Prof Welk: I\'m sure we are familiar with today\'s Goth-type culture, yet we may

Question

Prof Welk: I'm sure we are familiar with today's Goth-type culture, yet we may not know how geographically incorrect it really is. The Goths were an actual European ethnic group who had their own language (see below), land (see below), culture, etc. Questions: Where specifically in Europe were the original Goths from? (You may be surprised.) How is it that today's Goth culture became associated with darkness/bloody/etc.? i.e., Is there any connection per what the original Goths were really like? Gothic Translation Do you see where the Goths were actually from? Look closely.

Explanation / Answer

Getica, the only one source regarding the Goths’ origins survives today is a historical work written by Jordanes, a 6th century Roman historian of Gothic descent. According to him, “from this island of Scandza, as from a hive of races or a womb of nations, the Goths are said to have come forth long ago.” Since most of the scholars have accepted Scandza as Scandinavia. According to Jordanes describtion the Goths expelling and subduing a series of peoples along the southern coast of the Baltic Sea to create their domain there, outside the Roman Empire.

The Gothic tradition originated in response to a period of rapid and far-reaching societal, cultural, and theological change in eighteenth-century Europe. Works written in this tradition are inherently linked to the social context in which they were created, and a great deal of critical commentary focuses on the representation of societal and cultural fear in the face of the dissolution of tradition, gender roles, oppression, and race in Gothic literature. As scholars have illustrated, people in nineteenth-century Europe and America believed strongly in physiognomy, the theory that physical appearance and "blood" determined and reflected a person's character. The representation of villains and monsters in Gothic literature demonstrates this adherence to physiognomy, as these characters possess physical traits associated with evil—dark eyes, heavy eyebrows, and dark complexions. The racist implications of this belief in the biological determination of character are apparent, and have been examined by several scholars.

The primary source on Gothic history is Jordanes' work Getica (6th century CE), which presents a half-mythic version of the story of gothic people, and so his account is accepted carefully by some scholars and rejected completely by others. Jordanes' work was a distillation and summary of a much longer work, now lost, by Cassiodorus, a Roman official who served in the court of the Gothic king Theodoric the Great (c.454-526 CE), and it is generally accepted that Cassiodorus invented much of his history to legitimize the reign of Theodoric by giving the Goths an illustrious past. Where the Goths originally came from is unknown.

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