5. DARK ROMANTICISM TODAY
5.1 As I Said in the third part of my first work:
“For us, the Darkly Romantic era didn´t end in the 19th century.
From being a purely literary phenomenon in the 19th century, it has spread
to other artistic fields I the 20th century as movies in the 20s (Nosferatu),
comics in the 30s (Batman), and music in the 60s (Walker, Cohem).
The problem today is that the darkly Romantic movement is harder to distinguish,
and successors are harder to find predecessors. Because, dark Romanticism
is a movement in art, not a subculture (this term and Gothic are sometimes
supposed to be a synonymous and they should not). Furthermore, the
world is in constant change, and the modern romantic ideals today are different
than 200 years ago. And finally, because artists express the need of something
more than the reality they know, expressing decadence, and have been apprehended
as romantic and even visionary“.
(Bibliography: http://hem.passagen.se/hehe/what_is_dark_romanticism.htm)
5.2 Romanticism emerged as a reaction to the rationalism of the Enlightenment.
During the Romantic period gothic became associated with the dark.
During the 1980´s a new gothic movement CAME to the surface. It
was preceded by punk, which became into life at the end of the 70´s
when there was a need for a distinctive non-conformist alternative culture.
The music celebrate the dark, shadowy side of life and had a distinct fascinación
with death. It is slow, driving sound was frequently described as melancholy,
gloomy, even morbid. According to J. Gunn: “Lyrically, themes of death,
destrucción and explorations of darkness are common among gothic
artists, as well as romantic themes of love and loss found in the gothic
novels of the literary movement…”
(Bibliography: http://www.rarevinyl.net/dark_gothic.htm)
So many different styles are boeing asóciate with gothic nowadays.
Take dark Folk. For instance. The best examples are Current 93, Death in
June, Sol Invictus and Fire + ice. Another rather popular genre in the gothic
scene the last years is industrial noise. Their rythmic industrial music
attacks the dancefloors of many clubs nowadays.
(Bibliography: http://www.rarevinyl.net/dark_gothic.htm)
5.3 Dark Romanticism has Developed more as a movement
then as a delimited subculture. Artists expressing modern romantic
ideals, perhaps far from those in the Romantic era, still velón in
the same artistic movement.
(Bibliography: http://hem.passagen.se/hehe/what_is_dark_romanticism.htm)
Romantic movement could be more important today than
ever, for example with Nick Cave.
(Bibliography: http://hem.passagen.se/hehe/dark_romanmticism_in_the_21th_century.htm?k)
Two darkly romantic movies in the 21st centuria are
From Hell (visual celebración of the Victorian society), and The
Others (renaissance for Henry James ghost stories). And American Psycho
(reminds of the life of Dorian Gray) and Fight Club, both adapted from novels,
in many ways represent 21st centuria Dark Romanticism too. Some people argue
that the Drak Romantic movement today consists of german gothic bands and
artists as Marilyn Manson, but this is only clothes and attitudes.
(Bibliography: http://hem.passagen.se/hehe/dark_romanmticism_in_the_21th_century.htm?k)
Thelast two films that I mentioned, devotetheir lifes
to decadente pleasures, and furthermore they break the laws of society.
Grey and Bateman are monsters, but in the eyes of the others they are ideals.
The blind materialism have the same effects as 300 years ago: we wish to
scape reality.
(Bibliography: http://hem.passagen.se/hehe/dark_romanmticism_in_the_21th_century.htm?k)
5.4 The postmodern world:
Wether literature, politics, art, morality OR philosophy
the world seems to unite. Without ONE single God OR leader everyone is right
and everyone is wrong. Nothing is generáis good OR bad, ridículos
OR sublime, light OR dark. The romantic aspiración to a espiritual
union of individuals is ridiculed. Dark Romantics still SEArch for it.
(Bibliography: http://hem.passagen.se/hehe/dark_romanmticism_in_the_21th_century.htm?k)