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| http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2d/ Picardie_Amiens2_tango7174.jpg |
Cathedrals: The high arches and spires of cathedrals reach wildly to the sky, as if the builders were trying to touch heaven, an ambition for the eternal that is likewise expressed in many works of Gothic literature. Vaulting windows in medieval cathedrals are adorned by ornate stained glass which sometimes contain images of the interaction between the supernatural and human worlds. Also the tall spires of medieval cathedrals likewise expressed the human ambition to transcend from the natural world and to touch the supernatural realm.
Medieval cathedrals are also covered with a profusion of wild cravings and depicting humanity in conflict with supernatural forces: Demons, angels, gargoyles and monsters. The architecture evokes the sense of humanity's division between a finite, physical identity and the often terrifying and bizarre forces of the infinite. The Gothic aesthetic also embodies an ambition to transcend earthly human limitations and reach the divine.
Literature:
Literature of the supernatural often uses recurring themes, images and symbols to envision the human condition. Supernatural motifs appear throughout literature but are most prominent in the literary genre labeled ' Gothic', which is developed in the late eighteenth-century as a reaction to the central ideology of the enlightenment that valorized human reason.
Gothic literature is devoted primarily to stories of horror, the fantasy and the 'darker' supernatural forces. These forces are often represented as the 'dark side' of the human nature.
The painting opposite illustrates a scene from one of the most famous Gothic novels, Bram Stokers Dracula (1898). It shows Dracula seducing a young women to drink her blood. Monsters such as vampires in Gothic works tend to externalize our own dangerous repressed desires.
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| https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/l/literature /gothic/gothic.jpg |
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| https://s3.amazonaws.com/readers/2011/09/04/madness_1.jpg |
Internet Source: http://resources.mhs.vic.edu.au/creating/pages/origins.htm
[Accessed: 20/03/2015]
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