During one of my failed attempts to go to grad school, I remember visiting a campus and speaking to the professor there about the possibility of taking an advanced philosophy course.
“Oh,” he said suspiciously, peering down at me from above his bifocals. “Do you have any background in Derrida or Foucault?”
“No,” I thought silently. “I have a background in shopping at Hot Topic.”
Needless to say, I never matriculated. And despite what one might think, my years of buying chainmail clothing and sitting in graveyards rather than poring over post-structuralists have stood me in good stead. Direct knowledge of the spiritual, the subcultural and the stylistic is valuable.
To whit, my response to John Robb’s “The Art of Darkness: The History of Goth” in this week’s Washington Examiner Magazine. Robb’s history of goth subculture is thorough and illustrative. Here’s an excerpt of what I had to say about it:
The gothic sound has just as much to do with the nature mysticism of Wordsworth and the Symbolist poetry of Verlaine as it does with black eyeliner. Robb may be the only author capable of elucidating the connection between the Gnosticism of William Blake and teenagers buying spiked collars … More than anything else, he is able to describe the essence of goth as a “high Romantic sensibility which combines sensuality and religious faith.”
It is often said of Lord Byron that he was “mad, bad, and dangerous to know.” The great Romantic poet is one of the literary figures mentioned in Robb’s book as having influenced goth culture, alongside Huysmans, Baudelaire, and Sheridan Le Fanu. “The Art of Darkness” also describes an extraordinary range of music, from the Jewish origins of Gregorian chant to the heavenly glossolalia of the Cocteau Twins. It is a worthy addition to the preservation of gothic knowledge.
Longtime subscribers will note that I have changed the name and description of this Substack. I am taking some time to contemplate a desire to dedicate myself more radically to God. I am not sure what this will mean for writing or being in the world, but I suspect it may be time to set aside some of my petty rebellions and not-so-peaceful protests.
Thank you for your readership.