Re: [xml-dev] Gothic definitions (was Re: [xml-dev] Re: Markup, an abstr

[Norman Gray <norman@astro.gla.ac.uk>]

Greetings.

On 2013 Aug 29, at 16:52, John Cowan wrote:

> On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 11:05 AM, Simon St.Laurent <simonstl@simonstl.com>wrote:
> 
> The word has too many meanings.  There's a roughly continuous thread of
>> attractive with/because of a dose of the repulsive, but it's hard to pin
>> down.
>> 
> 
> "There has never to my knowledge been any period of Gothic English
> literature, but the list of Gothic revivalists stretches completely across
> its entire history, from the _Beowulf_ poet to writers of our own day."
> --Northrop Frye

I initially misparsed Peter Hunsberger's remark about a renaissance Goth (whether or not in the same way as Peter, I don't know), and had visions of east-germanic exotics wandering around Florence, wondering aloud "ah, if we'd been here 1000 years ago there'd be some right good sacking here!"  The timing looks _just_ about possible, but if so, the poor goths would be very far from home indeed.

I vividly remember reading about gothic migrations in Decline and Fall when I was young, and being delightedly impressed by Gibbon's description of (in my memory) their multi-generational punk anabasis across Europe, finding the Black Sea, and oh, look! ... the sea, the sea! ... boats! ... sea-borne sacking! ... Anatolia! ... gold!

But then I realised we were still talking about architecture and revivals.

Hmm: what would goth markup look like, I wonder?

<!ELEMENT gothicperson (tribe?, parentsname2, sackings*)>   ?

All the best,

Norman

-- 
Norman Gray  :  http://nxg.me.uk
SUPA School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Glasgow, UK