Welcome to this machine for exploring literary genres, dear readers! Here we stand before two narrative worlds that, like a paradoxical clockwork mechanism, seem at once opposed and complementary. The gothic and steampunk share troubling affinities — from music to fashion, through their respective communities and shared values. Although one was born from the creative vapors of the early 1980s and the other sinks its roots into the depths of the 18th century, these two subcultures overlap in surprising ways.
Today, allow me to guide you through this meticulous exploration of a fundamental aspect that forms the bedrock of both cultures: literature. For it is indeed within the pages of their respective works that the true mechanisms of these two fascinating aesthetics are revealed.
Defining Gothic and Steampunk Novels
The gothic novel constitutes a literary movement born in the 18th century, characterized by its dark atmospheres, medieval settings, and supernatural elements. The steampunk novel, for its part, belongs to a retrofuturist tradition that reinvents the Victorian era by integrating alternative technologies based on steam and clockwork mechanisms, thereby creating a uchronia in which science would have taken a different course.
Origins of Gothic and Steampunk Literature: Two Distinct Temporal Mechanisms
Gothic literature functions like an artistic time machine that developed centuries before the emergence of the modern gothic style, yet nonetheless laid its aesthetic foundations. This influence often operates indirectly — for example, the novel Dracula inspired the early goths primarily through its cinematic adaptations, creating a complex mechanism of cultural transmission.
The books you might find on a modern gothic literature enthusiast's shelves are more likely to come from contemporary genres such as horror, fantasy, and paranormal fiction — all springing from the fertile soil of the original gothic movement. Although few readers today are familiar with traditional gothic literature, beyond a few classics like Dracula and Frankenstein, its fundamental elements continue to fuel our collective imagination like an ever-active subterranean mechanism.
Steampunk, for its part, constitutes a literary genre that developed over the last two decades, now combining music, fashion, and literature into one harmonious mechanical whole. Its most recognizable feature lies in this fascination with the Victorian era and its Industrial Revolution. Technology sits at the heart of the visuals and themes, displaying mechanical components such as gears and clockwork mechanisms like narrative jewels.
Like the goths, the steampunk scene grew from its literature, although in this case the relationship is far more direct and mechanical. The term "steampunk" was coined in the late 1980s to describe a body of contemporary novels written in a style that imitated the speculative fiction authors of the Victorian era such as H. G. Wells and Jules Verne. Since that founding era, the social, musical, and sartorial scenes of steampunk have developed in parallel with its literature, like the interconnected gears of one and the same cultural machine.
Common Ground Between Gothic and Steampunk: Converging Narrative Mechanisms
One of the most striking similarities between gothic literature and steampunk literature lies in their use of iconic settings that function almost as characters in their own right — true atmosphere machines! Remember, dear readers, that the gothic literary movement coincided with a renewed interest in gothic architecture — churches, cathedrals, and monasteries. Thus, many gothic novels unfold within a castle, an abbey, or a medieval monastery, these places functioning as essential narrative mechanisms.
The very first official gothic novel, Horace Walpole's "The Castle of Otranto," even takes its name from its frightening setting — a true dramatic machine! The question of rightful ownership of the castle, along with the secrets hidden within its dark walls, form the cogs of the plot. And who could forget Count Dracula's imposing gothic castle, in which Jonathan Harker becomes a prisoner? A recurring theme throughout the gothic genre is this idea of a curse, a secret, or an ancient crime haunting a particular place — a perpetual spectral mechanism.
Steampunk novels often revisit these same types of settings, but to a different effect — as though winding a narrative clock in the opposite direction! While gothic writers fixed their gaze on the grandiose architecture of the medieval era, steampunk is rooted in Victorian England at the height of the Industrial Revolution. A great majority of steampunk novels unfold in 19th-century London or in some alternative metropolis with a Victorian aesthetic, as in "The Difference Engine" by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling.
| Aspect | Gothic Novel | Steampunk Novel |
|---|---|---|
| Reference period | Middle Ages, ancient eras | Victorian era, 19th century |
| Iconic locations | Castles, abbeys, monasteries | Victorian London, airships, laboratories |
| Architecture | Medieval gothic, ancestral stone | Victorian industrial, iron and glass |
| Technical elements | Ancient objects, mysterious relics | Steam engines, gears, airships |
| General atmosphere | Dark, mystical, ancestral | Industrial, inventive, retrofuturist |
But the most emblematic element of steampunk is the oversized vehicle or machine — a majestic zeppelin, an imposing airship, a steam train, or a mechanical robot utterly implausible for the Victorian era! From Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan to Robyn Bennis's recent "The Guns Above," many steampunk works use airships as their primary setting and describe them with the loving attention to detail of a perfectionist watchmaker.
The Gothic & Steampunk Imagination: Two Opposing Dream Machines
Both gothic literature and steampunk literature are escapist genres par excellence, dear steampunks, because they both love to shed the mundane and the conventional in order to push the boundaries of what we are willing to believe! These narrative mechanisms can sometimes seem excessive, but when handled well they make works far more emotionally dynamic — like a perfectly tuned literary steam engine.
In gothic literature, this escapism operates primarily through melodrama — a true emotion machine! Gothic novels begin with grave situations and take them to their most dramatic extremes. Sometimes this can verge on the comic, as when Conrad is suddenly crushed by a gigantic stone helmet at the opening of "The Castle of Otranto" — a dramatic mechanism that is unexpected, to say the least! Plots in which a relative suddenly dies and a young woman is left alone at the mercy of a predatory stranger form the recurring cogs of the genre.
Steampunk takes these extremes in the opposite direction — as though reversing the rotation of the narrative machine! Many steampunk novels begin with situations that are already strange and push them even further into the extraordinary. The genre is known for its exaggerated or eccentric characters who tend to lighten the tone and remind us to embrace the absurd — a sophisticated mechanism of joy.
Fantasy lies at the very heart of what steampunk is and the attitude it embodies, functioning as a perpetual creative engine. A criticism sometimes leveled at certain steampunk writing is that it takes itself too seriously when depicting bizarre situations, but the best steampunk authors know how to laugh at themselves and take pleasure in the absurd without undermining their story. Gail Carriger remains one of the finest authors in the genre, mastering this narrative alchemy to perfection!
Two Approaches to the Fantastic: Mystic Past Against Mechanical Future
Withdrawn from contemporary scientific realities, Dracula remains the most celebrated example of the supernatural in gothic literature — a timeless thrill machine!
Both steampunk and gothic offer another fascinating means of escape: they explore possibilities beyond what seems achievable within our current understanding of the world. But once again, the two genres tend toward the same goal through opposing mechanisms — like two clocks turning in opposite directions!
Gothic literature was created specifically in reaction to the Age of Enlightenment, that intellectual movement which dominated Europe throughout the 18th century. As new philosophies developed and science began to advance rapidly, gothic authors felt nostalgic for an era that predated new technologies and cold rationalism — an age when people believed in magic and the supernatural, like a mechanism of primal faith.
This is why most works of gothic literature are set in the medieval era or in a vague and distant past. They deal with occult and supernatural beings, as well as superstitious beliefs regarding omens and curses. Novels like "Vathek" and "The Monk" feature black magic, devil worship, and demons, while others, like "The Castle of Otranto," deal with ghosts and apparitions — all supernatural mechanisms that defy modern logic.
Instead of returning to the past, steampunk turns toward the future with the mechanical optimism of a Victorian inventor! Time travel is, in fact, a recurring theme, referencing the masterful novel by H.G. Wells, "The Time Machine." Steampunk emerged at the turn of the 21st century, a time when technology was advancing faster than ever, but also a moment when we now recognize the very limits of that same technology.
We currently live in an era that surpasses what the earliest science fiction authors dreamed of, and yet we still don't have our flying cars, our time machines, or our full-size robots! The authors of steampunk literature reconnect with the optimism the Victorians harbored for science — like a carefully wound mechanism of hope.
By first stepping back a few centuries, steampunk authors can from there launch a new future that showcases technology we can barely dream of in the modern age. For example, the characters in one of the first steampunk novels, "Morlock Night" by K. W. Jeter, use a device based on the famous time machine. In "This Monstrous Thing" by Mackenzi Lee, a young boy is brought back from the dead using clockwork parts — a true mechanical resurrection!
Steampunk uses imaginary technology to explore the impossible in the same way that gothic literature uses the occult, but where gothic fiction invokes mysterious and ancestral forces, steampunk forges rational and inventive mechanisms.
Conclusion: Two Complementary Literary Machines
Dear steampunks, at the end of this comparative exploration, we find that gothic literature and steampunk literature function like two complementary narrative mechanisms, each offering its own approach to the extraordinary and the marvelous.
Where the gothic novel draws from ancestral darkness and supernatural mysteries, the steampunk novel illuminates the future with the flames of mechanical innovation. These two genres — true literary dream machines — remind us that fiction holds this unique power to transcend the limits of the possible, offering us creative escapes of extraordinary richness.
Whether you are drawn to the mystic mists of gothic castles or to the creative vapors of steampunk workshops, each genre offers its own mechanisms of escapism and its own narrative treasures. For at heart, dear readers, these two worlds teach us the same fundamental lesson: imagination remains our most beautiful machine for exploring the infinite territories of the impossible!
I invite you to discover our other explorations on retrofuturist books and Victorian books if you are fond of both steampunk and gothic. Also explore our steampunk clothing collection to perfectly embody the spirit of these fascinating worlds!
Sources and References
- Horace Walpole, "The Castle of Otranto" (1764)
- Bram Stoker, "Dracula" (1897)
- Mary Shelley, "Frankenstein" (1818)
- H.G. Wells, "The Time Machine" (1895)
- Jules Verne, complete works
- William Gibson & Bruce Sterling, "The Difference Engine" (1990)
- Gail Carriger, "Parasol Protectorate" series
- Literary archives of the English gothic movement
- Studies on the evolution of Victorian science fiction
Eugénie Vaporette
Curator-consultant in steampunk aesthetics
Graduate in the history of Victorian technologies