family in the north of England. It was printed at Naples, in the black letter, in 1529.[2]
Whereas the preface to the second edition, published just four months later, opens thus:
The favourable manner in which this little piece has been received by the public, calls upon the author to explain the grounds on which he composed it.[3]
It was for the second edition that the words A Gothic Story were added to the title page. As explained in the first post of this series Sharpening the curve, the meaning of Gothic as perceived and propagated by Walpole was multi-layered. He saw Gothic influences as more truthful and vernacular than the classical traditions that had come to dominate Georgean fashion. To him and many of his associates Gothic was both ancient and modern, in fact, ultramodern and revolutionary. It was eighteenth century punk.
Hieroglyphic Tales
It was while visiting Strawberry Hill for – almost – unrelated reasons in 2013 that I picked up a copy of Walpole’s Hieroglyphic Tales. Published almost twenty years after Otranto these stories are no more Gothic but they are equally unconventional for the time. They are considered to be the first surreal writings in English. The title again acknowledges the Gothic, as contemporary thought associated the Goths with the reading and writing of runes, a hieroglyphic style of inscription considered somewhat otherworldly in its meaning and power.
Better than the original
While being rather reluctant to recommend The Castle of Otranto, I heartly encourage a visit to Strawberry Hill. I went in search of the origins of a rock band[4], and found the source of the style that would dominate the nineteenth century, creep on into the twentieth, and send virulent tendrils into the twenty-first.
Gothic Revival architecture has a much higher gloomth potential than the original. It is more elaborate, more multifaceted, more grotesque and more susceptible to to decay. Original Gothic seems fossilised, while neglected Gothic Revival structures are still rotting. Thankfully, Strawberry Hill is no longer being neglected.
Not blown away.
“My buildings, like my writings, are of paper, and will blow away ten years after my death,” said Horace Walpole.
Well, they didn’t, but it’s a sentiment worth reviving by those of us who put pen to paper. Everything is ephemeral.
Except gloomth.
You’ll find six varieties of gloomth in the forthcoming Modern Gothic anthology. There’s exotic, there’s Appalachian, Edwardian, cultured, and even beautiful. Perhaps the most immediate strain is to be found in Lauren Archer’s The Rot which tracks organic gloomth out of our everyday modernity and into the most private places. See and hear more here: Meet the Modern Gothic Authors! Click on the pic to pre-order.
References and links
[1] Walpole H, The Castle of Otranto, Oxford University Press, 2014, page ix
[2] Ibid page 5
[3] Ibid page 9
[4] See: Savouring Strawbs
Strawberry Hill House website: https://www.strawberryhillhouse.org.uk/
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