I sometimes ask myself is a Theory of Everything Gothic
possible? As I try to answer this question I will examine the roots of
the culture. Goths themselves have always seemed to beyond any attempt at
definition.
goth
n.
1. A style of
rock music that
often evokes bleak, lugubrious imagery.
2. A performer or follower of
this style of music.
From Gothic(from
a view of Gothic styles or genres as dark or gloomy).
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English
Language, Fourth Edition
Goths often have a fascination with medieval, Victorian and
Edwardian history.
Some of this has
come from the culture of birth - the UK punk scene… or was it perhaps there is
a little more to this culture than at first I thought...
We see lines of demarcation drawn between so called "Traditional" Goths (Trad-Goths),
Next Generation Goths, Wannabe Goths (teen-boppers in black), Newbie/Baby
Goths, EBM/Electro Goths (a gothic version of the Raver), fetish
goths (goths from the fetish scene), we also see new wave, dark wave, next wave
and a lot of made up names with no meaning.
When I first encountered goths I encountered only the
liberal, traditional and mostly Christian variety. I was taught about gothic sharing and friendliness.
I was told of the new joke: "pink is the new black"; I was taken under
the wing of many life long goths and I learned the culture I had discovered,
loved and came to see it as mine
(write what you
know).
Let us get one thing clear “goth” is a word and a name it started in a
very strange way with no idea where it would come from and it started like this:
goth
n.
A member of a Germanic people who invaded the
Roman Empire in the early centuries of the Christian era.
From Middle English Gothes, Goths,
from Late Latin
Goth
, of Germanic origin; akin to Old English
Gota, and Old Norse Goti, Goth.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of
the English Language, Fourth Edition
This fits very well with the idea of “not classic” but
where does that idea come from?
It comes from the gothic novel the often surprising and strangely
twisted world that brought us Frankenstein, Edger Allen Poe and a thousand Ghost
stories.
It was the "fault" of one man (Horace Walpole) who
needed to invent a new word or give new meanings to an old one.
Goth
adv.
Word History: The combination Gothic
romance represents a union of two of the major influences in the development
of European culture, the Roman Empire and the Germanic tribes that invaded it.
The Roman origins of romance must be sought in the etymology of that
word, but we can see clearly that Gothic is related to the name Goth
used for one of those invading Germanic tribes. The word Gothic, first
recorded in 1611 in a reference to the language of the Goths, was extended in
sense in several ways, meaning “Germanic,” “medieval,
not classical,” “barbarous,” and also an architectural style that was
not Greek or Roman. Horace Walpole applied the word Gothic to his novel The
Castle of Otranto, a Gothic Story (1765) in the sense “medieval, not
classical.” From this novel filled with scenes of terror and gloom in a
medieval setting descended a literary genre still popular today; from its
subtitle descended the name for it.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English
Language, Fourth Edition
It was clearly to
this (the 1765 new wave of literature)
that the reference (first made by the media) was made.
We could say that the gothic culture started back in 18th
Century.
"I think a few people might be confusing an aesthetic
which has been with us for centuries with recent manifestations of said
aesthetic… 'Goth' will be around as long as people are. It's simply that in
future times it will be expressed in ways we cannot yet imagine and probably
wouldn't immediately recognize. However, looking more closely we might see the
common thread back to our time and those which came before."
-- VXL (SlashGoth)
But in and of itself
the very word is rich and this richness is hidden by the vagueness of a culture
for which it has been fashionable to deny membership thereof.
Again, we boil back to the punk rebellion against the control of popular
culture (among other things).
It was this backlash against conformity that launched a sub culture to the point that
it became a named sub-culture.
“As new ideas are embraced, things just get a bit more
interesting. There was a time when even the Nephilim were considered to be
bugger all to do with goth!!Would you really want to live in a world where
nothing ever changed?
"We used to take the kiddie-goths under our wing rather than
trying to keep them out of the scene. If they're really into it, then they'll
stick around. If not, then sooner or later they'll bugger off back to
top-shop.” -- Mav (SlashGoth)
Change as a stable
component!
But even with this
change there will always be those that will cling with all they have to the
moment fearful and unwilling to allow change this is human nature and will not
easily bend to a culture.
As a result there
will always be those who consider themselves a goth and will try to define it
differently. (Not to mention those who don't know what their culture is a
call themselves goth inappropriately).
“True gothicism comes from the inside not about wearing
new rocks or black eyeliner. I have met people who claim toi be goths who have
never heard of Edgar Allan Poe. What a Joke?” -- child_of_darkness (SlashGoth)
Lest even goths
forget the history of the word (as they will and have):
goth
adj.
-
- Of or relating to the
Goths or their language.
- Germanic; Teutonic.
- Of or relating to the Middle
Ages; medieval.
-
- Of or relating to an
architectural style prevalent in western Europe from the 12th through the
15th century and characterized by pointed arches, rib vaulting, and a
developing emphasis on verticality and the impression of height.
- Of or relating to an
architectural style derived from medieval Gothic.
- Of or relating to painting,
sculpture, or other art forms prevalent in northern Europe from the 12th
through the 15th century.
- often gothic Of or
relating to a style of fiction that emphasizes the grotesque, mysterious,
and desolate.
- gothic Barbarous;
crude.
n.
- The extinct East Germanic
language of the Goths.
- Gothic art or architecture.
- often gothic Printing.
- See black letter.
- See sans serif.
- A novel in a style
emphasizing the grotesque, mysterious, and desolate.
Or to put it without tact as one townie did for me once:
“Goth is all about retro” this is of course right but utterly wrong.
"Does music make the goth? Not entirely perhaps, but it's
safe to say that shared musical taste is a defining aspect of the gothic
subculture."-- http://www.netgoth.org.uk/music/
It must be said that eventually in order to pin down and
head toward the Theory of Everything Gothic one must inevitably refer to music.
Music culture likes to shock, surprise and draw attention to itself in any way it can. It is modern theatre.
But do not confuse reality
and drama. This mist of understanding is both the bane and the blessing:
“…it would be better for the goth scene to die out (and
re-emerge, fresh, sometime in the future) than to become merged with the
mainstream… however i think bands like slipknot and marilyn manson are a
blessing to goths-- they confuse non-goths, and provide a 'safety net' into
which all these wannabes (though i hate to use the word) fall before they come
anywhere near us.” --Deniel (SlashGoth)
“In the aftermath of the student and staff murders at
Columbine high school... the media searched for simple reasons to explain the
terrible tragedy. Some reporters bypassed the obvious causes (two teens having
easy access to handguns and rifles... their lack of respect for human life...
lack of hope for the future)... Some reporters mentioned that the alleged
perpetrators followed the Goth culture. A few reporters have incorrectly
associated Goth with Satanism, violence, white supremacy and intolerance. The
implication was that the Goth culture had been the cause of the alleged
perpetrators' obsession with revenge, and thus is at least partly responsible
for the homicides.” -- http://www.religioustolerance.org/goth.htm
Clearly not everyone understands the Goth scene as it is
now but this has not always been the case.
Struggling to come up with a definition (a theory of everything) a
forgotten media type used the word Goth - The word Goth is the theory of
everything for the Gothic culture.
Now, I feel it only fair to let the last word go to another.
“As to the future, I suppose goth is bound to change, as
it has done before. There are trad goths (like me), and there are cyber goths,
which I only knew existed for about the past 4 years. That's not a mutation out
of trad goth is it? It's a hybrid. I think we can look forward to seeing more
hybridisation of goth in the future. There's bound to be a lot more crossover of
skate punks and nu-metallers into the goth scene, which may dilute it somewhat.
The answer to that is either to incorporate (and tame?) those influences or to
go into retreat and maintain events like Whitby as refuges of goth 'purity';"
-- David-in-Cardiff (SlashGoth)
References: As stated plus:
- Personal history
- http://www.Dictionary.com
- http://slashgoth.org
- http://www.religioustolerance.org/goth.htm
- http://www.netgoth.org.uk/