UK Decay :: View topic - What is Gothic?

UK Decay :: View topic - What is Gothic?

When I was a kid I was taught that it was the visigoths that had sacked Rome. The Romans had called them 'barbarians' and primitive, but in fact the 'barbarians' who inhabited central eastern Europe, prevailed over the mighty roman empire that had ruled the world for hundreds of years. For the Romans the visigoths were their Armageddon!
Later i pictured Goth as being those tall cathederals with flying buttresses and gargoiles that were built all over Europe in the dark ages by the knights templars and the Benedictine monks. These were temples to the light for the illuminated which gave birth to freemasonry! For others in the dark ages, the dark ages were dark! with plagues, famines, fires, inquisitions, fuedal barons, warfare, brutality and rampant exploitation of religion, human life was cheap, all the nightmare's that were later recorded in the imaginations and prophesies of Nostradamus and heronimus Bosch! this summed up gothic in my picture.
Then came the eighteenth century and the classic horror stories such as Frankenstein, Dracular and all the spinoffs. Often stories that wove folklore and mythology into the themes. This led on to Edgar Allen Poe with the classic dark motives ie the black cat. Then there was H.P.Lovecraft with perhaps the ultimate use of imaganitive gothscapes in his writings.
I think that goth is definitely in league with dark as it is known in the contemporary drum and bass culture today. Similar atmospheres are created with a combination of dark and evil vocalisation samples and dark sounds which is currently seen as being cool on the streets! At least here in the uk......
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