If you’ve ever heard the phrase ‘dark academia’, you’re looking at the impact of The Secret History. Donna Tartt’s cult novel The Secret History (1992) is the newest feature on all those ‘books to read before you die’ lists. The Secret History follows Richard Papen, the newest addition to a group of Ancient Greek students at the illustrious Hampden College, who get caught up in a chain of gruesome murders.
Tartt’s iconic novel has sparked an entire genre: dark academia. These novels blend the self-conscious artistry of literary fiction with the thrill of crime. A typical plot: elite university students become obsessed with their studies…which end up corrupting them.
New ‘dark academia’ bestsellers spring up every year, from M. L. Rio’s BookTok sensation If We Were Villains (2017), to Katy Hays’ The Cloisters (2022). The aesthetic has even crept onto the screen, with notable examples being Saltburn (2023) and the Netflix series Wednesday (2022). Tiktok, Pinterest and Instagram all brim with suggestions on how you can create that ‘bookish feeling’.
But does dark academia glorify privileged white men?
The accusation is understandable. On the surface, the genre sells the dream of attending one of the world’s most prestigious universities. These places have historically been home to wealthy white men. Women couldn’t get degrees from Oxford until 1920, or from Cambridge until 1948. Even in the last five years, applicants from minority ethnic backgrounds had only a 17% chance of getting an Oxford offer, compared to 23% for white students. However, dark academia doesn’t just accept this. The genre has always been about giving a voice to the voiceless – the students who are shut out of the ivy-covered walls.
The Secret History gives voice to the struggles of working class students. Richard Papen is working-class, and is terrified that “virtually imperceptible differences” of “dress” and “manner” will expose him as an outsider. He becomes ashamed of his desperate need to fit in, calling it a “hideous pack instinct”. Throughout the novel, his group of friends flaunt their inherited money. They whisk him from gourmet restaurants to country mansions, expecting Richard to pick up the tab. When they witness the death of an innocent farmer, their elitism is summarised in one chilling sentence: “I mean, this man was not Voltaire…”
Tartt’s novel also gives voice to queer students. The Secret History’s “Greek clique” are empowered by the Ancient Greek writers they study to explore gay relationships, despite the oppressive environment of their time. Later novels have developed this, such as Chloe Gong’s These Violent Delights (2020). The genre’s interest in queer storylines is hardly surprising. It is heavily inspired by the gothic, which brims with subversive sexuality – Jekyll and Hyde was thought by its first readers to depict a gay relationship!
The Secret History is radical in its representation of certain marginalised identities – particularly the queer male experience. However, it has a long way to go, as it is still a novel which is dominated by white men. Five out of six of the central characters are male, and the one woman, Camilla, often feels like a cardboard cutout. While it is Richard’s naive misunderstanding of women which is to blame, you can only read about Camilla’s “slender wrists and shadows and disordered hair” so many times before you start to get frustrated.
However, newer dark academia writers are taking up Donna Tartt’s rebellious spirit, and using it to give voice to even more people. Tracy Deonn’s Legendborn (2020) tells the story of Bree, a Black girl who experiences isolation in a college built by slave-owners and packed with Confederate statues. She joins a secret society, and discovers she has an ability to use both “rootcraft” (African American traditional magic) and the “coloniser” magic of the society. She must confront the fact that her ancestor was raped by a slave-owning knight who the society celebrates. Authors like Deonn are honouring dark academia’s history of resistance, but they’re using it to tell even more students’ stories.
So, while dark academia has at times idealised DWEMs (Dead White European Males), it isn’t limited to this. At its heart, the genre is about examining academia’s prejudices – the skeletons in its closet (not to mention real skeletons). And it’s only getting better.
So, go on. Give in to dark academia. Wear scarves in the height of summer. Have strong opinions about whether Richard Papen is an ‘unreliable narrator’. Murder an annoying friend.
(And if anyone asks, this conversation never happened.)