Tasmanian Gothic is a genre ofTasmanian literature[1] that merges traditions ofGothic fiction with the history and natural features ofTasmania, an island state south of the main Australian continent. Tasmanian Gothic has inspired works in other artistic media, including theatre and film.
The genre was named by in a 1989Meanjin article by Jim Davidson, titled "Tasmanian Gothic".[2] Although it deals with the themes of horror, mystery and the uncanny, Tasmanian Gothic literature and art differs from traditional EuropeanGothic Literature, which is rooted inmedieval imagery, crumblingGothic architecture and religious ritual. Instead, the Tasmanian gothic tradition centres on the natural landscape ofTasmania and its colonial architecture and history.
A densely populated Europe of theIndustrial Revolution promptedUrban Gothic literature and novels such asRobert Louis Stevenson'sStrange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) andOscar Wilde'sThe Picture of Dorian Gray (1890). But in sparsely populated colonial Australia, especially thepenal colony of Tasmania, the religious zeal of some prison wardens[3] (akin, in many ways, to the institutionalised religion of theInquisition; a theme reflected in European gothicism) and the mysterious rituals and traditions of Tasmania'sindigenous inhabitants lent itself to an entirely different gothic tradition. Elements of Tasmanian Gothic art and literature also mergeAboriginal tradition with Europeangnosticism, rustic spirits and thefaerie.
Frederick Sinnett (founder of theMelbourne Punch),[4] writing in 1856, considered traditional gothic romanticism inappropriate toAustralian literature precisely because the colony lacked the requisiteantiquity. For many, however, "the very landscape of Australia was gothic".[5] The extensiveGeorgian architecture, including vast abandoned ruins such asPort Arthur Historic Site, reputed to be haunted, provide extensive inspiration for contemporary Tasmanian gothic.[6]
The dramatic landscape and impenetrablerainforests ofTasmania and the real and imagined brutality of the original penal colony provided a ready source of horror stories. Unsettling events such as the story ofAlexander Pearce, the wandering cannibal who roamed throughVan Diemen's Land in the 1820s, also influenced the bleak and sinister atmosphere that provided an ideal setting for gothic fiction.Benjamin Duterrau's historical epic painting,The Conciliation, which depicts the signing of a treaty betweenGeorge Augustus Robinson and Indigenous freedom fighters, provided a foundation for Tasmanian Gothic.[7]
Duterrau's painting provided the foundation for later works, including the first major work of Australian Gothic literature,Marcus Clarke'sFor the Term of his Natural Life. Clarke provides a highly sensationalised account of the adventures of a convict unjustlytransported to Van Diemen's Land for murder. It was first published as a novel in 1874 while the notorious prison settlement atPort Arthur was still in operation.
When thegold rush switched the focus of attention toVictoria, Tasmania began to lose its importance in the Australian economy; "[one] of Tasmania's principal exports during the first twenty years of this century was her young men".[8] As time passed, those who remained on the island became the butt of jokes by mainland Australians, who regarded them asinbred,parochial, and out of touch with civilisation.
Given Tasmania's relatively recent colonisation, artists and authors of the gothic tradition had little to draw on in terms of non-indigenous history. What indigenous history was available to them, however, was mysterious and misunderstood enough to be drawn upon to support Gothic imagery.
There are families (for example, the Jones family at Lower Marshes) who still own the land originally granted to their ancestors in the early years of the 19th century and still live in the houses built by their grandfathers. These families passed on stories of hardship, of encounters withAboriginal people, convict servants, bushfires and floods as surrounding forests were cleared for farmland. This intersection of past and present informed the island's gothic character.[9]
During the 20th century, a new generation of artists and authors living and working in Tasmania began to explore the gothic sensibility, drawing on Tasmania's colonial and more recent history for bizarre people and events, factual or imagined, and creating a uniquely Tasmanian stock of gothic characters and situations: derangedconvict escapees ("bolters"),cannibals, corrupt anddrunken officials, tough women, troubled and homesick immigrants, malevolent forest spirits, deformed halfwits and feralbackwoodsmen, set among spectacular mountains, remote forest camps and Tasmania's crumbling penal colony infrastructure.
The alleged discovery of a small degenerate community on theWest Coast[clarification needed] in the 1930s became the subject ofThe Golden Age, an important Tasmanian Gothic work by playwrightLouis Nowra, first performed by thePlaybox Theatre Company at theVictorian Arts Centre's Studio Theatre in 1985.[10]
Works by novelistsRichard Flanagan,Christopher Koch andChloe Hooper are regarded as a continuation of the Tasmanian Gothic tradition. Flanagan's 2001 novelGould's Book of Fish, winner of theCommonwealth Writers' Prize, is a fictionalised account of Van Diemonian painterWilliam Buelow Gould, focusing on his years spent imprisoned at the notoriousconvict settlement ofMacquarie Harbour. According toCarmel Bird,Helen Hodgman's novels "distil the very essence of Tasmanian gothic."[11]Danielle Wood's Tasmanian Gothic novelThe Alphabet of Light and Dark won the 2002The Australian/Vogel Literary Award.[12]Rohan Wilson won the award for his 2011 novelThe Roving Party, a historical "re-imagining" into the misdeeds ofJohn Batman and the band of convicts andAboriginal trackers he led through Van Diemen's Land in 1829.[13] The debut novels ofCate Kennedy (The World Beneath, 2009) andFavel Parrett (Past The Shallows, 2011) have also been aligned with Tasmanian Gothic.[14]
Roger Scholes' 1988 filmThe Tale of Ruby Rose is about a young woman's fear of darkness in the Tasmanian highlands. Tasmanian sculptorGay Hawkes created a series of wooden sculptures based on the film, citing Tasmanian Gothic's "synthesis of the present and past" as an inspiration.National Gallery of Victoria director Patrick McCaughey called her work the "visual embodiment of the fatal shore".[15]Julia Leigh's 1999 novelThe Hunter is about a lone man's search for the lastTasmanian tiger. Described as being in the "best tradition of Tasmanian gothic",[16] the novel won the 2000Kathleen Mitchell Award, and was adapted into a2011 film of the same name. The story ofAlexander Pearce was made into two feature films:The Last Confession of Alexander Pearce (2008) andVan Diemen's Land (2009). The 2008 horror filmDying Breed is about Pearce's fictional descendants in the backwoods of Tasmania.
In 2011, Tasmanian art collectorDavid Walsh opened theMuseum of Old and New Art (MONA) in Hobart, the Southern Hemisphere's largest privately owned museum. The popularity of MONA — with its theme of "sex and death" — and the wider Tasmanian Gothic movement, has led Tasmanian tourism operators to promote the state's "dark, eerie, cold and bracing history and climate".[17] MONA launched Dark Mofo, a winter festival focusing on thewinter solstice and pagan themes in 2013[18] Sister event, the Huon Valley Mid-winter Festival, is also held annually. Television seriesThe Kettering Incident (2016) andThe Gloaming (2020) are also regarded as examples of Tasmanian Gothic. Further examples includeThe Outlaw Michael Howe andThe Nightingale, and Heidi Lee Douglas' award-winning short filmLittle Lamb.
The Stranger with my Face Film Festival ran a Tasmanian Gothic Short Script competition from 2015-2017.[19]
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