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HISTORY
Literature published in Ancient Rome during the Imperial period began with strict loyalty to the newfound emperor, Augustus. Virgil, through his “Aeneid”, provided a nationalistic epic that recounted the foundations of their country from its very beginnings. Virgil’s friend and fellow writer, Horace, published eloquent poems that saluted the induction of this newfound imperial period. Even the slightly ambivalent historian, Livy, took the opportunity to admire the magnificence the Roman Empire had become.
However, when the writer Tacitus emerged in the late 1st century AD, he assumed a contrastingly different approach to characterising the state and emperor. In effect, what he constructed via his literature was a satirical denouncement of the emperor and his court that at the time were so steeped in privilege. It was, in nature, an arrival of irreverence. It was an arrival of freedom and loosening over how far leading writers could dissent against the imperial throne.
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His famous book, the “Annals”, came in 117 AD. It was therefore read amongst Roman society roughly a hundred years after the first emperor, Augustus, had died in 14 AD. Here we find ourselves amongst a literary era, known as “silver Latin”. However, it was a prime opportunity where Tacitus could deploy literary devices such as innuendo and loaded phrases to satirize his victims.
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One of Tacitus’ principle literary devices was a form reconstruction regarding the scenarios he describes in his narratives. Evidently swaying from truth, the writer presents a version of the events that whether true or not, certainly are amusing to the reader. For instance, in Book 12 of the “Annals”, Tacitus reconstructs the debate surrounding Claudius’ choice of wife. Sophistication and sophistry are absent and are replaced by farcical scenarios. In Tacitus’ account, the emperor’s most influential freedmen select and advocate their own choice, something that presents Claudius himself as a foolish puppet.
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Emerging as one distinct oeuvre, the “Annals” was Tacitus’ final work. It covered the period from the death of Augustus in 14 AD. Commentators have established that Tacitus wrote at least 16 books, however books 7 -10 and part of books 5,6, 11 and 16 are missing. Since Book 6 ends with the death of Tiberius and Book 12 features the life of Claudius, books 7 – 10 presumably covered the reign of Caligula and Claudius. It is precisely the “Annals” that I have chosen to focus upon, since it is here that Tacitus’ craft of language and narratives becomes most majestically apparent.
Describing the “Annals” in the most proficient manner, chronologically the work is a history of the Roman Empire from the reign of Tiberius to that of Nero, altogether encompassing the years 14 – 68 AD. Summarily, Tacitus offers a style of portraiture, depicting the emperors and their courts with his individual venom. His portrayals of Tiberius and Nero are blemishing in character, and ultimately the emperors come across as tyrants who treat their subjects terribly. Whereas Tiberius is described as someone who had once been a great man, Tacitus considers Nero as contemptible in totality.
Another prolific literary device Tacitus employs is a form of cultic investigation of personalities. The feature runs right to the core of his criticism of dynastic power. In a passage surrounding the life of Tiberius, Tiberius sought to assume imperial power, because, Tacitus alleges, he was personally anxious about the military situation on the Roman frontier. Tacitus directs an attack on his personality, aiming to expose Tiberius hypocritical judgement with irony and style.
Considering himself as a conscious literary stylist, articles of Tacitus’ greatest success appear in his manner of expression that gave life to his work. Perhaps as man whose motive was irreverence to the emperor, it is fitting that he styled his writings against the conformity of the historiographical tradition. Greek historiography dictated a set of determined parameters that formed its literature. The writer, the tradition held, could analyse events in plain terms, set the scene with personalities, or heighten the dramatic appeal of human action. Majestic works such as the writings of Thucydides or Livy in effect offered an amalgamation of these criteria. The Roman “annalistic” form, however, was a new addition. After the development of the genre, Tacitus precisely could gloss separate and significant episodes with the quintessential Grecian effects that he had come to learn.
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Almost all Roman authors were knights or senators. They were, in essence, the leading class of Roman society. As such, they operated in a complex and sometimes troubled relationship with the emperor. Tacitus was born shortly after Nero became emperor, in 55 or 56 AD, and continued the trend by having distinguished family in the provinces of Gaul. Under Nero, the relationship between the aristocracy and himself became under particular strain, a feature that led to particularly hostile accounts. This would be the start of aristocratic irreverence to the imperial throne.​
Tacitus arrives at his infamous “irreverence” following several different command posts. The author had embarked on a successful political career under the Flavians and their successors, Nerva and Trajan. When writing his historical works, Tacitus frames himself as an experienced elder statesman. For romans who were members of the senatorial class, they had recently witnessed the assassination of Domitian in 96 AD (the last ruler of the Flavian dynasty) and accession of Nerva and Trajan following him. To them, the situation in 98 AD appeared like the happy arrival of victory after what had been a struggle.
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Therefore, what they wanted, while accepting the need for an emperor, was to be respected by this ruler and be afforded exclusive access to the highest offices and privileges. However, at the crux of their attitudes lay a fervent will to reject any notion of automatic hereditary succession. This was something that had been created by the Julio-Claudian dynasty and continued by the Flavians. Writers subscribing to this school located their most reprehensible character in the form of Nero. To them, Nero’s rule was an aberration and an existential threat. It is a culmination of Tacitus’ “Annals” and “Histories” that provides his most stringent denouncement of Emperor Nero. The “Annals” elaborates upon the ruler’s perceived moral depravity and consequential grave political failings. The “Histories”, alternatively, accounts the resulting breakdown that his inadequacy caused, primarily proclaiming a decline in discipline revolving around orders rewarded by Nero and other parties.
What culminated into a climax of anti-Nero sentiment were opportune personal and political factors. Tacitus wrote his “Annals” and “Histories” while the emperor Trajan was in power. Trajan was a great-nephew of one of the figures embroiled in the Pisonian conspiracy that occurred during the reign of Nero. This was a man called Barea Soranus. Taking place in 65 AD, this was a major turning point within the reign of Emperor Nero (54-68 AD). The plot illustrated the growing discontent of the Roman ruling class in the face of Nero’s increasingly despotic leadership. It came to be regarded as a crucial stepping stone towards Nero’s eventual suicide and the chaotic Year of the Four Emperors that ensued.
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Supporting these views in later years, anti-Nero sentiment was swept up eagerly by Christian Church Fathers. They wanted and succeeded in presenting Nero as an ultimate tyrannical monster. However, this was met in contrast by Rome’s pagan senatorial aristocracy from late antiquity. They conversely viewed Nero as a symbol of traditional Roman customs. This is attested by a “Contorniate”, or medallion, that has been discovered and judged to have dated to between the late 4th and 5th century AD. The medallion depicts a laureate bust of Nero on the obverse and a race in the Circus Maximus on the reverse (British Museum, R.5026). These “Contorniates” were produced roughly between 355-410 AD and are thought to have been distributed as New Year’s gifts. Nero, in fact, was the second most portrayed emperor, after Trajan.
Tacitus, therefore, ultimately failed to induce endless shame upon the emperor he so venomously criticised. Assessing the writer’s veracity, it is apparent time after time that he has a strong bias towards the senatorial classes. When Tacitus recounts the final death of Nero, he claims that the senators and leading knights rejoiced (the emperor Galba being away from Rome), along with what he calls as the “respectable” people. Conversely, what Tacitus labels as the “plebs sordida” (vulgar crowd) along with those “used to the circus and theatre”, “poorest slaves” and those who had “squandered their property”, he says were dejected and concerned. Tacitus’ contempt has been historically examined to be at odds with others adverse to the senatorial view, who, for instance decorated Nero’s tomb with flowers and hung images.
We can take a swan dive into Tacitus’ literary prowess. There is no mediocrity in his views. Absolution is the only answer he has for the emperors he is describing. In section 7 of Book 1 of the “Annals”, he describes Tiberius as having feebly crept into power, using the denigrative phrase “per uxorium ambitum” (“through the canvassing of his wife”) and attaches the condescending verb, “inrepisse”, (“to creep”). The language is also flagrant when Tacitus contrasts Tiberius with Germanicus, who he prefers. Again in Book 1 the structure “tot legiones, immensa …, mirus…” and verb “mallet” (“prefer”), as if Germanicus could take the Empire easily if wanted, indirectly reduce the impression of security of Tiberius’ command.
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Germanicus is clearly the preferred character. Tacitus describes him pleasantly. He wrote, “ “nam iuveni civile ingenium, mira comitas etdiversa ab Tiberii sermone vultu, adrogantibus et obscuris.” (“For the young man possessed a courteous nature and remarkable affability—qualities contrasting sharply with the speech and bearing of Tiberius, which were haughty and inscrutable.” (“Annals”, Book 1). In the debate of his succession, Tacitus interjects to comment on the insincerity of Tiberius’ ostensive rejection of power: “plus in oratione tali dignitatis quam fidei erat.” (“There was more dignity than faith in such a speech” (11) Tiberius’ phrase, “dissimulatio” (“disguise”), combined with Tacitus’ allusions to the weakness of his rule lead to an impression of the Principate as devious and complex.
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It is something, he believes, as requiring the senatorial class to shape as the backbone of Roman society. It is distaste of disenfranchisement suffered by the senatorial class that Tacitus is most weariful of.
The writer of several books appeared at the forefront of Roman society in 81or 82 AD, at the age of 26, when he became a questor under the reign of Emperor Titus. Tacitus’ “Annals” contained18 or 16 books and was probably written at first during the reign of Trajan and completed at the start of Hadrian’s reign. It was a natural development from his previous work, the “Histories”, which cast a negative criticism over the empire. The “Annals”, in effect, represented a diagnosis of this sorry state.
Tacitus’ “Annals” permeated an elite collection of interested readers throughout the Dark and Medieval ages. However, it was rediscovered during the Renaissance and from then onwards disseminated widely. The writings have been adapted across different media in the modern era, including film and television productions. They also continue to be read and studied widely across the globe.
A man staring downwards into the pits of hell feels a sudden reckoning shiver through his body. The howling catharsis seizes control of his mind. The wind seethes to meet his enrapture. Beside him the stone gargoyles rise upwards with a stern longingness. This man is about to open his heart to the majesty of the Gothic symbols he observes around him.
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A chilling, macabre sensation directs his intention onto the emptiness that was the sky. It is now replaced by a fearsome beast – something that knows fore well the savagery it hopes to spurn. The spirit sends forth a claw and solicits its gentrified wolf towards the maiden’s chambers. They arrive at the stables and hope to enter the inn, yet a fulcrum across the door banishes their wearied brows. A Picard is the sorry answer for their lust. The emblazoned hunger has met its counterpart.
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A sudden imbroglio is drawn across the cankered hamlet. Gawping at the towering dark storm rising, a nidification of treacherous spirits sully onwards through the sweeping winds. Evangelicalism, rich like the magniloquent clergymen of old, loosens its broad shoulders and dusts the soot from its suit. They hark back to a former time – a time of pre-Reformation Catholicism. Discarding the malingering cries of the passive, it instils high-grade weapons in its armoury. They reach out to the sky. They reach out against pernicious dark swells. A time of nature, they rather said, a time of golden farming.
As such, the great edifices grew high into the sky. Previous convicts were exculpated. The perspicacious view was now to raise great towers to bond us all. Simple urges, pleasures of lust, sexual relationships, now found themselves as bathetic folly. People now received an animadversion for failing to dream – for failing to wonder.
Garrulous figures, such as Thomas Carlyle and Augustus Pugin, taught us that industrial society was a mere acolyte of the devil. Pre-industrial medieval society, rather, was a golden age. By extension, the Gothic architecture of this medieval age was the truest Christian form. To the crowds of observers, Gothic culture represented a halcyon of monarchism and conservatism. It was for these very reasons that Gothic architecture was applied to the British Parliament’s Palace of Westminster in London (1876), the Canadian Parliament Buildings in Ottawa (1876) and the Hungarian Parliament Building in Budapest (1904).
The legacy of original Gothic style had survived in a meagre ineluctable form into the 16th century. Hurrying like a festinate infection, the style sunk through the depths of Tudor times. It was amongst the grandiose colleges of Oxford and Cambridge, where Gothic style was infused alongside new Tudor trends. Rather that display Baroque elements, for instance, the famous “Tom Tower” (designed by Sir Christopher Wren 1681-1682) in Oxford adheres to the surrounding Tudor trends. In fact, in a letter to Dean Fell (a contemporary academic), Wren wrote, “I resolved it ought to be Gothic to agree with the Founder’s work,” and added that to do otherwise would lead to “an unhandsome medley.”
Like a sibilant dragon breathing forth the will of its urges, in many cases Gothic style was reintroduced before the 19th century. The Great Hall of Lambeth Palace, something that had been despoiled by the Puritans, was rebuilt in a mixture of Baroque and older Gothic forms. In effect, the cathexis supplied a demonstration for the restitution of the Anglican Church.
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Benefiting from further cerulean skies, Gothic style would reappear in many important instances across England. Between 1687-1704, the Collegiate Church of St. Mary in Warwick was rebuilt after a fire. Whereas the ruined church had previously been a basilica with timbered roofs, now the renovation was developed into a stone-vaulted hall church. Slightly later and again in Warwickshire (1729-30), the nave and aisles of the church of St. Nicholas at Alcester were rebuilt by Edward and Thomas Woodward. In this case, the exterior exhibited Gothic forms while the interior maintained a Neoclassical visage.
At the same time, an even more significant development took place. It came to fustigate every denouncer of the Gothic dream. Between 1722-1746, Nicholas Hawksmoor added the west towers to Westminster Abbey. By no means maladroit at his task, the act ensured that Hawksmoor became a pioneer of renovating previous medieval buildings in the Gothic Revival style. This was something that met its critics, but a feature that continued into the 19th and 20th centuries. Other instances of early Gothic Revival primarily come from Oxford. Here, for instance, the University College dining hall (1766-1768) was redecorated in Gothic style. The building drew a description from one observer that it was “the first major example of the Gothic Revival style in Oxford.
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In fact, there are numerous examples of Gothic style buildings constructed in Europe that predate the 19th century. Remaining sanguine about the style’s hopes, the Church of St. Eustache (1532-1640, façade 1754) and Orleans Cathedral (1601-1829) were both constructed in the Gothic style. In 1646, the recalcitrant architect of Bologna, Carlo Rainaldi, whose previous work had been Baroque, constructed Gothic vaults (completed 1658) for the Basilica of San Petronio, which had been under construction since 1390. Likewise, the architects of Bruges offered a similar panegyric for St. Salvator’s Cathedral, where timbered medieval vaults of the nave and choir were replaced by Gothic stone vaults (1635).
Returning to British emblems, architects began to recuse themselves away from Baroque and Renaissance architecture. What we find is a catalyst in the mid-18th century, extenuating the transgression of nebulous previous forms. Here we are met with the maudlin rise of Romanticism that presented an increased interest and awareness of the Middle Ages. Such a trend infiltrated the crowds of leading thinkers, who investigated the tropes that had once been discarded as otiose ramblings. These included medieval arts, church architecture, the tomb monuments of royal and noble personages, stained glass and late Gothic illuminated manuscripts.
Quintessential Gothic-revival edifices came to be born. After chastising Gothic style as barbaric and crude for several centuries, the world began to feel more contrite. And when the time came, the world was neither timorous. Scotland came first and exhibited some of the earliest architectural examples of Gothic-revival. Inveraray Castle (designed by William Adam and constructed in 1746 for the Duke of Argyll) notably displayed the incorporation of turrets. Further examples arrived later, amalgamating Palladian and the Scots baronial style, such as Mellerstain and Wedderburn in Berwickshire, Seton Castle in East Lothian and Culzean Castle in Ayrshire remodelling) all of which were designed by Robert Adam (1728-1792).
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Eventually the most excellent of projects came to fruition. This was the construction of the Palace of Westminster. This wonder piece of Gothic architecture was built during the middle of the 19th century and constructed out of sand-coloured limestone. Designed by architects, Charles Barry and Augustus Pugin, the edifice was designed in Perpendicular Gothic style. This was the final phase of English medieval Gothic and, as such, the building was intended to invoke the grandeur of Britian’s medieval past.
Precisely, the designs employed intricate detailing, interior decoration and ornamentation. Approaching the palace’s exterior, the walls stretch nearly 900 feet along the Thames, featuring pinnacles, spires and statues of monarchs and saints. Altogether the grandeur provides a vituperative account of its sanctity. The Victoria Tower and the Elizabeth Tower (Big Ben) dominate the skyline, with putative additions of Gothic tracery and pyramidal roof adorning the prestigious Elizabeth Tower.
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Medieval trends are similarly incorporated inside with an incipient synthesis. Retained from the medieval palace, the Westminster Hall showcases a remarkable hammer-beam roof spanning 68 feet without supporting columns, exemplifying obdurate medieval timber construction. Gothic style was extended to Pugin’s development of the House of Lords chamber, providing zibeline-like red leather benches, gilded canopies, heraldic ceilings and stained-glass windows. Unfortunately, the House of Commons chamber was destroyed in World War II and later rebuilt, yet it maintains Gothic elements with green leather benches and decorate panelling.
Turning away from the tangible world of architecture, Gothic style existed culturally through works of fiction. Almost embodying the trend of Gothic style with cognitive literature, essentially the works of fiction provided a voice for how Gothic style made them feel. The genre was primarily a literary aesthetic of fear and haunting. It was as if the writers looked at the gargoyles staring down at them from upon high, and anointed ideas and dreams to how this might affect the mind.
It was Gothic style’s history that gave the literary genre its most poignant characteristics. During the Renaissance, the word “gothic” was a pejorative term that meant medieval and barbaric. This connotation stemmed from the concurrent diaspora of Gothic architecture, yet it set the literary genre onwards with a dark note. As such, primordial works of fiction that were labelled as Gothic were characterised by an environment of fear, the threat of supernatural events and the intrusion of the past upon the present. Vitiating the sense of comfort further, the settings of the tales typically included physical reminders of the past, especially through ruined buildings that stand as proof of the transience of humans and their works, and the changeable and fickle nature of history.
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Offering maledictions of safety, precise settings of Gothic literature in the 18th and 19th centuries included castles and religious buildings such as monasteries, convents and crypts. Quintessentially, the atmosphere becomes claustrophobic. Unnerving the reader further, common plot elements revolved around vengeful persecution, imprisonment and murder.
​Preaching forth this fear in an even more voluble manner, the development of the genre sparked further into dark creativity. Becoming somewhat irrelevant to medievalism, Gothic style literature came to express metaphorically psychological and social conflicts. It was as if the genre had latched on to the Renaissance definition of Gothic style and proceeded verbatim to conjure horrifying conduct. Gothic stories became discontinuous and convoluted, often incorporating tales within tales, changing narrators and framing devices such as discovered manuscripts or interpolated histories. Further macabre elements impinged the conceptualisation, such as sleep-like and death-like states, live burials, doubles, unnatural echoes or silences, the discovery of obscured family ties, unintelligible writings, nocturnal landscapes, remote locations and dreams. Concerning the 19th century – the pinnacle of Gothic fiction – tales often involved demons, demonic possession, ghosts and other kinds of evil spirits.
Paramount writers of Gothic fiction included such legends as Bram Stoker and Mary Shelley. Pervading Victorian times, Gothic aesthetics infiltrated the novels of Charles Dickens and the Bronte sisters, along the works of American writers Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne. However, Gothic fiction would find its place amongst some of the most salient and influential publications of the era. These included well-known works such as “Carmilla” (1872) by Sheridan Le Fanu, “The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde” (1886) by Robert Louis Stevenson, “The Picture of Dorian Gray” (1890) by Oscar Wilde, “Dracula” (1897) by Bram Stoker and “The Beetle” (1897) by Richard Marsh.
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In fact, the quintessential aesthetics and themes of Gothic style would be remembered and repeated in later history. The hair-raising genre remained influential with contributors from the 20th century including Daphne du Maurier, Stephen King, V.C. Andrews, Shirley Jackson, Anne Rice and Toni Morrison. Even J.K. Rowling would draw upon Gothic themes.
Today, in many ways Gothic style poses as the archetype of the horror genre. Just as Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” would pave the way for a franchise of vampire culture, much of Gothic style’s early work lay the foundations for tropes utilised in modern horror material, whether it be film or literature content. Putatively denouncing the rationalism of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment at the time, it was the Victorian Era that was able to nurture such vivid content, something that quite rightly holds its place in the diaspora of literature today.