Gothic Architecture in Gothic Literature
Makes sense that architecture is a big deal for a literary movement in which the setting acts as a main character, right? In fact, if it weren't for Gothic architecture, a darker component of Romanticism may not have manifested at all. Luckily for us, good ole Harry Walpole, like many of his English contemporaries in the 18th century, had an abundance of crumbling buildings populating their landscapes.
People often made a holiday of touring old homes and castles, and what struck Walpole was a sense of the profound. Walpole was so enamored of them that he rebuilt his own home, Stanberry Hill, in their image (hey, it pays to be the Prime Minister's son).
During the Medieval period (particularly from the 12th to the 15th centuries), when many of these cathedrals, abbeys, and estates were just making their entrance, people wanted to create massive spaces that reached up into the heavens. They were ornately designed and featured architectural innovations like vaulted ceilings and flying buttresses on the outside to support ever-taller ceilings. They sported gargoyles and saints and stained glass windows and took several centuries to build (some are still incomplete).
These buildings are impossible to miss, but by the 16th century (we're in the Renaissance now—don't get lost) some people, like Giorgio Vasari, wished he had missed them. An art critic during the Renaissance, Vasari wasn't so into what the Medievalists had thrown down…er, built up? He saw these buildings as a big, ugly mar on his visual plane. He was so grossed out by them that he's the one that first called them "Gothic" buildings.
But where did the name even come from?
Goths (the original Goths, that is) were nomadic German tribes that invaded Rome and settled in much of Europe starting in about the 4th century (way, way before there was even a whiff of Romanticism). Considering Rome is…in Italy, an Italian art critic during the Renaissance (ahem, Vasari) would have a less than favorable opinion about the people who sacked it (even if it was like 10 centuries earlier). In fact, Goth was a pejorative term people used to indicate the barbarous, uncivilized, unsettled, or unrefined. When Vasari used it to describe these buildings though, the term stuck and morphed.
By the time Walpole fell in love with these buildings, the word Gothic not only described this type of architecture; it encapsulated how the 18th century viewed the entire Medieval period. To them, it was remote, dark, gruesome, violent, emotionally charged, superstitious, and untamed. In contrast to Enlightenment values, the Romantics, well, romanticized this period and tried to replicate these elements in fiction. In a way, Walpole was writing the first fan fiction, but his inspiration, and leading lady, was a castle.
Chew on This
One of our own favorite literary ladies, Jane Austen, put together a pretty entertaining parody of Gothic novels with Northanger Abbey. Check out just how much this place shakes up little Catherine Morland.
Want to get acquainted with your standard Gothic castle? Scale its walls like one Jonathan Harker does in Dracula. Check it out and see what just what makes the forbidden corridors so threatening.