In 1764, Horace Walpole's "The Castle of Otranto," an enraged prince finds his inept son's body crushed benefactor a giant helmet inexplicably in his courtyard. Walpole's story, still a page-turner, was the first classic European Gothic novel. Readers clamored for more such chilling stories.
"Gothic," was, in Walpole's day, a pejorative term for an architectural style considered as barbaric as the hordes for which they were named. The Goths, fleeing the Huns centuries earlier, did not quite bring down the Roman Empire. However, they embroidered Christianity and preserved the best of Roman culture, carrying it with them as they swept through Europe.
Out of the Gothic experience came stories of betrayal, mystery, the supernatural or the shocking, fear of the unknown, and flawed characters bearing grudges and deep secrets. Dark, foreboding castles were the perfect backdrop for these forerunners of modern horror stories. Walpole's novel, and those that followed, became wildly popular, with titles such as Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" and Bram Stoker's "Dracula" defining the genre.
American writers embroidered the Gothic stories, but none so brilliantly as those from the Civil War-torn South. They inherently understand the genre, and wrote with an authenticity unlike any others, so its unique universal appeal. Ruined homesteads and plants replaced the castles. Shattered figures struggled to maintain their identity in a culture ripped apart and exposed to its core.
O'Connor, Faulkner, Harper Lee, Conroy, Williams, Capote, Eudora Welty (although she often protested, "Do not put me in there!), And others stripped away any pretense in flawed or unbalanced characters. appealing and somehow understood, harkening back to the genre's Gothic roots.
Some current writers are not convinced that Southern Gothic is compatible with modern storytelling. "The latest best examples of Southern Gothic are twenty years old or older," said Jamie Komegay, the author of "Soil," in the June 2, 2015, edition of "The Huffington Post."
He continues, "With the flattening of the South, the old aristocrats have all moved to the city. Today Southern gentility has been replaced by conservative policies, which is anything but chivalrous. "The decay of the Old South is aggressively appropriate."
However, Komegay's own works believe his words. His books include vital elements of the genre. Furthermore, there's a whole generation of Southern Gothic writers who carry on their hair-raising, dark, but humor-laced traditions. In fact, a new strain of Gothic called Grit-Lit or Rough South emerged from the 1970s works of Cormac McCarthy, including "Child of God" and "Suttree."
The South is changing, but old times and ways are not yet forgotten. Hopefully, the good ones will remain. Just as the Goths preserved the best of the Roman Empire, Southern Gothic writers can carry on the good, and hopefully the quirky, mysterious, ways of that enigmatic but beloved corner of our land. My library wish list recommends they'll succeed.
The post The History of Southern Gothic Writing appeared first on Tica Tica Boom.
No comments:
Post a Comment