Victorian Versus Gothic Symbols

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………1

CHAPTER I – THE VICTORIAN PERIOD…………………………………….2

Politics and women………………………………………………………..3

Victorian literature and Queen Victoria……………………………………9

Victorian architecture…………………………………………………….17

CHAPTER II – THE GOTHIC PERIOD……………………………………….25

2.1. The Gothic novel……………………………………………………….….26

2.2. The evolution of the Gothic genre………………………….………………30

2.3. Gothic architecture……………………………….………………………..35

CHAPTER III – VICTORIAN VERSUS GOTHIC SYMBOLS……………… 38

3.1. Victorian symbols……………………………………………………….…38

3.2. Gothic symbols………………………………………………………….….40

3.3. Differences and similarities……………………………………………..…43

CONCLUSIONS……………………………………………………….……….47

REFERENCES………………………………………………..…………….…49

INTRODUCTION

The reign of Queen Victoria is as close as the one of Henry VIII, who most profoundly marked the British being and feeling. In full international industrialization and the acquisition of an immense empire, England opted towards the cultural and political era of isolation, trying to revive the essential English periods of its history.

In 1981, the British generation that entered adolescence with a glamorous lifestyle and then joined Punk and the New Romantic movement, found themselves the victim of their own inventiveness. All these movements had been absorbed by mainstream culture, especially the New Romantic, whose aesthetic flooded music and other industries.

But, what is Gothic? It is basically indefinable, because "Goth" means different things to each one of us. Some commonly observed factors as a unique style of music, art, and literature. The use of black clothes, refined makeup and elaborate hairstyles, the fascination with medieval, Victorian and Edwardian history is another point in common. Goths tend to be nonviolent, melancholic and sensitive. Many in the media have mistakenly associated the Goths with violence and racism. In general, the Goths do not feel comfortable in modern society; they are feeling isolated and not identifying with what excited other kids, so they look for a way to express those feelings. Others find the scene through literature and music. A fascination with death and its symbols is common. They try to find a different way of thinking about life, as trying to find beauty in life, in pain and death.

The present paper starts with The Victorian Period by focusing on the political world, the women and literature of those times, its most famous queen and architecture.

The Gothic Period is the title for the second chapter, including presentation upon the gothic novel, evolution of the gothic genre and architecture.

The last and final chapter brings to our attention symbols between these times, differences and similarities, after taking each separate era in consideration.

The papers end with the Conclusions resulting in this paper and the References which have helped in the development of the present paper.

CHAPTER I

THE VICTORIAN PERIOD

Taking into consideration questions regarding class, these are fundamental aspects of nineteenth-century British history. The class was an important part of contemporaries’ world-view and class distinctions were deeply incorporated into the social fabric. For much of the century class was not only the one most important form of social categorization, but also the foundation of understandings of political and social change and of the narratives which were constructed around them. For contemporaries, the history of the nineteenth century was written, above all in the turning fortunes of the classes, the eclipse of the aristocracy, and the victory of the middle class and the challenge of the working class.

The 19th century political historiography discovered no position in women’s or gender history. Focusing on the progress of political institutions and on masculine politicians it was assumed that the politics in the nineteenth century owed little to women, separately from a few exceptional examples. Assessments of nineteenth-century gender and politics have endured a series of paradigm turns since the 1970s and the subject is now characterized by contradictory narratives about the model of women in public life in that period. This has tended to similar discussions about identity, men and politics a domain that until now had been viewed as unproblematic. The effect of these theoretical discussions has been to construct a different vision, of the lives of women, men and the entire panorama of nineteenth-century political history.

In 1960, the progress of social history did little to counteract the supposition that political history was written without mention to women or gender. The centre remained on political establishments and masculine political actors, although centred in the working-class than elite communities.

In 1970, the rise of women’s history, characterized by Rowbotham’s Hidden from History, contributed to foreground women’s model in the politics of the nation. Although pioneer women’s historians had various objectives, there was an underlying feminist agenda that distinguished their work as they searched both to reveal the roots of the ideology of patriarchal oppression and to follow the origins of women’s political action as a means of explaining the contemporary fighting for women’s liberation. This conducted to a search to recover past heroines of women’s movements that imitated the main approach of many traditional political historians. There was also a concentration on the early-twentieth-century campaigns of female vote campaigners that concentrated on women’s struggle to obtain the franchise and centred on women’s penetration of the high political territory. A consequence of this research was that many of the early writers assumed there was a little female political agency either outside the campaign for the vote or for much of the nineteenth century.

A second theoretical current appeared in the 1970s and 1980s, influenced by the application of social scientific, literary and cultural methodologies to history. This supposed the categories of gender, race and class as central to any social structure. The most influential and innovative example of this conceptual progress was Davidoff and Hall’s Family Fortunes. They underlined their intentions thus: “In particular, our concern has been to give the neglected dimension of gender its full weight and complexity in the shaping and structuring of middle-class social life in this period.” In a thesis, they tried to demonstrate the crucial impact of changing gender roles on the formation of a different middle-class identity in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. They recognized the important nineteenth-century rhetoric of separate territories in establishing boundaries between the public and private worlds of the English middle class. While public life was seen as an exclusively male territory characterized by the virtues of action, determination and resolve, the domestic setting was where women’s moral virtues of gentleness, tenderness, piety and faith developed.

These ideals were originally expressed in England by a group of evangelicals and being suited to the values of the appearing middle class, they became central to the bourgeois identity of the nineteenth century, absorbed by government policy-makers and social commentators.

Politics and women

The use of ‘separate spheres’ ideologies to characterize gender relations mainly in this period has been contested by historians who have sustained that the discourse of domesticity was neither novel of the nineteenth century nor restricted to a unique social class. There was separation of responsibilities, mainly among the middle class, but this did not necessarily take place along public/private boundaries and were permanently negotiated. In special fields, such as philanthropy, the boundaries between the public and private domains intersected. Historians have continued to consider the use of the language of separate domains. A recent contributor to the debate has sustained that ‘several spheres’ is a more adequate term to describe the ways in which middle-class women interpreted their public and political identity and that it is difficult to establish one definition of such a complex term. These multiple interpretations of ‘separate spheres’ reflect the mentalities of nineteenth-century commentators themselves. Although many conduct manuals and social-policy makers glorified the virtues of the bourgeois culture of domesticity, some radicals and early feminists embraced the idea of the home as an activating site for specifically female political agency. Thus the notion of public and private were ideological composes utilized in different ways rather than fixed, unchanging entities.

Davidoff and Hall contributed to a chronology of women and politics that had been posed by the early women’s historians. The nineteenth century was presented as a period of closure, excluding the women and the working class from specific types of political activity. The rising of the bourgeoisie, the ideology of domesticity and economic trends, separating the home from the workplace, confirmed the political arena as a middle-class man’s world from which women and the poor were excluded.

This world was only broken through by women in the second half of the century, when new opportunities for participation were opened in the emergent domain of local government and extra-governmental organizations such as school boards. This Whiggish interpretation considered the 1860s and 1870s as the guide of campaigns for women’s civil and political rights. Recently, this chronology has been challenged by a range of historians, who have underlined the richness of women’s political culture earlier in the century and have argued for a more complex evaluation of nineteenth-century politics which does not privilege women’s campaigns for the vote over other domains of political engagement.

Davidoff and Hall’s work described one theoretical approach to the centre on gender and its use as a category of historical analysis. A second response appeared in the 1980s from historians influenced by French post-structuralism. Scott discussed for the primary role of language in the construction of gendered identity.

Gender should be used as an analytical category for historical investigation recognizing its turning and unstable nature. Many feminist historians had used the term ‘gender’ and ‘woman’ as an alternative, but Scott wanted to displace from the identification with the biological categories of male and female and explore the cultural meanings of masculinity and femininity. Scott’s argument was summarized by Bock: “Gender is a category, not in the sense of a universal statement, but in the sense of public objection and indictment, of debate, protest, process and trial.”

For historians, it was considered that such theoretical methods would initiate new domains of historical inquiry, mainly in the area of political history where power relations between and within the sexes were continually contested. Scott’s contribution was subject to challenge from women’s historians who considered that they had been responsive to issues concerning women’s multiple cultural identities and sustained that her approach would lead to the experiences of women in the past being reduced to ‘subjective stories’. The discussions were mingled with the wider debate in the historical profession about the contribution of postmodernism and its concentration on the construction of meaning through language.

The emphasis on discussed gender identities and a more cultural approach to political history has conducted women’s historians to revise their focus. Discussions on the endurance of the patriarchal setting have moved on to a consideration of the limit of women’s political agency within cultural, societal and economic constraints. The emphasis is on the variety of women’s experiences within the complex political culture of the nineteenth century. Recent work has concentrated on the variety of women’s political practice and the continuously turning contexts in which they operated. This has conducted to a revival of interest in elites, the traditional domain of study by political historians, to discover some methods by which women undermined institutional, legal and political constraints on their civic role, their property rights and their interaction with the political nation.

A further consequence of the discussion between gender and women’s historians has been led new research on competing versions of masculinity in the nineteenth century and the implications for political activity. Men and power have been seen as synonymous and these explorations offer new ways for interpretations and explanations of political activity. Notions of nineteenth-century masculinity are beginning to be discussed as historians consider that the contested versions of manhood signify wider debates about the structure of power. Clark considers the impact between working-class, bourgeois and aristocratic concepts of masculinity in its domestic context and gender connections within the industry and manufacturing communities. She takes the same approach to women’s historians, viewing the family as a site for public discussion, rather than as a private space. She argues that the Chartists, for instance, used the rhetoric of domesticity for many purposes: to support manhood, to appeal to women and to extract concessions from the state. For working-class men, fighting to come to terms with the demands of industrialization, a feminized workforce and bourgeois notions of respectability and the patriarchal family, developing the concept of domesticity allowed them to reaffirm their control. Although some Chartists sustained for a more egalitarian family structure, others used the language of domesticity to justify their superiority over working-class women, saying that they wished to protect and support them.

This picture of gender tensions within political movements in the nineteenth century has been supported by studies of different political campaigns, such as the anti-slavery movement, the Anti-Corn Law League, the demand for female vote and the campaign against the Contagious Diseases Acts. The objectives of male and female campaigners conducted to confrontation. For instance, many activists for an extension of the franchise deliberately excluded a demand for the female vote from their campaigns, on purpose to secure the vote for working men. There were also gender conflicts in the trade-union movement. The concept of the ‘family wage’, contributed to the adoption of gender-specific restrictive practices and the increasing predomination of the male-provider system. Trade unions adopted the language of the bourgeois family model in the struggle over male salaries. Male-dominated trade unions made rights for men, pressed for the interdiction on female employees and permanently reiterated the intention of creating circumstances in which women could fulfil their duties as wife and mother. The model of gender and class conflict could be more complicated. Elite socialist women, for instance, campaigned for the extension of the franchise to all adults, not just women. A collection of essays has underlined the ‘connections between the exercise of power and the construction of masculinities’ recovering the neglected contribution of men to the vote campaigns. It discusses how men with different agendas and from a wide range of political, economic and social backgrounds were able to contribute to the women’s vote movement in Britain. The gender roles within the trade-union movement were not always marked by male domination and much depended on the social context of individual trade unions. In some textile districts, the organization of the workforce continued to be based on similarity networks well into the nineteenth century, trade-union politics being marked by far more gender collaboration. There can be no open account of men and politics and recent work has complicated the traditional story of men’s dominance of the public domain. The contested nature of masculinity and men’s different experiences means that direct connections between men and power are weak.

As the historiography of political engagement in the nineteenth century has become more varied, historians have reconsidered the sources available to get back the nature of public participation, for instance, an examination of the representation of women and politics in the political culture of the period. The female body was a long-established symbol used in political prints, pamphlets, paintings, cartoons, ballads, newspapers, poetry and literature and in political meetings and as a campaigning strategy. For instance, the nation was usually characterized as female, in the figure of Britannia. Theatricality remained an important component of political expression throughout the century and female politicians were mainly effective at utilizing this method of campaigning and activism. Rogers observed the example of Eliza Sharples, an early feminist and supporter of Richard Carlile, who, in her public lectures, appeared as a series of female figures to imply the different aspects of her public duties and political theology. “She spoke as Isis, the Egyptian goddess of fertility and wisdom standing on a floor of white thorn and laurel; as Eve; as Liberty, the symbol of republican tradition; and as Hypatia, to highlight the personal sacrifices demanded by her mission.”

At the end of the century the ideals of the women’s vote movement were dramatized in demonstrations and meetings, songs, plays, poems, novels, banners and paintings. The movement trusted heavily on processions and printed material to convey its message. The white, purple and green colours of the Women’s Social and Political Union ornate flags, rosettes, ribbons and hats imitating the strategies used in electoral politics from the eighteenth century. Banners were used extensively; they were imitated and were created from within the movement. Women’s traditional skills were employed in a collective and creative effort. The designs were influenced by the arts movement and designed simple and powerful images of women in the public and domestic territory. The female political figure could also have more negative connotations, for example, the figure of the desolate woman often means political corruption. The notion of ‘petticoat government’ signified unnatural female influence in public affairs or the domestic setting and was associated with royal women who were viewed as involving in politics. The Queen Caroline affair, Queen Adelaide’s interventions in the reform crisis and the accession of Victoria all resulted in a confusion of popular pamphlets, ballads and images of the queens utilizing the symbolism of the government.

In Britain, the sign of the independence of women in the nineteenth century was that the female collaboration to literature began to be very important. No longer was women‘s writing regarded as disgraceful and inconvenient for their place in society. Jane Austen started to speak about morality and social organization; her novels marked the start of the progress of social analysis implemented to the novel, a period during which female writers became equal to male. But women‘s way towards literary independence and celebrity was not that easy. As well as other domains of life, writing was dominated by men in the Victorian period. Accordingly, some female authors used masculine pseudonyms to make certain that their works were accepted by the public and publishers. They were frightened that if they signed with their real names, readers would not take them as seriously as their male. For this reason, Mary Ann Evans used the pen name George Eliot and the Brontë sisters, Charlotte, Emily and Anne, signed with the pseudonyms Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell. In spite of these hardships women succeeded in the domain of literature and the reasons for their success is the fact that women‘s writing was very particular. As Margaret Drabble declares, a century later: “women‘s novels are not just novels that happen to be written by women, but are novels that express a certain woman's view of the universe that can be appreciated by any careful reader. This is the point of view that women writers write for everyone, but have a special and individual voice that reflects the same values as men, but in uniquely, different ways.”

The turn in literary themes was also considerable. Fiction overtaken non-fiction literature and novels commonly described the doubts and judgements of the main characters in social context. The most usual themes, like marriage and the lives of people were described in the novels, starting up in the nineteenth century, contemporary and historical. Chesterton mentions in his work The Victorian Age in Literature, which the key trait of Victorian fiction is sympathy, which centres on the differentiations and life reverses women had to deal with. “And sympathy does not mean so much feeling with all who feel, but rather suffering with all who suffer.”

Victorian literature and Queen Victoria

In the 19th century, the characteristic Victorian novel described the life of the family and was the central couple‘s wedding. Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell was an important writer of this period, who followed the essential principles of the Victorian novel.

Although feminist ideas have circulated in Britain for over 3 centuries, an organized woman’s movement did not appear until the mid-19th century. Wollstonecraft’s 1792 Vindication was an effort to apply the liberating ideals of the French Revolution to the situation of women in Europe. The Vindication was regarded revolutionary and it was forbidden from every home. After Mary’s death, there was a temporary rupture of feminist discuss because of a conservative tread following the French Revolution. This tread against radicalism made difficult any possibility of social reform. This was not a climate in which discusses about women’s rights or radical changes in sexual relations or family life could be disapproved. Demands for changes to women’s status met with opposition; across the Channel, following the Revolution, French women had been allowed the extension of certain rights and powers. French women appeared to be rising above themselves, and the British were weak to have English women emulating their French counterparts. When discussions about women’s rights appeared, they were tied to wider debates about female immorality, mainly following Godwin’s discoveries about the Pro-French Revolutionary of Wollstonecraft free sexuality. Extending social and political power to women, would only result in their immorality and ultimately bring destruction to the whole of society. In the 1800, what was known as the „Woman Question‟ internalized emergency, when women make known their discontents with the legal, social and political constraints that limited women’s public chances and to agitate for women’s full citizenship. As Harriet Bradley sustains in week’s Key Readings, women’s lives became limited, as an effect of social and economic changes which the Industrial Revolution bought, resulted in a major economic transition. The workplace and the home began to separate, male and female domains of activity being also separated. The women, still the primary caretakers of the children found themselves assigned to the private or domestic domain, while men were forced to follow their jobs into the public domain. The women were excluded from waged labour and their roles and responsibilities became increasingly restricted to the home.

The decade of the 1820s was a period characterized by the renascence of interest in social, political, parliamentary and legal reform those radical requests for women’s emancipation.

The 19th century political historiography discovered no position in women’s or gender history. Focusing on the progress of political institutions and on masculine politicians it was assumed that the politics in the nineteenth century owed little to women, separately from a few exceptional examples. Assessments of nineteenth-century gender and politics have endured a series of paradigm turns since the 1970s and the subject is now characterized by contradictory narratives about the model of women in public life in that period. This has tended to similar discussions about identity, men and politics a domain that until now had been viewed as unproblematic. The effect of these theoretical discussions has been to construct a different vision, of the lives of women, men and the entire panorama of nineteenth-century political history.

In 1970, the rise of women’s history, characterized by Rowbotham’s Hidden from History, contributed to foreground women’s model in the politics of the nation, although pioneer women’s historians had various objectives, there was an underlying feminist agenda that distinguished their work as they searched both to reveal the roots of the ideology of patriarchal oppression and to follow the origins of women’s political action as a means of explaining the contemporary fighting for women’s liberation. This conducted to a search to recover past heroines of women’s movements that imitated the main approach of many traditional political historians.

There was also a concentration on the early-twentieth-century campaigns of female vote campaigners that concentrated on women’s struggle to obtain the franchise and centred on women’s penetration of the high political territory. A consequence of this research was that many of the early writers assumed there was little female political In Britain, the sign of the independence of women in the nineteenth century was that the female collaboration to literature began to be very important. No longer was women‘s writing regarded as disgraceful and inconvenient for their place in society, for instance, Jane Austen started to speak about morality and social organization, her novels marked the start of the progress of social analysis implemented to the novel, a period during which female writers became equal to male. But women‘s way towards literary independence and celebrity was not that easy. As well as other domains of life, writing was dominated by men in the Victorian period. Accordingly, some female authors used masculine pseudonyms to make certain that their works were accepted by the public and publishers. They were frightened that if they signed with their real names, readers would not take them as seriously as their male. For this reason, Mary Ann Evans used the pen name George Eliot and the Brontë sisters, Charlotte, Emily and Anne, signed with the pseudonyms Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell. In spite of these hardships women succeeded in the domain of literature and the reasons for their success is the fact that women‘s writing was very particular.

Dickens’s worthy and extraordinary fame in his lifetime consists in the fact that his works were circulating in a large number of forms throughout his career, they were re-issued in serial parts years after they were first serialization , and in the moment we remember that Victorian reviews of fiction were formed basically of large chunks taken verbatim from the novels being referred to, we could claim that Dickens’s works were circulating in society the same as oxygen is necessary for breathing.

With the risk of being on the edge of a morass of cliché, we can state that if Dickens was alive today he would successfully be a television scriptwriter, for instance. No matter what Dickens wrote and could have written in our days, it could be enough to convince anyone that he was a deep and profound writer, at the same level as Shakespeare was committed utter lying words at their full potential. Still, the differences between then and now may be basic, mostly when we remind ourselves the lethally known fact of Dickens’s career as a writer, a novelist.

The most important author of his time, the quintessential Victorian, “his England” was the same as Victorian England. From the time he based his characters on real people, using real places, especially public places of London, as settings for his tales, the connections made between the real world and Victorian England fascinated his readers. It is crucial to understand the historical context in which Dickens worked and lived, it is most important to understand his life and his novels.

During the modernist decades of the early twentieth century, Dickens was largely dismissed by critics who ignored his works, claiming to be vulgar and simplistic, while, others proved that he was more intellectually challenging than his detractors had allowed, ushering in an age of serious attention to the author. Since then, Dickens has been analyzed and psychoanalyzed, constructed and deconstructed in several studies.

A man of great kindness and sympathy with weakness and suffering, all this led him to engage in practical philanthropies, also using his art with a purpose evolving social reform. All the wrongness in politics, hypocrisy evolving religion and so on and so forth, all these are just some examples of exposed and satirized issues used in his novels – not always in favour of the truth or beauty; it also led to frequent introductions into his works of pathetic characters and scenes, while his paths strike the modern reader as somewhat too deliberate and even forced – his humour has better stood the test of time , revealing the genuine comic genius, revealed itself in both the creation of character and in the description of the incident . Unfair to be called a great thinker, his reflective power must be well inferior to his observation and memory. He manages to succeed in his social life due to his heart, which is in the right place, occasionally questioning whether he had tempted by “evil forces”. He was skilled in relishing oddities of character, and in conveying them into his novels, the results being well visible by his readers, due to the author’s capability in copying the reality, so closely as to cause disturbance to his models, in the end, finding himself to a point in which he stopped trying to convince others.

Despite all his flaws, Dickens assures his status as a great novelist. His variety of canvases are thronged with a magnificent variety of creations, meanwhile his plots, even if they reduced classical clearness of outline are indeed of captivating interest. From all his masterpieces, David Copperfield represents his art at its best. By portraying David’s youth he successfully revealed the vivid recollection of his own by making a reference to his real life, Dora is his first love, while Micawber is an obvious portrait of his father; and in many other details of his attractive tale he sketched upon the persons and events which had made the most impressive portrait of his own life. The novel shares with the best of his other novels which “pours” vitality and that sense of being almost unable to “breathe” making most recent fiction seem unimportant and “lifeless” in comparison.

After two World Wars, an economic Great Depression, and the abstemiousness involving everyday life in Great Britain helped to explain the proper way in which English literature involved in the twentieth literature. All the proper values of Western civilization, when the Victorians had only “discovered”, were in the middle of some debates developed by new writers, in order to keep the society around them from breaking down. Proper literary forms were questioned, while new ones were in full development with a remarkable rapidity, whereas writers found other means of delivering what it was taken by them to be new ways of proficiency or proficiency seen in new conditions.

Victorian literature was mainly written for the people, succeeding in presenting the pressing social problems and philosophies of an era filled with peace, intellectual and material development. The Victorian Age was dominantly an aspect of social restraints and withheld a reminder in this respect of the Puritan period. The artists, no matter what was the domain in which they activate were didactic, respectful with principals and goals, even though these qualities would exclude those involved with the Pre Raphaelite brotherhood.

Almost all spectators of the Victorian Age were driven by the reactions towards the conventions imposed by society; later, for a man to smoke in public or a woman to ride a bicycle seemed to be indecent. To a new level the new moral values have been another way of protest against wilderness of the earlier Regency, while the Victorian Court was on its side. Meanwhile, in literature it is widely reverberated.

Many writers protested against the deadening protests of the conventions; at a certain point, all literary writings became inevitably impressed by all the new concepts in other domains such as science, religion and politics.

Education was defined by novels, and the writers reacted with volition. Their works were of high standard, in a manner in which notable critics had vouched that the nineteenth century represents the richest artists in the entire history of the world.

Throughout the nineteenth century, the interrelations between American and European writers were new and powerful. The topic of these interrelations, especially the Italians represented an amenable concept for prose and poetry – when Italian freedom was obtained the rejoicing was unique.

Even though with all the huge achievements, no supreme writer was revealed. However, the general literary level was high with spacious intellectual frontiers, high expectations, and morals. After all these, the content of innovative measures was anything but great and their improvements were questioned.

Queen Victoria was one of the longest-lived queens in the history of the English monarchy, and her reign period are one of the longest in European history. During his administration, there were many advances in technology issues such as the Industrial Revolution, which generated an economic impact that led to England being one of the world's superpowers.

The accession to the throne of Queen Victoria was not simple, since she originally was not the successor. But for various events between the absence of heirs to the throne and early deaths, she was named as princess heir. It is said that she realized this by seeing a genealogical tree in which she represented the last link of the succession. For this reason, during her childhood and adolescence she was raised rigidly by her mother and her guardian, and was quite overprotected – they intended to make her dependent for the two of them to govern.

However, his uncle Leopold, the father of his future partner, Prince Albert of Coburg and Saxony, became one of the greatest advisers for the future queen. He advised her to separate from her mother's overprotection and start making her own decisions. These councils were intended to lure Victoria to her nephew Alberto, because of her pretensions to the English throne.

Finally, the queen and Prince Albert married and had a happy marriage that lasted until the death of the second, and in which they had many children who married almost all the European royal houses. For this reason Queen Victoria was nicknamed "The Grandmother of Europe".

Due to his rigid upbringing that promoted good manners, the ideals of the Victorian era were very particular. They embraced everything from painting and literature to fashion, fields in which moral values ​​and moral values ​​were instilled, for example: although the painting dealt with classical and pre-Raphaelite themes, it respected the modesty of models aesthetically, or in the Literature emphasized human values ​​and decency.

As for sexuality, there were cases such as the writer Oscar Wilde who, would be sentenced to forced labour along with one of his male lovers because of his faults to the moral of the time. Finally, thanks to the increase of exchanges with East and New World, the consumption of drugs was something quite legitimized. Queen Victoria herself was an avid consumer; another example is Sherlock Holmes.

The literary works of this period tended to a marked realism, as the authors sought to talk about their daily life, but above all the injustices and contrasts of a society so moral and technified for its time.

In architecture, it was possible to contemplate a Gothic Renaissance that would mark the aesthetics of the time. Examples are the architectural design of Charles Barry, who was responsible for building the New Westminster Palace.

Finally, Victorian fashion was a trend that sought to highlight the beauty of women through prudence. They used flights and open shoulders as well as hairstyles that emphasized the face. Victorian fashion is a style that until today influences collections and designs of fashion houses, as well as movements like Lolitas, which use elements of Victorian fashion to dress.

The Victorian era laid the foundations for what modernity would be, for thanks to the Industrial Revolution and the expansion of the British Empire, a great impetus was given to the technological and social ideals of the time that would finally mark us as a contemporary society.

Let's imagine a scenario often encountered, defining, one might think, in a world that cannot be imagined without numerous and often premeditated politeness and behaviour: in the Victorian era, a family is sitting around the piano, men in elegant costumes, ladies Agitating fan, a young girl plays classical music while the applause is stifled by white gloves, after which everyone engages in a new frivolous conversation. The industrialization process is responsible for the emergence of these types of activities. During the reign of Queen Victoria, Great Britain was transformed from an agrarian society, largely to one where most of the population lived in cities. The inhabitants of expanding urban environments could not, like their parents or grandparents, carry on activities based on the rhythm of life in the country.

Industrial jobs had a well established routine, offering free time, which had not existed in the past. In the Victorian era the first people who enjoyed regular holidays and free days lived. The entertainment industry was in full swing and was keen to help them fill that leisure time with various recreational pleasures, tempting them with theme parks, shopping centres, games rooms and theatres.

There is a big difference between the perceived image of recreational activities in the 19th century and the amazing range of amusements available to the average man. "Entertainment outside the house was low, therefore, this is the reason for the frequency with which the piano appeared in the home," explains a history manual. However, this description is far from true. The lives of the Victorian people were not sedentary and boring. Indeed, it is hard to imagine any public entertainment that does not involve much enthusiasm and exaltation.

Then it was invented a modern vacation – at sea or abroad – and one of the first travel agencies, Thomas Cook & Son (Thomas Cook Group today). They were great amateurs and gossip about sensational celebrities and stories found through scandal pages of newspapers like "The News of the World" – launched in 1843 with a terrifying story of a pharmacist woman who was raped and then thrown into the Thames River. Fashionable novels and sensational short stories, whose themes were centred around bigamy, murder, adultery, and poisoning. The same passions were shared by children who watched weekly series such as "The Boy Detective," which appeared in 1866, describing the adventures of a teenager transvestite who fought against injustice.

They clung to fabulous stage shows that offered special effects made by high technology: real-life, burning buildings, falling bridges, resplendent avalanches, simulated waterfalls, and real-life Derby races. They enjoyed acrobatic numbers defying death and were delighted when they performed like Blondin, who became famous after crossing the Niagara Falls on the wire, were pushing a lion into a wheelbarrow on a rope suspended at a hundred yards, then repeating the trick and in an armour suit. High-resolution images were on the move, whether they were offered by a zoopraxiscop, choreutoscope, panorama, or cinema. Preferred were Indian cuisine, but also fries and fries, cranberry juice and frozen food imported from America when domestic supplies fell.

The people of the Victorian era were also great recreational drug buyers bought from Boots and scattered through living rooms across the country. The best known era laudanum – a cocktail of opium and alcohol that is still made for medical purposes. This substance was not meant to be just a click of artists who enjoyed the creative effects of psychoactive substances, as in the case of Samuel Taylor Coleridge or Thomas de Quincey. Opium was the drug of the people, available in the nineteenth century more than any cigarette pack nowadays. Laws against drugs that regulate consumption in contemporary society emerged during the First World War, when the government became concerned about the fact that the heroin gel packets that wives sent to spouses left on the front had adverse disciplinary effects.

Team sports also experienced a revival in the Victorian era. A large number of Britons learned to swim, a skill rarely encountered before the second half of the nineteenth century. The first international cricket match was played in 1868 between a British team and a fully formed Australian team from Aborigines. The Football League was founded in 1888, and not long ago created the first stars in its field, including personalities such as Arthur Wharton, the first black British professional footballer who played for Preston North End and Rotherham and played professional cricket For Yorkshire and Lancashire.

For the first time, pornography was produced in such a way as to satisfy the general public. Oddly, the industry was founded by a group of radical politicians who used erotic material sales, to subsidize campaigns and pamphlets: when the much anticipated British revolution did not materialize in the 1840s, libraries and printing houses found that the secondary financing plan had become too profitable to give up. Indescribable stories such as "Lady Pokingham" or "They all do it" (1881) and impudent daguerreotype, photos and slides all demonstrate the complex nature of sexuality in the Victorian era. In 1874, the Pimlico studios of Henry Hayler, one of the most famous producers of such materials, were filled with 130,248 indecent photos and 5,000 slides.

As photographic technology has also facilitated the development of a modern notion of celebrity. In 1860, the royal family began to give a series of portraits, made in the same negligent manner specific to a contemporary fashion magazine. Politicians, writers and actors have become accustomed to the audience with such images, sharing such advertising photos. Even more unusual personalities embraced the practice: Chang Woo Gow, the giant Chinese, who began a series of visits to Britain in 1886, before he, his wife, from Liverpool, and his two children, Edward and Ernest, retreated to Southcote Road, Bournemouth, where they opened a tea shop and an Oriental bazaar, Charles Stratton, a dwarf known all over the world as General Thumb Thumb, Chang and Eng, Siamese Twins.

The presence of these types of characters on the public stage is nowadays invoked to be the root of a fatal symptom of Victorian culture: the exposure of some human oddities. But these people were not the victims of advertising, on the contrary, they were the stars. For example, Charles Stratton died at Bridgeport, Connecticut, a proud owner of a yacht and a few racing horses, and the splendid grave in the Mountain Grove Cemetery testifies to his financial situation. Chang and Eng retired to a farm in North Carolina, just like Millie-Christine, another famous Siamese couple. Commodore Nutt, a famous dwarf artist, was hailed "Nutt-thirty-thousand-dollars" because of his three-year contract that he was paid for with this amount. However, "the exposition of the wonders", as people called it in the Victorian era, was a highly professional industry that paid taxes, issued invoices, and made marketing plans. It is rarely remembered that Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man, shared the winnings with his manager, 50-50.

Although the people of the Victorian period are portrayed as apathy, numerous evenings around the piano, nineteenth-century culture can be characterized by a relentless quest for pleasures of all kinds.

The wrong impression of Victorian society was perpetuated by the fact that Queen Victoria declared her inflexibility towards fashionable forms of entertainment. There is, however, no proof that she would have become a dull person after Prince Albert's death, but on the contrary, those who met her say she was a cheerful woman.

Victorian architecture

The House is one of the structural paradigms of the Victorian cultural discourse because it best signifies the economic and expressive values ​​of the time. This reveals, on the one hand, the desire of the Victorians to assert their power (stability and respectability, money and wealth), and, on the other hand, their desire to be the owners of a house / manor which, by its symbolic meanings, A shift from the edge to the centre and implicitly a different position and roles.

Often the mentality, desires, aspirations, habits of the people of a certain age are found not only in their behaviour, fashion, but in a quite visible way, which can easily be subjected to a semiotic analysis, and the architecture of dwellings and buildings. While fantasy finds its expression in the rich ornaments of Victorian style, massive stone homes have the desire of the people of the time to protect themselves, and even to hide. In addition, the relationships between people occupying different positions in the social hierarchy can be deduced through an analysis of the way in which the spaces for each 'cultural, social type are built and arranged.

A very popular architectural style in the 1800's was Victorian architecture. Simple models today will often copy these styles to create a new style, not necessarily original, but a creative revival of the classical style. The short-lived, but very strong, success of the 1800s led to borrowing popular Victorian features, such as the vaulted roof, by the current architectural model. In the early 1700s, "confusion" was the word most commonly used to describe the typical English architecture in terms of both the architectural structures of the buildings and the architects themselves. Fifty years later, alarming uniformity among architectural models has brought new ideas into the modern building. There are several reasons for such a sudden development of the new architectural style,

The effects of the Industrial Revolution are one of the most powerful and influential. After the Industrial Revolution, the average man has become more and more inspired in creating and inventing new great things. The more patents appeared, the more encouraged people were in enhancing the list of inventions. A collaboration between innovative ideas and the desire of the middle class to have a say in community modelling has joined this new, energetic attitude. People wanted a change in the traditional building scheme. Queen Victoria, observing the curious and innovative architectural avant-garde, encouraged the use of style. Granting funds to architects, it created an atmosphere that sustained the progress of the new style. The name "Victorian style" was chosen in honour of the queen.

The early Victorian era was a time of extraordinary creative energy, especially in the field of literature, music and art. People, not only from England, but also from Italy and France, wanted to support the new industrial movement. In 1851, the Great Exposition was held at Crystal Palace in London to encourage British trade and industry, and national pride. Victoria's husband, Prince Albert, organized the Great Exposition, which further prompted the development of Victorian architecture.

The Victorian style is a very broad term that includes different categories subordinated to the same general title. The Italian style was an irregular arrangement of square towers rising on two floors above the main roof; the windows on the upper floors had three glass meshes, and the vaults were usually round and had outwardly designed vault keys; other decorations were spiral columns at the entrance, protruding concave roofs above the doors, windows, balconies and terraces.

The new Gothic style resembles the Italian one due to the lack of regularity of the structure; the columns were round, polygonal or sometimes twisted; the windows were either separated or grouped, generally in groups of three; the vaults have been often sharp, and the high towers, square, octagonal, or rounded.

Another category of Victorian architectural style was the exotic one, divided into three genres: the Swedish Villa, the New Egyptian style, and the Romanian Style. The Swedish villa usually had a veranda on both floors and rectangular plates on the edges of the house; The new Egyptian style was seldom used for homes because of its association with death, originating in the Egyptian tombs; The new Egyptian style was intended for more cemeteries and prisons, and contained symbols of the solar disc and pseudo-hieroglyphs as ornaments; The windows had a certain degree of inclination inward to give the building an almost pyramidal effect.

The Victorian architectural styles had many gaps, which led to the disappearance of the original style. The widely narrow corridors and the windows in that style seemed not to be appreciated by the designers. Many times architects believed Victorian structures were too complicated and expensive for the average buyer. The only ones who could afford the prices of such houses were the rich. In the 1870s, Queen Anna's British style began to become more and more popular with simplicity and reasonable prices; the new style was much nicer and nicer, and tended to be more accessible to the ordinary citizen. The problems of structure, and not just on price, of Victorian-style houses have slowly led to abandoning the original style. Before the Victorian style began its decline, the most important building under this name was Crystal Palace. It was famous for its large, open spaces, and the abundant use of glass. The palace was designed and built by Sir Joseph Paxton for the Great Exhibition of 1851 and was considered a cornerstone in the development of modern architecture. The palace was one of the buildings that people associated with the Victorian architectural style; not all the details of the palace were Victorian, but architects used this structure to influence, many of the features of the palace belonging to this style. The popularity of the famous building has led to the creation of new architectural styles, such as the American Victorian, which has helped Victorian architecture resist over time in new directions, like genetic mutations.

So the houses and buildings of the Victorian era were built taking into account the social status and the wealth of those who would live in it, the rooms were from the very beginning intended either for masters, servants, officials, workers or prisoners; In terms of everyday life of the rich, each room was clearly defined as the purpose of the family room, the salons for receiving the visits, the offices reserved for business discussions, the kitchen being reserved for the servants.

The house is thus the symbol of the rank, the quality of the gentleman, the master who forces his will upon others.

As a collective representation, the constitutive discursive elements of the house focus on the following verbal paradigms: living in / to survive; to hold (a home) vs. to have no shelter; to leave vs. reorganize a house; to be proud, to be humiliated; not be able to, enter 'or go out' vs. to change, to come another / someone else / the other, to recreate. Hence the specific roles fulfilled by the inhabitants, the positions they are assigned and the states they live in. In Jane Eyre, roles and positions allow some clear differentiation between masters / men and addicts / women, each group passing through a set of states, from contempt, disregard and violence (for masters) to humiliation, anger, anger and pride (For those who depend on someone else). At the crossroads, the speech of the house, very metaphorical, is based on change, on the tumultuous passage of self through emotional crises until the loss within the other. Cultural and natural elements merge into an unusual space in which the human body becomes the home of conflicting feelings. Wildfell Hall's uncategorized novel by Anne Brontë shows signs of a deterioration in the Huntingdon family's domestic life. Helen Huntingdon's decision to get rid of her alcoholic husband's torture and to end the destructive effects of her marriage on her son is expressed through the roles she plays (the lord of the house and the rescue of her husband's soul) and her position A decent woman and a mother she has to defend. The repair and redecoration of the Wildfell Hall by her, her interest in rearranging the garden and outer spaces and her belief in her power to change people around her symbolizes a change in the Victorian mentality regarding the role of women in bringing comfort and peace into a home.

Thus, the verbal paradigms mentioned above provide, on the one hand, a triple picture of the house (meaning "where", living space, mental space and metaphoric space), and, on the other hand, they reveal the features of those living in such places. From this point of view, it is worth mentioning the people – house relationship with the first chapter of each of the three novels. Jane Eyre opens with the image of the children of Reed (Eliza, John, and Georgiana) gathered in the salon next to his mother … near the fire, a "happy family," while Jane was forbidden to join the group … "mother unable to recognize them, recognizes the same rights as her children, cheerful and satisfied, "being forced to withdraw in the window sill, tightening the Turkish legs and pulling the red curtain … locked in a double shelter”. If for the cheerful kids' home is a comfortable home, for Jane, a poor, dependent orphan, this becomes a cold space of punishment, inhabited by 'tyrants' and cruel and wild killers. The description of the famous red room (Chapter 2) in which it is locked reveals the emotions of fear and anger lived by the 'revolted slave' in which Jane turns into that gloomy afternoon.

At the crossroads, Emily Brontë opens with an innocent reception: "More soon, 'Fuck' than anything else, 'a gate that showed no more goodwill than his words, describing a solid residence with narrow windows, cut deep into the wall, and the corners, defended by large stones, outstretched " due to the wind that unleashes during the storm suggested by the name of the dwelling, The salon, the kitchen, the cellar, the owner, the servants and her animals.

Possession of a territory (be it the whole house or only a part of it) is stylistically marked in both novels by contrast of mine / my place (the home of a master) – not yours (a homeless being) and the lexical rehearsal of the verb, to impose ': the masters impose, the visitors, the orphans and the victims are obeying the orders.

The unknown from Wildfell Hall makes the difference, right from the beginning, between the two representatives of domestic life in a Victorian house (father, authoritative voice, passing 'rules and paternal' to his children, and mother playing the role of a respectable woman , Subject ").

And yet, not tradition governs the lives of the inhabitants of this fictional world; On the contrary, is the change, with its slow motion, with its destructive effects more or less visible, advancing hard not to ruin a name but to overcoming all Victorian prejudices.

In the wide variety of forms of habitation, there is always an elementary logic that unites the form of the dwelling with the structure of the locality. Even though this is harder to decipher, it is clearly linked to the way of life and the value system of the respective human communities. The dwelling is the basic building block of the city, the elementary vehicle of logic that makes up the city at its "anonymous background". In addition, housing construction is a key (quantitative and qualitative) function for the urbanization process. The dwelling and the city are two facets of a more complex whole, each of which expresses one another.

 The home can be defined as that architectural body that provides the protection and development of the individual at the family level and favours its links with the whole of human society. Hence, housing should be seen not as a shell but as a shell an osmotic membrane such as that opening closure.

Throughout the history of human society and settlements, which formed the physical framework of the evolution of society, two periods can be distinguished in a modest way, whose point of change is at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century, Periods in which both the issue of the dwelling itself and that its relationship with the city followed different logic / paradigms.

The former may be characterized by a predominantly organic allocation between the evolution of living and habitat. Hence, both the natural conformity of the dwelling to the way of life, the current practices and mentalities of the various social groups (the habitual home was generally vernacular construction), and a natural relationship between the dwelling and the city, between the public and the private , between the form of the dwelling and the urban form. In one way or another, within a great diversity, housing, public space, city and urban society evolved in parallel, without serious distortions, balancing each other.

Taking into account representations such as those in the novels of the Brontë sisters, the reader should not only study the real, palpable reality of each novel, but also its role in family life, the constituent elements and the way they are used, their symbolic meaning, the imagined design , the time and space they are assigned to.

The house type (mansion, residence, house, dwelling, cabin, etc.) in Jane Eyre, at Wildfell Hall Windfow and Unknown, serves a well-structured and defined purpose (financial, social, moral) , a certain finality and specific patterns of writing.

In conclusion, like the city, like the temple, the house is at the centre of the world, it is the image of the universe. According to Gaston Bachelard, the house is the inner being; its cellars, cellar and bridge symbolize different states of the soul: the cellar corresponds to the subconscious and the bridge of the spiritual elevation. For the Victorians, the basement and the bridge were reserved, from the point of view of social status, for servants, sick, fools, and exclusions. The house is also a feminine symbol in the sense of refuge, protection, maternal breast.

Psychoanalysis especially recognizes, in his dreams, differences of significance, according to the chambers represented and corresponding to the various levels of the psyche. The exterior of the house is the mask or appearance of a man; the roof is head and spirit, control of consciousness; the lower floors mark the level of the unconscious and the instincts; the kitchen would symbolize the place of alchemical transmutation, or mental transformation, that is, a moment of inner evolution. Also, movements can be on the same plane, ascending or descending, and express either a stationary or stagnant phase of mental development, or an evolutionary phase, which may be progressive or regressive, spiritualizing or materializing.

 For Victorians, the house is the symbol of social identity, material, power, authority, respectability, stability and domesticity, whether to appeal and seeming; symbol of status and social position, emblem of property and property; desired object of snobs,

Orphans, widows, gentlemen, mothers, children, families; An object capable of giving respect to the owner by symbolizing the material power; An object capable of excluding or including from and into the family, community, society any individual subject to social conventions; Shelter, refuge, prison or home, this is the 19th century house.

Divided into spaces and rooms with well defined and assigned functions, the house is also a symbol of social and family hierarchies and practices. While orphans and the servants were excluded from visiting lounges, family party parties, children's games, discussions in and around the fire in the hostel, masters assimilated well-furnished, spacious rooms, offices and libraries dressed in expensive and rich materials .

In its various forms, the house performs various functions.

Most of the time, the house is both the emblem and the product of the society over a period of time. In turn, the house serves to define the cultural types of the era and to establish social, hierarchical relationships between members of a family, communities, or societies. The way a house is architecturally structured, meets the requirements, needs, customs, traditions, practices of a particular society. On the other hand, the house, or any kind of building, helps to define both a social group and an individual. Typically, those belonging to a particular group or social classes are considered "products" of the society and time. This function of defining a group or categories is fulfilled in the Victorian era by such institutions as the workshop – in which the orphans are labelled as any commodity and on whose account they are made to obtain a profit figure from a mortality rate; The Prison Prisoners and the High Court of Justice, in the latter, being prepared for 'long years of legal proceedings and possible expense' for the debtors' Prison.

When the house has a function of defining the individual, the signification process is rather reciprocal and interdependent.

The space impresses on the tenant, the owner, and he, in turn, tries to give a new meaning to the space, usually symbolically represented by transforming the appearance of the house. A first indication of this relationship of interdependence in the process of signification is observed in the features, or rather, the atmosphere, appearance and general impression of the house that are found in the personality, character and status of the owner or tenant. Another element involved in defining the individual is the relationship with the others, and once again, the house has an important role because in this space the social hierarchy and even the family hierarchy make its presence felt by the chambers given to each one, depending on its status.

But first, the house is a symbol of power, authority and respect. For such a construction reflects not only the social position of the owner, but also the purchasing power of the owner, especially in a society in which women were, first of all, considered a commodity and marrying a transaction. In this reality a paradox originated: women became married, but the master of the house and servants supported by a man; In turn, men achieved respectability, domesticity and stability only by marrying a woman capable of playing the role of the master. Thus, while the role played by women was that of a good to buy, men could become themselves victims of this social contract, marriage.

Finally, the house is also a way of conveying to the offspring not only the inheritance , but also the traditions of a family, but especially the hopes of fathers to leave their sons worthy of their names – for beyond names can hide anything.

CHAPTER II

THE GOTHIC PERIOD

After two World Wars, an economic Great Depression, and the abstemiousness involving everyday life in Great Britain helped to explain the proper way in which English literature involved in the twentieth literature. All the proper values of Western civilization, when the Victorians had only “discovered”, were in the middle of some debates developed by new writers, in order to keep the society around them from breaking down.

Proper literary forms were questioned, while new ones were in full development with a remarkable rapidity, whereas writers found other means of delivering what it was taken by them to be new ways of proficiency or proficiency seen in new conditions.

Victorian literature was mainly written for the people, succeeding in presenting the pressing social problems and philosophies of an era filled with peace, intellectual and material development. The Victorian Age was dominantly an aspect of social restraints and withheld a reminder in this respect of the Puritan period. The artists, no matter what was the domain in which they activate were didactic, respectful with principals and goals, even though these qualities would exclude those involved with the Pre Raphaelite brotherhood.

Almost all spectators of the Victorian Age were driven by the reactions towards the conventions imposed by society; later, for a man to smoke in public or a woman to ride a bicycle seemed to be indecent.

To a new level the new moral values have been just another way of protest against wilderness of the earlier Regency, while the Victorian Court was on its side. Meanwhile, in literature it is widely reverberated.

Many writers protested against the deadening protests of the conventions; at a certain point, all literary writings became inevitably impressed by all the new concepts in other domains such as science, religion and politics.

Education was defined by novels, and the writers reacted with volition. Their works were of high standard, in a manner in which notable critics had vouched that the nineteenth century represents the richest artists in the entire history of the world.

Throughout the nineteenth century, the interrelations between American and European writers were new and powerful.

The topic of these interrelations, especially the Italians represented an amenable concept for prose and poetry – when Italian freedom was obtained the rejoicing was unique.

Even though with all the huge achievements, no supreme writer was revealed. However, the general literary level was high with spacious intellectual frontiers, high expectations, and morals. After all these, the content of innovative measures was anything but great and their improvements were questioned.

2.1. The Gothic novel

For the Victorians, Italy was what the Orient thought of the Europeans of the twentieth century, a combination of allure and repugnance: allure of Italy’s historic and contemporary battle in order to end a period of political and economic subjugation and, at the same time, repugnance to its misery in society. The English were employed to analyze other societies versus their own standards of modernity and were not able in finding any flaw. Still, a number of Victorian writers fought against such stereotypes and, by acting as such, it challenged contemporary attitudes against Europe, revealing assumptions about England’s social and cultural prevalence.

Ahead of analyzing the same features between Jane Eyre and Rebecca, it is vital to understand the basic features forming the literary genre of Gothic romance.

Although The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole (considered to be the first release of the genre) has no connection to the Gothic era of history, Gothic fiction did focus upon the evolution of Gothic architecture at the same moment. Some argued this fact had to do with the title “Gothic fiction,” even if The Castle of Otranto was set in Gothic periods and may have additionally given the genre its name.

Known as a mixed form of prose fiction, the Gothic genre tends to add the narrative, dramatic, and lyric styles of writing into a powerful tale of dark themes, sometimes supernatural elements, and social repression.

Basic features of the Gothic novel include: a setting in a castle or mansion, supernatural or inexplicable events, overwrought emotions, one or more women in distress, and a metonymy of gloom and horror. Sometimes called the “literature of nightmare”, Gothic fiction includes dream landscapes, figures of the subconscious imagination, and the fears common to all mankind in one powerfully told story, riddled with suspense and drama.

The worthy Gothic novel maintained its popularity through to the early nineteenth century, even though a small but consistent demand for this form combining romantic fantasy with a mystery and an apparent upsurge of supernatural evil continued well into the twentieth. This mixture, known as Gothic romance, changed in time.

In a typical work of this nature, readers will find elements of the Gothic interwoven with those of Romance, particularly a focus on the relationship developed between the two main characters. Plus, the main feature revealed in a Gothic romance is a feeling of dread, instead of the terror associated with pure Gothic fiction. This negative feeling can be either physical, psychological, or metaphysical involving the body, mind, or spirit, but the Gothic romance must develop an atmosphere that blends suspense and fear with mystery.

A sensational book by Daphne Du Maurier – the sad story of a woman who divides her existence between a great love and the struggle to find her own identity. A novel with the great psychological depth that lies and interferes with love, frustration, and crime.

Two women: Rebecca, ex-wife, rebellious and mysterious, lost in the deep sea, and Mrs. du Winter, current wife, subject and naive character opposite of the first. A man, Maxim de Winter, that the past does not let him rebuild his life. And a mysterious castle, which follows the destiny of the characters.

The suspense is built with an incomparable craftsmanship, with absolutely surprising twists. Furthermore, the work included in “Top 10 suspense novels of all time”, published in the US. Misty memories drove my curiosity about a film descriptions and her mother. I knew it was a classic book, a good book and not know it for you, but for me it was enough. I was simply enchanted by her beauty, unique style in which it was written so perfectly portrayed characters and story plot.

The author has surpassed any expectations I peppering between page descriptions meticulous constructed, placed exactly where they belonged, slowing the unfolding action and clearing Manderlay’s image in my head. Nothing was wrong or forced, and Rebecca reminded me why I love so many classical works. Being summer, I could not reread passages in which he was shown the great and makes me wonder if she’s had an influence on Daphne and favoured the choice he did in life: to be a writer.

At first glance (which is almost always misleading if books, tell you from experience), the story is not very exciting: Our heroine is a lady companion very gossipy and unscrupulous, it pays ninety pounds to accompany over everything, stealing his youth. Someday, located in a trip to Monte Carlo, the second they meet Maxim de Winter, owner of the beautiful castle and fresh Manderlay widowed, emotionally destroyed after the sudden death of his wife, Rebecca, who drowned in one night -a golf nearby. Surprisingly, he proposes and so she becomes Mrs. du Winter. And everything could be so rosy if it were not Rebecca, whose ghost is lurking in every corner of the house.

A book that reveals its secrets just the last one hundred pages, with a sublime writing style and presentation tremendous inner conflicts and large family secrets. And more than anything, this book will teach you to study things in more depth because looks can be deceiving, and a perfect apple orchard is rotten inside. Regarding Jane Eyre, I was impressed with the style, ideas, principles and the story itself. The fact that we found a hidden talent behind pages in black ink. Should even after so many years that people read at work whose essence will never go away.

I found in Jane Eyre the story of a soul as simple as it is complex. A story that begins like any other, but has an end so differently. Charlotte Brontë’s character is unique because behind the simple image of a nineteenth-century ruling hides a big heart capable of love, sacrifice and fight to the end. Little Jane, as we find in the first pages of the novel, looked like a child’s fate. Orphans took care of an aunt, the girl is sent to school rather to no longer stand in the way of others. Eight years of education at Lowood severe printed in the Jane Eyre spirit of sacrifice and self-discipline so that the output in the world, we face a modest character, religious and educated, who knows very well his place in the world.

Governess Jane turns out to be a female patient and Thornfield, new home, soon come to mean a lot to her. Incidentally solidarity as they may be just the starting point of love that his master Fairfax Rochester and a bar. In time, even her unsuspecting soul begins to live, although it seems strange feeling and try hard to hide it. Social condition becomes in her mind insurmountable, an impossible love between a governess and her master, the poor man and the rich man humble, strong as a kind of leitmotif of the time, a real situation, portrayed in the pages of the story.

Jane is not considered worthy of love while Rochester secretly loves. An analyzes, probing his thoughts, his patience and are trying so strong and wise as is his nature. When the master calls her governess answer, listens, encourages, and speaks frankly, hiding only that part of the heart which she considers unworthy of being spoken. When she was asked to be his wife, believing that such youth will serve his sins, Jane is terrified, and the fairy. Assess everything, meditate, asking him Upper light.

Discipline is one that runs in moments of uncertainty and pain. Thus, after the wedding and crumble and whole image of that which it believed remove half of her soul, Jane leaves the place that had been home for so long, running like a shadow of its past, finds refuge in the home of a priest, which is building a new life.

Gratitude is one of the most obvious features of her heart and love, slowly goes out. When he wakes heir to a fortune that undreamed of, Jane shares with her benefactors. The true feeling of happiness and contentment arises, however, when he discovers that the same benefactors are cousins.

Charlotte Brontë’s character becomes more complex one.

The turning point occurs when himself its saviour, St John, he asks to accompany him to India, where he would go as a missionary. It’s a simple story of a man outside the thousands of colours that gather over the years in his soul. It’s the story of reunion with God and the love that never dies. Called the midnight Rochester, Jane returns to Thornfield before heading to the East.

The house no longer exists, so many mysteries purifying fire place. Rochester but lives retired, since he had to fire. Jane feels, but thinks it’s a reverie, a ghost. Love, gratitude, simplicity, faith – all come together in this Jane Fairfax Rochester that remains with him in the hardest times until the sun shines and governance quiet and modest life acquires its brilliance.

When the famous work Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte was first published in 1847, it had a great influence upon the society at that time. For a long time, numerous readers favoured the image of Jane Eyre very much. Jane Eyre is the first, additionally the most powerful and popular novel to represent the modern view of women’s position in society. Since its publication, many people have reviewed it from different perspectives.

Pat Macpherson points out in the book Reflecting on Jane Eyre , “Jane Eyre is marked by strong romantic elements and the role of content is especially important”.

The work is infused with romantic spirit: the emphasis on the sensitiveness of the mind and the intense sensibility to changing content (as in Wordsworth’s poetry); the longing for adventure and the insistence on liberty, independence, and the right of the individual soul and self-fulfilment (as in Byron’s and Shelley’s poetry).

After a stranger destroyed Jane’s wedding, Jane left. Exhausted and penniless, she thinks about content as the “universal mother”. Wang Guofu, author of the Literary Theory of Feminism, says: “Jane Eyre embodies a new conception of women as heroines of vital strength and passionate feelings”.

2.2 The evolution of the Gothic genre

In the last third of the eighteenth century a new trend emerges in England that will lay the foundations of the next Romanticism: this is Gothic, stories that include magical, ghostly and terror elements, calling into question what is real and what is not .

In the eighteenth century, known as the Enlightenment, man believed that he was able to explain everything through reason.

The literature of these years is rife with philosophical essays and novels of customs that reflect reality. However, in the last third of the century a new trend emerges in England that will lay the foundations of the next Romanticism: this is the Gothic, stories that include magical, ghostly and terrifying elements, calling into question what is real and what not.

Strictly speaking, Gothic stretched from about 1765 to about 1820, though almost all the authors of Romanticism of the 19th century turned their eyes on him, inspiring some of his most famous works. At the end of the nineteenth century, decay of the Gothicism with the emergence of positivism, which promulgated a scientific explanation for everything? Gothic horror works are also called ghost stories.

The Gothic adjective is used because many of the stories were framed in medieval times, or the action took place in a castle, mansion or abbey of this architectural style. The intricacies of these, filled with passageways, dark gaps, and uninhabited rooms, lent themselves to creating disturbing environments.

Other characteristics of the genus are:

The Gothic locations are fundamental: shady forests, dungeons, abandoned farms, dark streets, empty houses, crypts … descriptions are abundances to create an atmosphere that disturbs the reader. In fact, the location in these narrations is the protagonist of the suspense.

Appearance of corpses, spectres, the undead and other supernatural elements.

Travel in time or space. Some authors chose the Eastern Europe as a frame of their works.

The world of dreams and nightmares also has a relevant place for the alternation between reality and unreality.

The framework is usually past or non-existent times that keep the reader away from the present.

Characters are dominated by their passions, intelligent and enigmatic, always attractive. Sometimes punished for guilt.

Usually appears an evil nobleman who symbolizes the danger and an innocent maiden persecuted by him. In counterpoint, the brave hero, also of high lineage, who will try to save her from terror. Love is also an essential feature.

The protagonists usually have very bombastic foreign names.

Striking stenographic elements: lights and shadows, creaking hinges, hidden manuscripts, strange noises, exotic animals, etc.

Some scholars distinguish in the genre between historical works (of authors like Walpole, Irving, Bécquer); (Radcliffe), which tell spooky things, but with good taste, the characters react to extreme situations and the use of the fantastic is moderate; And horror (Lewis), where the supernatural is palpable and a detailed description is made of environments and brutal events that hit the reader and overtake him.

The classic Gothic novels merged with Romanticism in the early nineteenth century. In this period we find Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus (1818) by Mary Shelley and The Vampire (1819) by John Polidori, both born after a bet during a night in Switzerland. Shelley achieved immortality, while Polidori also enjoyed success and was a referent of later writers by endowing a strong personality OF its protagonist – Lord Ruthven, a seductive aristocrat – and away from the typical folkloric vampire. In 1820, it was published, another of the works summits of the sort: Melmoth, the wanderer of Charles Maturin.

The novel tells how Melmoth, after sealing a pact with the devil in exchange for immortality, leads a life marked by disgrace with a body that wanders without a soul. He will not be able to get rid of the curse unless he finds another being that accepts the same deal.

Subsequently, there is a horror literature inspired by the beginnings of Gothic. We will mention some, such as Jane Austen's The Abbey of Northanger (1818); The Specter of the Boyfriend (1820) by Washington Irving; The Loving Death (1836) by Téophile Gautier; Jane Eyre (1847) by Charlotte Brönte and Wuthering Heights (1847), by her sister Emily Brönte; The Fall of the House Usher (1839) by Edgar Allan Poe; Monte de las Animas (1864) by Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer; Carmilla (1872) by Sheridan LeFanu; Dracula (1897) by Bram Stoker; Another Turn of the Nut (1898) by Henry James or The Phantom of the Opera (1910) by Gaston Leroux. In the late twentieth century, Anne Rice's vampire novels are considered Gothic heiresses.

Apparently, Gothic culture has existed for centuries, but was not named as a separate movement until the mid-nineteenth century. It was not strictly a Western European phenomenon Russian culture, for example, has always been remarkably gothic, but the identifying factors largely come from Western Europe.

"Goth" was a name originally referred to the barbaric Germanic tribes (Visigoths) that controlled much of Europe during the Average Age. "Gothic" was also a word used to describe a style of art and architecture, and was originally a derogatory term used by Renaissance people to indicate their contempt for the "raw" and "dimly lit" culture of the Gothic in comparison to yours.

The Middle Ages, was in fact very Gothic. There was a fascination, in the limits of obsession, with the contrast between good and evil, with death and with the struggle between purity and decadence. There was also a great deal of remarkable art and literature on these subjects (between 300 and 1300 AD), and all this was a very influential factor in the creation of the Romantic movement.

In the 9th century, a movement called Romanticism was created. He focused on fantastic, extremely emotional issues, about the same struggle between good and evil, sensuality and often death. From this movement emerged another smaller, personified by writers like Byron and Shelley, who was considerably more morbid and decadent. This morbid movement later came to be known as Gothic, partly due to the appreciation of its leaders towards the "Gothic" style of the Middle Ages.

At the end of the 70s the punk movement was created. The punks were mostly pseudo-rebellious deflates following a trend of the time, plus others had certain remarkable principles of individualism and anti-conventional. It was from this second group from which emerged an already very identifiable group of modern Gothic. Music was key. Groups like UK Decay, Bauhaus and Banshees separated of the punk to define this movement. In the 1980s conservative movement, conformism and being silly and ignorantly happy was shown as the only forms of acceptable behaviour. The world economy was in recession, and the gap between rich and poor began to grow tremendously. All this formed a climax point in the Gothic movement.

The word Gothic comes from the term Goth, and is a derogatory way of calling the Germanic people of the "Goths" that invaded Rome. This was a barbarian town.

It was introduced for the first time by the Florentine historian of art: Giorgio Vasari in the sixteenth century with whom he wanted to define the dark art of the Middle Ages in front of the glorious past of classical antiquity. (Review: if we compare it with the Romanesque, surely this will be rigid, rough and even without charm, but the same would be the case of comparing the Gothic style with the art of rebirth, which Vasari was part of).

This thought was maintained until the nineteenth century in which romanticist historians divided the great period of the Middle Ages into Romanesque and Gothic, highlighting the latter's overwhelming force and originality; Which represents the beginning of the stylistic conception of modern art, with principles of fidelity to the real, depth of feeling, sensitivity and sensitivity that manages to enhance the beauty of art. Review: it is in the Gothic where the artistic works are re-appreciated whose figures have normal proportions, move with naturalness and are, in the proper sense of the word, beautiful; Which in part from the object of a direct pleasure that is no longer conditioned by cultural or religious considerations.

The Goths are different from the rest of the people. People often condemn what they do not understand or do not belong to. Consequently, a number of assumptions were made and several stereotypes were created. A few points need to be clarified: they are not satanic, they do not believe in vampires, they are not dangerous nor violent, they are not obsessed with murder, not all are drug addicts, they are not suicidal, they are not sadomasochists and they do not form a subculture based on music, although this is an almost indispensable part of any Gothic life.

Most have artistic tendencies, but not all are musicians composing dark music, pretentious painters, or comic writers. Some do these things, of course, but others weave, make jewellery, write everything from novels to humorous essays, cook, sculpt, photograph, garden, dance, make movies, design games, or engage in hundreds of other creative activities .

They have jobs to attend, classes to attend, pay taxes, have cars and houses, are often volunteers in their communities, and are as productive as most.

The Gothic scene is not depression and as a person; He is not depressive. The above annotation on the beginnings of the Gothic, it is perfectly understandable that the Gothic neither born nor is derived from the depression, nor from the sadness, nor from any of these feelings that with the time we have been adhering to this rich culture. On the contrary, it is based mainly on the despair and at the same time in the struggle, of how an oppressed individual fight against something and someone, but not to impose itself, but to obtain something better, to lead a better standard of life and in itself , to be overcome.

While there is no religious connection in common that links with the Gothic subculture, religious elements, accessories and symbols have played an important role in aesthetics, songs and visual art.

In particular aesthetic elements of Catholicism play the main role in Gothic culture. The reasons for this way of dressing vary between individuals, and include expression of religious affiliation, satire, or simply decorative effect.

Goths are often stereotyped as Satanism. However, this is misleading, the true Gothic rarely has Satanic tendencies. The individuals of the Gothic subculture have a great diversity of religious, non-religious and philosophical beliefs. Many Goths seek to free themselves from what they see as the limitations of traditional religious belief systems, and adopt secularism, or a New Age approach to spirituality. A large number of Gothic adherents to agnosticism or pantheism. Interest in Wicca, Neopaganism, spiritualism and occultism seems to be greater in this culture than in the rest of the people. However, many Goths follow world religions such as Christianity-Catholic, Christianity-Protestant, Christianity-Orthodox, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and others.

Now it is called a gothic subculture, a style, a way of thinking. The common thread is an appreciation for the division of life, the contrast between light and darkness, good and evil, with the awareness that there is no one without the other and the idea that commonly assigned judgments and values to the differentials is not necessarily true.

Some commonly observed facts are a unique style of music, art, and literature. The fascination with medieval history is another point in common.

The appearance of the people, coinciding with this style is very careful and Baroque style: carefully neglected hair, black, with touches and tufts of other colours, pale complexion and sickly appearance, great preference for black and symbols of death or religious still, there are people who do not follow a stereotype and who dress normally, since the potential lies in the head, not in the dress.

They are not or at least not all depressives, violent, suicidal, drug addicts, vampires or who believe vampires, sadomasochists, Satanists, musicians, painters, or other types of artists. They are people with a different sensitivity. The most common elements or themes in gothic culture range from vampirism, occult, funereal, decadent, melancholic, grotesque, apocalyptic, sensual and forbidden, passion and obsessions, the suffering of romanticism (another connection with The past), tragedies, stark reality and discrimination.

Some of the bands that correspond with this style are: The Cure, Bauhaus, Lacrimosa, Sisters of Mercy and Joy Division, among others. Although the "new Goths" pull more for Marilyn Manson and Gothic or industrial metal.

During the period called Gothic in which we are referring to a period of time rather than true artistic premises, European society is in a stage of transition in which the first socioeconomic changes that are triggered in capitalist society .

Thus, this period corresponds, in the first instance, to an abandonment of the feudal system, an evolution and development of mercantilism (Review: mercantilist society is only a first attempt of development of capitalist society) in which abrupt and contradictory changes occur In society, to reach the late Gothic period and entering the doors of capitalism. (Review: the importance of differentiating these economic currents is because through them one observes the organization that bases the foundations of our current society).

Because art is understood as a reflection of the society that shapes it, we can point out its main characteristics based on the economic and social changes that correspond to it (previously described). These are based on a dualism that is expressed in the economic, social, religious and philosophical trends of the time, as well as in the relations between consumer economy and commercial economy, feudalism and the bourgeoisie, transcendence and immanence, realism and nominalism. These dualities determine both the relations of style and nature, as well as the criteria of composition and the polarity of rationalism and irrationalism seen principally in architecture. It differs in three stages: Gothic Primitive or Transition (convents Romanesque and Gothic elements), Gothic Full or Radiant (origin of the most representative buildings), Late Gothic (decorative recharge).

2.3. Gothic architecture

Gothic art is characterized by supremacy and light, which is the reflection of divinity. Its most typical expression is the cathedral, urban building, in which are all the elements of the gothic art.

In these constructions dominate the plants of a Latin cross in which it is distinguished: the head, the cruiser and the ships, of three to five. The head has a spinning wheel and radial chapels and the nave and the cruiser are wider and taller than the sides.

The chapels, the apses and the twigs are no longer semicircular to become polygonal.

The most important constructive changes are manifested in the vault of the crucial and the buttress. The crucial vault, derived from the edge, manages to locate its thrust on four starting points that allow covering all types of spaces. The flying buttress is a kind of bridge that transmits the pressures from the start of the high temperatures to the light buttresses of the exterior, thus allowing opening the main bays in the factory of the building.

It also uses a new type of pointed eye arch. Thanks to their verticality, they allow to raise the height of the building. With these three elements the gothic architects revolutionize the construction. They obtained diaphanous walls that are covered with stained glass. The rosettes are the privileged setting of stained glass windows. The windows are organized in traceries. Each stained-glass window has an iron warehouse and a lead-in. As there is more space free of stone, the windows acquire great importance and inside the bays traceries are appreciated that are filled with polychrome stained glass.

The fasciculate pillar appears, which has the shaft formed by several columns of the legs, also called carabineers.

The cover is revealed. In it are placed the towers and the doors. The typical façade is shaped like an H. It is formed by two square towers, topped with a pyramid element. They have three levels: the entrance door, the windows and the rosette. The doors to the temple are usually placed in the arms and empanadas of the cross, continuing with the only romantic that now the arches are pointed. The eardrums continue to be decorated, but now distribute the figures in the horizontal zones while the figures of the architectures are available in the direction of the curve.

The pointed shape of the wrist with the handle or wrist angular than the crown. On the cover, once can find the rosette that enlivens illumination and chromatic elements inside the temple.

In addition to the cathedrals, other constructions that acquire importance are the civil buildings. Town councils and auction houses are built, while continuing to build castles and military fortifications.

France is the cradle of Gothic. In the proto-stage we find Cistercian buildings such as the abbey of St. Denis and Notre-Dame de Paris. Already in the classic period stand the royal cathedrals, Reims, Amiens and Chartres. And in the mannerist period, it emphasizes the Holy Chapel of Paris and the cathedral of Rouen.

In England the Gothic presents three stages: the primitive style, with the cathedral of Canterbury, the decorative style, with the cathedral of York and the perpendicular style, with the cathedral of Westminster.

In Italy the characteristic was civil architecture. They emphasize the City council of Perusa, the cartage of Pavia and the Ducal Palace Casa del Oro in Venice.

In Spain the Gothic has two fundamental areas, the road of Santiago and the commercial cities of the Crown of Aragon.

They begin to build the cathedrals of Zamora, Salamanca, Tarragona and Lerida.

In its second stage, in the 12th century, the most important cathedrals are those of León, Burgos and Toledo. It is the stage of full Gothic.

In the XV century it appears the flamboyant Gothic, which in Castile is called Elizabethan. In Castilla, two schools appeared: the one of Toledo and the one of Burgos. At this time the decoration overflows, the plants tend to be square of a single nave and the thinnest supports. The choir moves to the feet and up. We highlight the Lonjas of Palma de Mallorca and Valencia.

In Portugal the Gothic comes through Spain: the convent of Batalha and the monastery of Alcobaça. In the 15th and 16th centuries the original Manueline style was developed with the monastery of Belem.

CHAPTER III

VICTORIAN VERSUS GOTHIC SYMBOLS

The fantastic art is a genre of art. The parameters of fantastic art have been quite rigorously defined by field specialists since the nineteenth century. It was a movement of science fiction and fantastic artists before and during the Great Economic Crisis, especially in cover and book illustrations. An anthology about them is called Infinite Worlds: The Fantastic Visions of Science Fiction written by Vincent Di Fate (himself a prolific science fiction artist). It has traditionally been approached in painting and illustrations, but since the 1970s it has begun to be found in photography as well.

Fantastic art explores fantasy, imagination, dream stage, grotesque, vision and strange as well as so-called "Gothic art." Being a genus, derived from Victorian symbolism, modern fantasy art often uses themes such as mythology, occultism and mysticism, and generally seeks to portray the inner life (the nature of the soul and the spirit).

Fantasy has been an integral part of art from the beginning, but it has also been important in manners, romantic art, symbolism and surrealism. In France the genre is called "le Fantastique," and in English it is sometimes called "visionary art," "grotesque art," or mannequin art. It has a deep and circular interaction with fantastic literature.

3.1. Victorian symbols

The Victorian era has remained a symbol of elegance, and some elements have been transposed today, from the gothic fashion style to jewels and sumptuous houses. Even if some people look a bit nostalgic at Victorian costumes, balls at that time and simple, but gallant lifestyle, there are aspects of that unimaginable age.

Poor houses were government-run institutions where "poor, infirm or mentally ill people were" gathered. All those who did not benefit the community filled these homes, which were often dirty and posed a health risk. At that time, poverty was an honourable insult to the society, and people who had modest lives and did not care about in huge houses were considered pariah. Those who arrived at the poor homes had to carry out gruelling work to pay for "accommodation" from children who barely came to see what was on the table to the elderly.

In the Victorian era surgical operations were extremely dangerous. If the patient survived the surgery, he / she risks dying because of post-operative infections and infections.

Interventions were performed without anaesthesia, and doctors had no medication to relieve pain in patients. Electricity could not be said, so there was no electrical equipment nowadays to minimize the duration of operations, implicitly the suffering of the sick. It should be mentioned that at that time the "popularity" of castrations and lobotomies increased.

For us, it is normal for us to have proper medical care for the epoch in which we live (although we do not have them if we are not 'armed' with money) but the Victorian era was known for its strange remedies. For example, patients who contracted various diseases, from tuberculosis to influenza, were locked in their room and doctors forbid family members to let natural light penetrate into the room or ventilate the room. Although we are encouraged today to get out of the air, at that time it was believed that the patient could be exposed to viruses.

Another widespread practice was to make an incision in the patient's arm to "remove bad blood". Doctors believed that the disease would "come out" from the patient's body with his blood. At the same time, London was terrified by the renowned Jack Ripper. London newspapers looked, and fear gradually settled into the lives of people who were afraid to come out on the street. The police never managed to identify the killer, but there were many theories and ideas about it.

Although we are accustomed to seeing the clown, the animals, people who "spit out" flames and the ladies who are sumptuously dressed out AS common, the circus was a kind of shelter for strangers. From women with moustache and beard to people with two pairs of hands, from children who looked like aliens to strangers – they could get their eyes out of the orbit, they could sip milk on their mouth and spit on their nose / ears / etc.

These "strange" (as they themselves were called) were the main attraction of the circuses, and people were paying hard money to see them.

Among the "luxuries" of the Victorian age were the photographs, so most people did not allow them to take pictures of their lives. However, when someone loves dying, everyone wanted to have a photo with that person. No matter how ill-treated the idea of ​​our readers would be, people would arrange the deceased to appear … live, then place them in relatively normal positions and start a "photo shoot".

The dead were often made up, especially in the cheek area to make them alive. Besides, if their eyes could not be opened, the family was painted on the eyelids of the dead "new set of eyes."

3.2. Gothic symbols

It is difficult to try to find an aesthetic or occult symbols common among all Gothic, because each individual is unique and therefore his philosophy of life is different from the others. But I will try to analyze certain concepts, which I hope even if they are not shared, serve for each one to draw their own conclusions.

Many Goths will not have realized that they use certain symbolic rituals in their daily lives. Let us not forget that rituals serve as psychodrama to achieve certain states of consciousness, certain energies or certain powers. Gothic decorates his room, house or small space where he lives, with certain colours, objects, photographs, pictures, etc. At the same time in this space you hear some music and sometimes even incense and / or candles (and other herbs) are lit. This environment becomes a small temple or sacred place. When the Gothic party or goes to some important place for him, he performs a ritual that could be called ritual or ceremony of power, we could also call him transformation, rebirth, etc.

The first is usually a shower or bath, which apart from hygiene is a symbolic act of purification. He then devotes himself to his aesthetic part, seeking the balance between his personality, his wardrobe and his narcissism. As clothes, hairstyle, make-up and their "jewels" shape the being, the inner energy and your mind create an enigmatic and powerful force. All Gothic, knows that when you go out on the street will be a point of attention for others, when a gothic looks at someone when he crosses the street, the other person is "hypnotized" by that mysterious and almost vampirism energy that surrounds him .

The colour black is a fundamental colour in the Gothic aesthetic, symbol of the occult, the night and the darkness. Black is also the colour of elegance, the colour that will make it possible for people to focus their attention on the skin, the eyes and the features of the Gothic.

They are also lovers of metals such as lead, silver and anything away from light colours or gold. Curiously, the silver, very widespread in crosses, rings, earrings and so on is the metal of the moon and the gold of the sun is not curious, so without knowing it or knowing it use the metals related to the night and the occult.

Gothic is the lover of mystery, the night, cemeteries and why not says it, also of vampirism.

The true Gothic, is not a fashion, but a way of life or rather a spiritual path, evolutionist looking for nothing or the whole.

The great advantage that has the Gothic, is his own vision of good and evil, is his ability to find beauty where others cannot find it. It is the ability to have no blind faith towards any god and all that makes them live surrounded by symbols and magic. I could talk about the symbolism of the different crosses, the symbolism of the hair, the group, the power at the mental and collective level of music and a long etc. But my intention is to open a door for all of them to look for their own style considering that everything we do can be a ritual or a symbol and therefore we are moving energies.

Our world is a world of magic. Is not it magic to tell someone who is down, for example, that he is attractive and see how his attitude, his body posture and his expression change? Maybe magic is not everything.

Who believed that the Gothic style only characterized an architectural model of the Middle Ages, is failing. Gothic fashion in fashion or simply "gothic fashion" is influenced by mysterious art and literature of its kind. Gothic literature influences this nonconformist style by combining elements of horror with romantic ones.

Most times people who are Gothic fashion followers are members of the "Goth" subculture, which appeared around 1980 in England as a result of popularizing the genre of gothic rock. This subculture has spread very rapidly in many European and overseas countries and, unlike others, has lasted for a long time, which is why many of its followers are now. It is very true that this subculture puts a great emphasis on the aesthetic that is why the members of this group differentiate themselves by a special style, original and not nonconformist.

The adepts of this subculture try to express their personality and fascination for both aesthetics through this style.

But it is not obligatory that only the supporters of this subculture can adopt a Gothic style, which is preferred by many people. Over time, the Gothic style has become a point of interest for many artists, painters and photographers who have tried to recreate the visual features of this particular style in a unique way. Moreover, fashion designers have treated this style with great seriousness and a great challenge.

Many fashion critics claim that the Gothic style has its roots in Victorian fashion, especially that of mourning. Although the clothing during the Victorian era was very sober, during the Dali era, the Gothic influences were accentuated, with a particular charm, but also macabre. The cuts are inspired by Victorian, Elizabethan and medieval fashion trends.

The romance that this style imparts is unparalleled. Many fashion designers say the Gothic style is the most romantic, considering the materials used. The velvet, the leather, the satin, the silk and the lace are assembled, and the clothes are cut in a special way. The eroticism that these clothes offer is a special feature of this style. Long silk or velvet dresses, lace and leather corsets, black veil dresses accentuate romance and give a mysterious air to any lady or lady who adopts such clothing.

As far as the colours are concerned, black is the preferred colour. Very often black is combined with some strong colours, such as red or dark red. Contrast offers a much more dramatic, romantic and mysterious air. The colours that the Gothic style emphasizes are mysterious and romantic yet dramatic and very sober.

But the Gothic style in fashion is not only characterized by clothing. Fine materials and dark colours, contrast perfectly with white, even very pale skin. This is another feature of the Gothic style. People who adopt such a style have a very white complexion, sometimes being accentuated by makeup.

In terms of makeup, very light complexion or white powder is indispensable. The eyes are highlighted by using a black eyeliner and the lips are mostly red lipstick.

As for Gothic-style hairstyles, they have not changed much since the appearance of the subculture in 1980. Then they supposed that the hair was rich, bulky and black was the favourite colour. It is still a "rule" that the hair be painted black.

The loops were very much loved by Gothic-style followers, this hairstyle being very roaming and expressive.

Gothic style has also been popularized by fantasy literature that brings to the forefront the image of vampire romantics. More bold people opt for morbid makeup inspired by the image of vampires. How Gothic literature combines horror elements with romantic and mysterious ones, and gothic fashion combines elegance, romance with horror elements.

The Gothic style combined with "Lolita fashion" appeared in Japan, resulting in the "Gothic Lolita".

In terms of fashion for men, it includes long jackets in Victorian style, black, shirts, metal and leather accessories. Gothic-style adherents give up any kind of barrier. Many times they also turn to the black eyeliner and white powder to observe the rules imposed by this gloomy style.

Since the Gothic style cultivates the image of death and decadence, favourite accessories are mostly skulls. From earrings to prints, the skulls are out of the wardrobe of a Goth-style follower. Metal accessories are most often used by ladies and they love the lace collars in the neck (choker).

In a few words, the Gothic style of fashion can be characterized by mystery, passion, horror and romance, all of which are combined in a truly hallucinatory way.

3.3. Differences and similarities

A sign of the literary generations, the nineteenth century is considered a century of the novel. Since the postmodern era has been the subject of a discussion, the discussion of the interpretation of Aristotle, no difference between drama and poetry, because there are no genres; today we talk about mixed genres.

The nineteenth century is dominated by the novel; everyone read it. It must be borne in mind that in the 19th century 40,000 original titles were published in England. Jay Austen (pre Victorian), Charles Dickens, William Thackeray, Charlotte and Emily Brönte, George Eliot and Henry James (though situated at the beginning of modernism).

What marks the society of the nineteenth century is the Industrial Revolution. It led to the transformation of society from an agricultural to an urban society, with consequent social, labour and family changes. The bourgeoisie is debased, among others, to emigrate from the countryside to the city, a necessary manner of work in the city already or need to make the land profitable by the big landowners: the Protestant moral allowed the idea of ​​the work since the Calvinist Ideas affirm Whatever is successful in this life is chosen.

Enter the idea of ​​private property to surround small communal lands. Considering that the peasant ruined and he only had two options: to emigrate or to remain as wage earner of great landowner.

There are also social changes: appearing one new working class, and the proletariat. It feels like the workers are seeing a change in their lives that they do not understand, so a guide imperative. There is a substitution of the ruling classes: appearing in the figure of an entrepreneur who has the economic power.

The horror and mystery stories, which would later be configured into Gothic literature, ignited the imagination of the reader since the second half of the 18th century (Horace Walpole, is considered to be the creator of the genre) once With the revival of interest in medievalism (one of the meanings of the English word "gothic" being even "medieval"). The supernatural, the terror or the unusual, carefully passed through the modern literature filter to give them a minimum of verisimilitude (strongly contrasting with the previous allegorical approaches), characterized – from that moment to the present day – a literary species whose spectacular trajectory Was permanently punctuated by the birth of geniuses and the publication of masterpieces, thus ensuring immortality.

Queen Victoria was one of the longest surviving reporters of the English monarchy, and her period of reign is one of the longest in European history. In the long run, it has become more important in terms of technology than the Industrial Revolution, with a general economic and economic impact, and England and will be of the world superpowers.

At the elevator of Reina Victoria it was not easy, since it was not the successor. In the case of the heresy of the throne and early deaths, the nominee of the prince heiress. It is a question of the fact that it is the source of a genealogical representation and that it is the sole responsibility of the succession. It is important to know that your child is adolescent and who is educated to have a tutor or a tutor, and that he / she is a self-taught person.

However, which is Leopold, is part of the future of the Albert of Coburg and Saxony, and it is the future of the future of the future. He advised her to separate from her mother's overprotection and to start making her own decisions. These councils were intended to lure Victoria to her nephew Alberto, because of her pretensions to the English throne.

Finally, the queen and Prince Albert married and had a happy marriage that lasted until the death of the second, and in which they had many children who married with almost all the European royal houses. For this reason Queen Victoria was nicknamed "The Grandmother of Europe".

The Victorian era may seem bizarre … for several reasons. But essentially because it is a rather gloomy period in which people have habits to measure.

While the upper and middle classes did not benefit from modern television entertainment, they improvised as they could. A very popular method of banishing boredom required family members to disguise themselves in scandalous suits and entertain others with various scenes. The whole thing seems innocent, but … if we think that a 70-year-old grandmother dressed in a schoolgirl and amused herself with gestures not quite decent on the table, while all of them applaud and laugh, as if the idea is a little exaggerated. But for the Victorians, it fell into normality and amusement.

The houses of poor people were government-run collective houses that threw the poor, disabled and mentally ill. The miserable conditions in which they lived are hard to imagine. They were the unwanted people of the society who did not give them any chance of rehabilitation. Poverty was labelled as a dishonour, and no one considered it, but the result of chronic laziness. This sad mass of society was condemned to titanic labour to be able to remain even in that mess. There was something out of the ordinary as dozens of families shared the same dilapidated house. In fact, life cannot get worse. Between living on the streets and lived here, the only difference was the roof. A roof that falls down at any moment.

Well, as gruesome as the people who inhabited it. At that time, he had earned a reputation for his famous "pea-suppers," so dense, so much he could barely see himself at one meter. How were they produced? They were a kind of combination between the mists above the Thames River and the smoke, they produced in a joy of industrial coal, a fundamental part of life in the Victorian era. The phenomenon, however, was not new, or more, for centuries. In 1306, King Edward I forbid the use of coal. In the industrial age, it is clear that things are a little dull. In 1952, no less than 12,000 Londoners died of smog, prompting the government to adopt the Clear Air Act, which facilitates the creation of smog-free areas. The Victorian atmosphere cannot be conceived without this macabre, shadowy fog that has made possible many criminal acts, such as the atrocities committed by Jack the Ripper.

Victorians were great lovers of … losers. They ate almost any organ of the animal. For a gourmet, it does not mean much, but think, however, that a bowl of brain mixed with heart was considered heaven on earth … Another famous dish of the same period is the turtle soup. The turtle was used especially for the green fat that was used to season long-boiled meat soups. Due to the considerable decrease in population, today, frogs are seldom on the English menu.

At a time when one in four patients dies after surgery, you should have luck with a good doctor and a salon as decent as possible. No talk of anaesthetics, analgesics, electrical equipment. Victorian surgery was not frightening, it was horrible. Here is a description of the era: "An important group of students carefully check their pockets. Two of Liston's assistants gripped the patient's shoulders. The very conscious man, who is already struggling with a grievous pain because he had slipped his foot between the train and the platform, looks with horror at the collection of knives and needles. Liston grabs his left thigh and, with a quick move, makes an incision. An assistant pushes to stop the bleeding. As the patient screamed in pain, Liston screamed. Start cutting. The assistant who had offered to support his foot suddenly realized that he was taking all his weight. Trembling slightly, throws the distal limb in a box. " In these times, castration or lobotomy is the order of the day and they too.

No wonder that a very popular literary genre is the Gothic novel, an interesting blend of horror and romance. In this sinister atmosphere, the great Gothic masterpieces such as "Dracula," "The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" are born. The genre is not alien to the Americans, who have Edgar Allen Poe in the genes. The Victorians knew how to scare and do it in style. The works are the basis of the horror genre and their power to produce tremors has not lost at all.

In the wake of the Victorian era, a monstrous character is terrorizing London. Jack Ripper successfully uses all-encompassing smog to make ritual crimes in the East End, where at least five prostitutes are slaughtered. The newspapers create an aura of celebrity because of the wildness of the attacks and the inability of the police to trace it. As the identity of the murderer has never been confirmed, the legends surrounding the crimes have become a melancholy of historical research, folklore and pseudo-history. The interest of amateur writers, historians and detectives has not faded the controversial character, already part of the European culture and the opportunity for endless stories.

With the so-called freak shows, some exhibitions of rare, human oddities, condemned by nature. Dwarves, giants, more hands or feet, hermaphrodites, incurable patients with mutilated faces, all were part of a huge circle meant to feed their sensational desire to the wealthy. They were forced to do all sorts of shows, which more shocking. Perhaps the most famous freak that appeared in a freak show is Elephant Man, Joseph Carey Merrick (5 Aug 1862 – 11 Apr 1890). The nickname is due to a congenital dysfunction. His left side was concave and distorted, forcing him to wear a mask all the time. Freak shows and people's morbid pleasure to be amused by the suffering of their peers is undoubtedly one of the most macabre aspects of Victorian life.

Photographic art is not well developed at the time. That's beside astronomical costs. When a dear one died, the relatives usually consulted the body of the deceased. For most victors, it was the only picture they benefited … the post-mortem. The dead seem to be alive in many photographs. Because either they kept their eyes open, or the pupils were painted on the print, or their cheeks were red. Adults often appear on chairs or fixed frames. Flowers are again a leitmotif in post-mortem photography. The contrast between plant liveliness, the impression of moving relatives in life, and the dark stiffness of the dead is even greater as the latter is always the perfect focus.

Not even Queen Victoria misses the shady landscape, of course. And she was a pretty creepy character. When her husband dies, Albert, in 1861, she enters into prolonged mourning, dressing in black cloaks to his own death, and pretending the nation to wear the same colour. Avoid appearances in public and seldom pass through London. The exacerbated isolation brought him the nickname "Windsor Widow". His illustrious ruler casts a sad veil over Britain, so that his entire era is marked by a general feeling of fear and imminence of death. Ironically, Queen Victoria disliked the burials that everyone wore black, London chose white and purple as colours of mourning in his honour.

Conclusions

Because of his rigid upbringing that promoted good manners, the ideals of the Victorian era were very particular. They embraced everything from painting and literature to fashion, fields in which moral values ​​and moral values ​​were to be instilled, for example: although the painting dealt with classical and pre-Raphaelite themes, it respected the modesty of models aesthetically, or in the Literature emphasized human values ​​and decency.

However, in spite of the high ideals of the time, also a double moral was lived, the reason why prostitution was one of the professions with greater height. Another example was child abuse through work, represented in the work of writers like Charles Dickens in his novel Oliver Twist.

As for sexuality, there were cases such as the writer Oscar Wilde, who would be condemned to forced labour along with one of his male lovers due to his faults to the moral of the time. Finally, thanks to the increase of exchanges with East and New World, the consumption of drugs was something quite legitimized. Queen Victoria herself was an avid consumer; Another example is Sherlock Holmes.

The literary works of this period tended to a marked realism, as the authors sought to talk about their daily life, but above all the injustices and contrasts of a society so moral for its time.

In architecture, it was possible to contemplate a Gothic Renaissance that would mark the aesthetics of the time. Examples are the architectural design of Charles Barry, who was responsible for building the new Westminster Palace.

Finally, Victorian fashion was a trend that sought to highlight the beauty of women through prudence. They used flights and open shoulders as well as hairstyles that emphasized the face. Victorian fashion is a style that until today influences collections and designs of fashion houses, as well as movements as Lolita, which use elements of Victorian fashion to dress.

The Victorian era laid the foundations for what would be modernity, as thanks to the Industrial Revolution and the expansion of the British empire gave a great impetus to the technological and social ideals of the era that would eventually mark us as a contemporary society.

There are already many definitions of what is or is supposed to be the Gothic culture, versions of a movement or scene that was posed in a way already largely misrepresented with personal definitions of how the individual sees his reality, but never makes it general And from the root of the term, which already involved with other styles, ways of thinking movements, etc. It is presented to us as a counter culture, which in reality is far from being what it was when it was born.

It has been enriched with Philosophy (whether personal or authors or related characters) Art (painting, drawing, photography, theatre, performances) Literature (of themes related to Gothic) Music (concerts, Way of life, for others a fashion or a feeling.

Gothic has its beginnings between 1850 and 1860 in France as an anti-social movement led by workers in their majority and by students who lived in constant oppression by the system that the society at that time had, making up their faces of white and wearing In black they gave to understand the fact that the oppression had them dead. Still in the nineteenth century Europe, Gothic as a counterculture re-emerged in the 80's when punk was already in its terms as something strong, hence has taken something of the punk style, in terms of image, some ideologies and also some music.

The young people who were taking and exploiting at the time, because of the way they lived in Mexico in the 80's, incorporating a gothic identity of what they felt at that time. One could see some decadence, pressure and even nostalgia, and it was not difficult for them to abandon themselves in a dark culture, to which they injected personal feelings. Suddenly the Gothic is not so much a rebellion, it is already my flag, it is already "my darkness" and where I can take refuge from the whole world.

By comparing these two worlds, one can easily view the immense difference between them.

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