Psycho-analytic approach
During the romantic era, artists strived to express ideal beauty
- ugliness was forbidden. One might argue that
raising such bans also indirectly stimulates the interest in the banned.
This simple approach suggests that if apples were forbidden, we would
become obsessed by apples. Which may in fact be true.
Mystic approach
The medieval
mystics believed they could decrease the distance to God in a state of
excessive grief, distress and pain. Some associations in England and America
believed that the horrible vampires and werewolfs came from a
forgotten, distant world to awake us.
Social approach
Oscar Wilde critized the hypocritical Victorian
society - where people condemned the moral decay at tea partys and
went directly to the brothels - in his novels. The reason, I believe, was not to demolish, but
to improve, the Enligsh society. Marquis De Sade (L'ldee
sur les Romans) argued that the gothic story was a consequence of the
revolutions in Europe. Romantic novels could not describe the terrible
human conditions at the time. Some theorists suggest that economic, social and scientific revolutions
trigger movements in art and literature.
Many Dark Romantics were socially concerned (Johnny
Cash, William Blake). Many Dark Romantics were also poor, sick and addicted
to drugs and alcohol.
Sublime approach
During the romantic era Edmund Burke, among
others, suggested that pain and danger delight us more than joy
pleasure. Terror is the strongest emotion we are capable of feeling -
consequently terror evokes the sublime.
