This blog contains spoilers for both The Secret History and Babel.
What is Dark Academia?
Dark academia is an internet aesthetic and sub-culture. Think; tweed jackets, black coffee, candlesticks, fancy old books, quoting long dead philosophers on a daily basis and so on. The colour palette consists of browns, blacks and dark reds. To quote some examples of what is highly regarded in the community we can find classic literature like ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ by Oscar Wilde or ‘Maurcie’ by E.M Forster and films like ‘Dead Poets Society’ and ‘Kill your Darlings.’
The origins of the philosophy behind the aesthetic can be found in Stoicism and Epicureanism, both originating in Ancient Greece, Athens. To summarise briefly Stoicism affirms that we should focus our energy on what we can control rather than what we can’t and live life with indifference, especially from pain. Epicureanism, on the other hand, is devoted to finding pleasure and freedom in pain and living life seeking for pleasure (food, friends, wine, ect). Dark Academia draws from the academic side of Stoicism and the aesthetic side of Epicureanism.
The controversies
The aesthetic has been highly criticised for promoting harmful beliefs like classism and racism. Since Dark Academia draws from many eurocentric influences, like its philosophy, architecture and art, many of the works within the genre lack diversity and for example characters of colour. The influences of ivy league schools and classic literature within the aesthetic make it incredibly easy to perpetuate classism and often sexist beliefs. The last main critique is the romanticisation and fetishization of mental illness and alcoholism, painting the desirable picture of the tortured artist or student without taking into account very real issues like depression or addiction. This is a brief summary of the controversies since we will tackle all these ideas later on.
Two of the main, more modern, works of Dark Academia literature are “The Secret History” by Donna Tartt and “Babel, or the Necessity of Violence” by R.F Kuang.
The Secret History (1992)
This book can be defined as a “backwards” murder mystery as we find out of the murder of Bunny Corcoran on the very first page and we read the rest of the book to find out the motive and what ultimately led to the decision of murder by the characters we will follow. Our protagonist is Richard Papen, who transfers from California to Hampden College in Vermont. Here he will encounter a group of students led by a mysterious professor named Julian, they are Henry Winter, Francis Abernathy, Camilla and Charles Macauley and of course, Bunny Corcoran. This group of students, in true Dark Academia fashion, study latin obsessively. Later we find out the group is much more complex and twisted, involving alcohol, surreal experiences and chasing what they define to be “beauty”. Richard Papen is undoubtedly an outsider, with no wealthy upbringing, willing to do almost anything (even being an accessory to murder) to fit in. Although, for example, Camilla and Francis also have marginalised identities they hide in the name of fitting in. Camilla is a woman in the 1980s and often is viewed by our main character as a beautiful idea rather than human and Francis underplays his sexuality in order to not be excluded. All of this is true but they are still effectively in a wealthy college and well, white, so they renounce personal responsibility and devote themselves to Julian’s class entirely and study privileged dead philosophers anyways. The book has been criticised for its racism and classism although many argue it was intentional by Donna Tartt to display the book's themes and the current thinking in the 80s. While this is up for debate it is undoubtedly true that the book is a great piece on the dangers of seeking beauty and renouncing one's own morals to fit in, even in something absurd like a collage clique.
Babel (2022)
Babel is a historical fantasy set in 1836. The professor Richard Lovell finds in Canton, China a young boy whose mother has died of cholera and retrieves him and brings him to England and gives him an English name Robin Swift. Here he trains him to be a translator and ultimately go to the linguistics department in Oxford University. The professor beats him and displays abusive behaviour towards him to ensure him to study and be diligent (“Laziness and deceit are common traits among your kind”). Robin is admitted to Oxford where in his class he will meet Ramiz “Ramy” Mirza, originally from India, Victoire Desgraves from Haiti and immigrant from France and Letitia “Letty” Price from England. All of these characters are in every sense marginalised because of their ethnicity and/or gender, at first they will do almost anything to fit in but will later rebel against the colonialism of the British Empire battling against their own University they so loved at first. The book highly focuses on linguistics (the whole magic system revolves around it) and how language is a tool used by the Empire to control the countries they desired to take advantage of. There are gruelling descriptions of the Opium trade and poverty of the lower classes in both England and China. This story is a story of rebellion and choosing the harder path even if it renounces survival because the University that was presented to them as a great opportunity and as the only place they could be worth something but ultimately all except Letty (who couldn't understand why to throw away something so valuable) choose resistance. To quote the author herself R.F Kuang “The tension is between wanting to act ethically … and also just wanting to survive.”
Both books present beautiful descriptions of studying passionately and devotedly but very different ways of discussing themes of fitting in, morals and friendship. I would personally recommend both books to be read with a critical and open mind.
References and ulterior readings:
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