TIMES, TIME, AND HALF A TIME. A HISTORY OF THE NEW MILLENNIUM.

Comments on a cultural reality between past and future.

This blog describes Metatime in the Posthuman experience, drawn from Sir Isaac Newton's secret work on the future end of times, a tract in which he described Histories of Things to Come. His hidden papers on the occult were auctioned to two private buyers in 1936 at Sotheby's, but were not available for public research until the 1990s.



Friday, October 19, 2012

Countdown to Hallowe'en 13: Gothic Love, Romantic Death

Heathcliff on Cathy's grave. Image Source: Macmillan's Children's Publishing Group.

Gothic. Goths were eastern Germans who populated Central, Northern and Western Europe during the Roman period. Viewed by the Romans as barbarians, they were in fact sophisticated tribes. Early Gothic style, especially in architecturepejoratively recalled these peoples' cultures in France in the 12th century, and evolved into an eponymous late medieval style by the 16th century.

The reason the term 'Gothic' became synonymous with today's counter-culture was precisely because it was originally considered to be the barbarous or rude northern and western 'other,' contrasting with the persistent influence of Romans' Mediterranean classicism. The latter was especially popular in its revived forms through the Renaissance and again through the 18th and 19th centuries. In other words, these two strands in European culture - the Gothic alternative and the Roman mainstream if you will - are perpetually brought back into fashion to compete with one another, in different ways and ever-new forms.

By the 18th and 19th centuries, a Gothic Revival recalled medieval times and merged with the Romantic naturalist reaction against the cerebral, secular and neo-classicist Enlightenment.

From that time until today, love stories have lent themselves to contemplation of these trends, because the lovers and supporting characters represent opposing sides to these arguments. The pinnacle of English Gothic Romanticism must be the moment in  Emily Brontë's 1847 novel Wuthering Heights when Heathcliff embraces Cathy after death. Heathcliff represents raw, unbridled, violent and alien Romanticism. Cathy is a hybrid character who embodies Enlightenment ambitions and tastes, but she has a Romantic heart and soul. She dies as a result of her inability to reconcile these forces, her doomed love of Heathcliff becomes darkly Gothic.

Our contemplation of these forces continues. It is hard (and sad) to believe, but the lovers in Twilight and that series' sado-masochistic fanfic derivative, Fifty Shades of Grey, are the Millennial incarnations of Brontë's wild amorous protagonists.

Today, the Countdown to Hallowe'en continues exploring horror angles of this blog's themes, from love in the new Millennium, to the revival of 1920s' and 1930s' ideas during the 2000s and 2010s respectively. Below the jump, a clip from a film which presents the lovers of the Gothic Romantic, recast through the surreal lens of the 1930s. The film quoted is director Luis Buñuel's Spanish-Mexican version of Wuthering Heights, Abismos de Pasión. Buñuel originally adapted Brontë's novel in 1931.

Abismos de Pasión (1954; Wuthering Heights) Video Source: Youtube.

Buñuel's efforts in Mexico followed on the heels of the Golden Age of Mexican cinema. His surreal tropes in that country were not always embraced with open arms, because they turned familial norms and other social conventions inside out. Over time, however, Buñuel became appreciated in his adopted country. Dating from 1954 (it took him almost twenty years to raise the money to make the movie), his adaptation of Wuthering Heights is considered to be truer to the spirit of the novel than Hollywood versions. The scene shown is Heathcliff (Alejandro, played by Jorge Mistral) at Cathy's (Catalina, played by Irasema Dilián) gravesite.

Buñuel's admixture of surrealism well suits the wild uninhibited children of the Gothic Romantic, because surreal elements attacked rationalism with dreams and the imagination, and asserted that the latter flights of fancy are the genuine representations of rationalism. Any kind of disconsonant juxtaposition of two otherwise logical settings was meant to highlight the surreal challenge to ordered, rationalist landscapes. In short, surrealism presented the revolutionary notion that crazy was the new normal, and wasn't actually crazy.

It is as if surrealism marked another point of dialogue in western dualism, and gave way to a Hegelian third of trialism: an argument between the mind and the body becomes a contemplation of the spirit or the soul. Surrealism indicated another philosophical split between the real world and the virtual world, and incited yet another debate on which reality was the real reality.

In today's turn of the Millennium, this trademark pattern repeats. Conflicting opinion has never been sharper between revived 18th century neo-classical Enlightenment rationalism and the Romantic radical liberal embrace of the 'other.' In the battle between these two perspectives, a trialist Millennial crisis of consciousness overturns any certainty about reality, inspires a wayward loss of values, and makes distraction the most prominent Millennial sensibility.



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See all my posts on Ghosts.


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8 comments:

  1. Gothic romance and Halloween - an inspired pairing, ToB.

    As sad and hard to believe as it is (and it is) you're probably right about the "Twilight" genre being the contemporary derivative - see "degenerative" - of "Wuthering Heights". Actually, I think there was a former "re-telling" of "Wuthering Heights" casting Cathy and Heathcliff as vampires, but maybe I'm imagining things. ;-)

    Re: "the revolutionary notion that crazy was the new normal" - Hah! Isn't it?

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  2. Hi Dia, Yep, when they look back on the heights Millennial civilization reached, I suspect that 'remakes' will not be in the list, that includes tepid Twilight reimaginings of great works. Never mind fanfic s&m versions of the same!

    Bill Walko recently spoofed Twilight on his web comic the Hero Business, it was very funny:
    http://www.deviantart.com/download/277865365/hero_business___dimlight_by_n8twing-d4lfmad.jpg

    I think dA is down today, try later if the link doesn't work.

    Yeah, crazy became the new normal after the sixties. Now people who think they are normal are in fact crazy, and people who are actually normal are labeled crazy. LOL. I try to take the new century one day at a time.

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    1. Re: DA link - Hah! Gotta love the "Dimlight" marketing analysis. :-D

      Ah well, look on the bright side - instead of "crazy", we might say "uninhibited", ;-)

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    2. Here is the latest chatter on the topic, courtesy of Radio Free Penzance:
      http://naturalsociety.com/scientists-creativity-part-of-mental-illness/

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    3. Read the article... um, ludicrous and appalling come to mind... the comment section is entertaining though. "Raven" says: "There is a correlation between the initial stages of fascism and the attempt to label creativity and intellect as defects because it is well known that people who conform are easier to control." (Good point!)

      My favorite comment comes from "Peter" who says: "I think walking on two legs is a mental illness." To which I'd wholly agree!




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    4. That is indeed an interesting point about conformity and fascism. Although there are of course serious artists and thinkers who conformed with fascist aims. I've never quite seen how they squared that.

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  3. True, let's look at the bright side!

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    1. ... often, but not always, found in an unconscious and/or "altered" state! ;-)

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