Ned Schantz
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195335910
- eISBN:
- 9780199868902
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195335910.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies, Women's Literature
For over two hundred years of narrative culture, when female characters try to get together, crazy things happen. Indeed, the greater the means at women’s disposal, the more severe and twisted is the ...
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For over two hundred years of narrative culture, when female characters try to get together, crazy things happen. Indeed, the greater the means at women’s disposal, the more severe and twisted is the anxious reaction. But behind this broad anxiety lurks a powerful ideal of sympathetic and strategic female networks, an ideal that takes its intimate shape from the expectations of communications media, and that underwrites the very culture that would deny it. The book examines novelistic culture from the British novel to Hollywood film as a series of responses to the threat and promise of female networks. In texts from Clarissa, Emma, and The Portrait of a Lady to Sorry, Wrong Number, Vertigo, and You’ve Got Mail, it argues that a recurring gothic nightmare haunts plots of courtship and marriage, and that the concept of female networks illuminates the exits, for culture and criticism alike. And while this study must of necessity visit an uncanny realm of lost messages and false suitors, telepathy and artificial intelligence, locked rooms and time-traveling stalkers, these occult concerns only confirm the power at stake in the most basic modes of female communication, in gossip, letters, and phones.Less
For over two hundred years of narrative culture, when female characters try to get together, crazy things happen. Indeed, the greater the means at women’s disposal, the more severe and twisted is the anxious reaction. But behind this broad anxiety lurks a powerful ideal of sympathetic and strategic female networks, an ideal that takes its intimate shape from the expectations of communications media, and that underwrites the very culture that would deny it. The book examines novelistic culture from the British novel to Hollywood film as a series of responses to the threat and promise of female networks. In texts from Clarissa, Emma, and The Portrait of a Lady to Sorry, Wrong Number, Vertigo, and You’ve Got Mail, it argues that a recurring gothic nightmare haunts plots of courtship and marriage, and that the concept of female networks illuminates the exits, for culture and criticism alike. And while this study must of necessity visit an uncanny realm of lost messages and false suitors, telepathy and artificial intelligence, locked rooms and time-traveling stalkers, these occult concerns only confirm the power at stake in the most basic modes of female communication, in gossip, letters, and phones.
Elizabeth R. Napier
- Published in print:
- 1987
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198128601
- eISBN:
- 9780191671678
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198128601.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 18th-century Literature
This book is an examination of narrative conventions in one of the most popular and controversial of the 18th-century English literary genres. The vogue of the Gothic in the latter decades of the ...
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This book is an examination of narrative conventions in one of the most popular and controversial of the 18th-century English literary genres. The vogue of the Gothic in the latter decades of the 18th century, its treatment by important critics such as Coleridge, and its distinctiveness as a genre, makes its study central to an understanding of 18th-century culture, of literary genre and popular literature, and of the problems surrounding attempts to judge quality in a literary work. The English Gothic novel, moreover, has attracted renewed attention from modern critics, who have argued its importance in mirroring the late 18th century's discomfort with the political, psychological, and sexual climate of the times. This book challenges such views, suggesting that the instability of the form may be more successfully addressed through a study of generic structure and the relationship of the Gothic to the designs of the fictional works that preceded it.Less
This book is an examination of narrative conventions in one of the most popular and controversial of the 18th-century English literary genres. The vogue of the Gothic in the latter decades of the 18th century, its treatment by important critics such as Coleridge, and its distinctiveness as a genre, makes its study central to an understanding of 18th-century culture, of literary genre and popular literature, and of the problems surrounding attempts to judge quality in a literary work. The English Gothic novel, moreover, has attracted renewed attention from modern critics, who have argued its importance in mirroring the late 18th century's discomfort with the political, psychological, and sexual climate of the times. This book challenges such views, suggesting that the instability of the form may be more successfully addressed through a study of generic structure and the relationship of the Gothic to the designs of the fictional works that preceded it.
Elaine Showalter
- Published in print:
- 1991
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198123835
- eISBN:
- 9780191671616
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198123835.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Women's Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
Are American women writers from different eras and different backgrounds connected by common threads in a coherent tradition? How have the relationships between women's rights, women's rites, and ...
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Are American women writers from different eras and different backgrounds connected by common threads in a coherent tradition? How have the relationships between women's rights, women's rites, and women's writing figured in the history of literature by women in the United States? Drawing on a wide range of writers from Margaret Fuller to Alice Walker, the author argues that post-colonial as well as feminist literary theory can help in understanding the hybrid, intertextual, and changing forms of American women's writing, and the way that ‘women's culture’ intersects with other cultural forms. She looks closely at three American classics – Little Women, The Awakening, and The House of Mirth – and traces the transformations in such major themes, images, and genres of American women's writing as the American Miranda, the Female Gothic, and the patchwork quilt. Ending with a moving description of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, she shows how the women's tradition is a literary quilt that offers a new map of a changing America.Less
Are American women writers from different eras and different backgrounds connected by common threads in a coherent tradition? How have the relationships between women's rights, women's rites, and women's writing figured in the history of literature by women in the United States? Drawing on a wide range of writers from Margaret Fuller to Alice Walker, the author argues that post-colonial as well as feminist literary theory can help in understanding the hybrid, intertextual, and changing forms of American women's writing, and the way that ‘women's culture’ intersects with other cultural forms. She looks closely at three American classics – Little Women, The Awakening, and The House of Mirth – and traces the transformations in such major themes, images, and genres of American women's writing as the American Miranda, the Female Gothic, and the patchwork quilt. Ending with a moving description of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, she shows how the women's tradition is a literary quilt that offers a new map of a changing America.
Elizabeth R. Napier
- Published in print:
- 1987
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198128601
- eISBN:
- 9780191671678
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198128601.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, 18th-century Literature
This chapter presents some concluding thoughts about the Gothic. It argues that the paradox of the Gothic is that the genre, despite its close connection to sentimental narrative, actually prohibits ...
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This chapter presents some concluding thoughts about the Gothic. It argues that the paradox of the Gothic is that the genre, despite its close connection to sentimental narrative, actually prohibits sentimental and dynamic judgements on the part of its readers: by exhibiting such extreme emotion in others, it denies that opportunity to its audience. The Gothic seems to gain its most characteristic effects through a complex procedure of deprivation and destruction; tantalizing its audience with emotions that it cannot fully feel, it manufactures an atmosphere approaching moral eroticism.Less
This chapter presents some concluding thoughts about the Gothic. It argues that the paradox of the Gothic is that the genre, despite its close connection to sentimental narrative, actually prohibits sentimental and dynamic judgements on the part of its readers: by exhibiting such extreme emotion in others, it denies that opportunity to its audience. The Gothic seems to gain its most characteristic effects through a complex procedure of deprivation and destruction; tantalizing its audience with emotions that it cannot fully feel, it manufactures an atmosphere approaching moral eroticism.
Robert Mighall
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199262182
- eISBN:
- 9780191698835
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199262182.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
This book is a full-length study of Victorian Gothic fiction. Combining original readings of familiar texts with historical sources, this book is a historicist survey of 19th-century Gothic ...
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This book is a full-length study of Victorian Gothic fiction. Combining original readings of familiar texts with historical sources, this book is a historicist survey of 19th-century Gothic writing—from Dickens to Stoker, Wilkie Collins to Conan Doyle, through European travelogues, sexological textbooks, ecclesiastic histories and pamphlets on the perils of self-abuse. Critics have thus far tended to concentrate on specific angles of Gothic writing (gender or race), or the belief that the Gothic ‘returned’ at the so-called fin de siècle. By contrast, this book demonstrates how the Gothic mode was active throughout the Victorian period, and provides historical explanations for its development from the late 18th century, through the ‘Urban Gothic’ fictions of the mid-Victorian period, the ‘Suburban Gothic’ of the Sensation vogue, through to the somatic horrors of Stevenson, Machen, Stoker, and Doyle at the century' close. The book challenges the psychological approach to Gothic fiction that currently prevails, demonstrating the importance of geographical, historical, and discursive factors that have been largely neglected by critics, and employing a variety of original sources to demonstrate the contexts of Gothic fiction and explain its development in the Victorian period.Less
This book is a full-length study of Victorian Gothic fiction. Combining original readings of familiar texts with historical sources, this book is a historicist survey of 19th-century Gothic writing—from Dickens to Stoker, Wilkie Collins to Conan Doyle, through European travelogues, sexological textbooks, ecclesiastic histories and pamphlets on the perils of self-abuse. Critics have thus far tended to concentrate on specific angles of Gothic writing (gender or race), or the belief that the Gothic ‘returned’ at the so-called fin de siècle. By contrast, this book demonstrates how the Gothic mode was active throughout the Victorian period, and provides historical explanations for its development from the late 18th century, through the ‘Urban Gothic’ fictions of the mid-Victorian period, the ‘Suburban Gothic’ of the Sensation vogue, through to the somatic horrors of Stevenson, Machen, Stoker, and Doyle at the century' close. The book challenges the psychological approach to Gothic fiction that currently prevails, demonstrating the importance of geographical, historical, and discursive factors that have been largely neglected by critics, and employing a variety of original sources to demonstrate the contexts of Gothic fiction and explain its development in the Victorian period.
Jacqueline Howard
- Published in print:
- 1994
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198119920
- eISBN:
- 9780191671258
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198119920.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature, Criticism/Theory
This is the first full-length study of Gothic to be written from the perspective of Bakhtinian theory. The author uses Bakhtin's concepts of heteroglossia and dialogism in specific historical ...
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This is the first full-length study of Gothic to be written from the perspective of Bakhtinian theory. The author uses Bakhtin's concepts of heteroglossia and dialogism in specific historical analyses of key works of the genre. Her discussions of Ann Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho, Matthew Lewis's The Monk, Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey, and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein demonstrate that the discursive ambiguity of these novels is not inherently subversive, but that the political force of particular discourses is contingent upon their interaction with other discourses in the reading process. This position enables the author to intervene in feminist discussions of Gothic, which have claimed it as a specifically female genre. The author suggests a way in which feminists can appropriate Bakhtin to make politically effective readings, while acknowledging that these readings do not exhaust the novels' possibilities of meaning and reception. Drawing on the most up-to-date debates in literary theory, this is a sophisticated and scholarly analysis of a genre that has consistently challenged literary criticism.Less
This is the first full-length study of Gothic to be written from the perspective of Bakhtinian theory. The author uses Bakhtin's concepts of heteroglossia and dialogism in specific historical analyses of key works of the genre. Her discussions of Ann Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho, Matthew Lewis's The Monk, Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey, and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein demonstrate that the discursive ambiguity of these novels is not inherently subversive, but that the political force of particular discourses is contingent upon their interaction with other discourses in the reading process. This position enables the author to intervene in feminist discussions of Gothic, which have claimed it as a specifically female genre. The author suggests a way in which feminists can appropriate Bakhtin to make politically effective readings, while acknowledging that these readings do not exhaust the novels' possibilities of meaning and reception. Drawing on the most up-to-date debates in literary theory, this is a sophisticated and scholarly analysis of a genre that has consistently challenged literary criticism.
Chris Miele
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780197265871
- eISBN:
- 9780191772030
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197265871.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History
This essay looks at E. A. Freeman’s involvement in the Oxford Architectural Society, which provided him with the platform to develop as an architectural historian and writer. The varied interests of ...
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This essay looks at E. A. Freeman’s involvement in the Oxford Architectural Society, which provided him with the platform to develop as an architectural historian and writer. The varied interests of the OAS influenced Freeman’s approach to the history of medieval architecture alongside Thomas Arnold’s new philosophy of history. This contribution is set against the backdrop of Oxford in the 1840s and the rapid changes the City and University were experiencing. The OAS also provided Freeman with the opportunity to meet architects and even to act as a client in the restoration of Dorchester Abbey, which the OAS promoted from 1846, eventually using William Butterfield as architect. This experience encouraged Freeman to write about the theory of monument care, which is perhaps his most enduring contribution to the culture of the Gothic Revival.Less
This essay looks at E. A. Freeman’s involvement in the Oxford Architectural Society, which provided him with the platform to develop as an architectural historian and writer. The varied interests of the OAS influenced Freeman’s approach to the history of medieval architecture alongside Thomas Arnold’s new philosophy of history. This contribution is set against the backdrop of Oxford in the 1840s and the rapid changes the City and University were experiencing. The OAS also provided Freeman with the opportunity to meet architects and even to act as a client in the restoration of Dorchester Abbey, which the OAS promoted from 1846, eventually using William Butterfield as architect. This experience encouraged Freeman to write about the theory of monument care, which is perhaps his most enduring contribution to the culture of the Gothic Revival.
Joel Faflak
Jason Haslam (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781474401616
- eISBN:
- 9781474418553
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474401616.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This Companion surveys the traditions and conventions of the dark side of American culture - its repressed memories, its anxieties and panics, its fears and horrors, its obsessions and paranoias. ...
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This Companion surveys the traditions and conventions of the dark side of American culture - its repressed memories, its anxieties and panics, its fears and horrors, its obsessions and paranoias. Featuring new critical essays by established and emerging academics from a range of national backgrounds, this collection offers new discussions and analyses of canonical and lesser-known literary and other works. Its scope ranges from the earliest manifestations of American Gothic traditions in frontier narratives and colonial myths, to its recent responses to contemporary global events. Moving from analyses of eighteenth-century literature to twenty-first century video games, and touching upon visual art, film, and television, serial killers, monsters, education and cityscapes, this Companion aims to demonstrate the centrality of the gothic to American culture writ large through four key sections: Gothic Histories, Gothic Identities; Gothic Genres, Gothic Sites; Gothic Media; and American Creatures.Less
This Companion surveys the traditions and conventions of the dark side of American culture - its repressed memories, its anxieties and panics, its fears and horrors, its obsessions and paranoias. Featuring new critical essays by established and emerging academics from a range of national backgrounds, this collection offers new discussions and analyses of canonical and lesser-known literary and other works. Its scope ranges from the earliest manifestations of American Gothic traditions in frontier narratives and colonial myths, to its recent responses to contemporary global events. Moving from analyses of eighteenth-century literature to twenty-first century video games, and touching upon visual art, film, and television, serial killers, monsters, education and cityscapes, this Companion aims to demonstrate the centrality of the gothic to American culture writ large through four key sections: Gothic Histories, Gothic Identities; Gothic Genres, Gothic Sites; Gothic Media; and American Creatures.
Jason C. Bivins
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195340815
- eISBN:
- 9780199867158
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195340815.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter establishes four contextual factors shaping the Religion of Fear: the history of evangelicalism, political fear, American Christian demonology, and the evangelical mediascape. By ...
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This chapter establishes four contextual factors shaping the Religion of Fear: the history of evangelicalism, political fear, American Christian demonology, and the evangelical mediascape. By situating the Religion of Fear historically and comparing it with both political fear and earlier forms of demonology, this chapter reveals its specific contours. The chapter examines the fearful qualities of religion. It then describes the emergence of evangelicalism within a cluster of concerns to establish religious identity against fearful Others. This chapter next describes the way in which elements of horror and the Gothic resonate with religious strategies of alterity. The chapter concludes by describing the evangelical culture industry, which is part of the work on religious identities.Less
This chapter establishes four contextual factors shaping the Religion of Fear: the history of evangelicalism, political fear, American Christian demonology, and the evangelical mediascape. By situating the Religion of Fear historically and comparing it with both political fear and earlier forms of demonology, this chapter reveals its specific contours. The chapter examines the fearful qualities of religion. It then describes the emergence of evangelicalism within a cluster of concerns to establish religious identity against fearful Others. This chapter next describes the way in which elements of horror and the Gothic resonate with religious strategies of alterity. The chapter concludes by describing the evangelical culture industry, which is part of the work on religious identities.
Stephen Murray
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520238473
- eISBN:
- 9780520930070
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520238473.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Medieval History
In this book, the author seizes a rare opportunity to explore the relationship between verbal and visual culture by presenting a sermon that may have been preached during the second half of the ...
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In this book, the author seizes a rare opportunity to explore the relationship between verbal and visual culture by presenting a sermon that may have been preached during the second half of the thirteenth century in or near the cathedral of Notre-Dame of Amiens, whose sculptural program was completed at about the same time. In addition to providing a complete transcription and translation of the text, he examines the historical context of the sermon and draws comparisons between its underlying structure and the Gothic portals of the cathedral. In the sermon, as in the cathedral, the author finds a powerful motivational mechanism that invites the repentant sinner to enter into a new contract with the Virgin Mary. The correlation between elements of the sermon's text and the sculptural components of the cathedral leads to an exploration of the socioeconomic conditions in Picardy at the time and a vivid sketch of how the cathedral and its images were used by ordinary people. The author finds parallels in the rhetorical tools used in the sermon, on the one hand, and stylistic and compositional tools used in the sculpture, on the other. In addition to providing a fascinating and cogent consideration of medieval beliefs about salvation and redemption, the book also lays the groundwork for a long-overdue examination of the performative and textual in relationship to sculpture.Less
In this book, the author seizes a rare opportunity to explore the relationship between verbal and visual culture by presenting a sermon that may have been preached during the second half of the thirteenth century in or near the cathedral of Notre-Dame of Amiens, whose sculptural program was completed at about the same time. In addition to providing a complete transcription and translation of the text, he examines the historical context of the sermon and draws comparisons between its underlying structure and the Gothic portals of the cathedral. In the sermon, as in the cathedral, the author finds a powerful motivational mechanism that invites the repentant sinner to enter into a new contract with the Virgin Mary. The correlation between elements of the sermon's text and the sculptural components of the cathedral leads to an exploration of the socioeconomic conditions in Picardy at the time and a vivid sketch of how the cathedral and its images were used by ordinary people. The author finds parallels in the rhetorical tools used in the sermon, on the one hand, and stylistic and compositional tools used in the sculpture, on the other. In addition to providing a fascinating and cogent consideration of medieval beliefs about salvation and redemption, the book also lays the groundwork for a long-overdue examination of the performative and textual in relationship to sculpture.
David Brown
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- July 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780199271986
- eISBN:
- 9780191602801
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199271984.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
This chapter explores how architecture has been used to aid experience of the divine in church buildings up to the end of the nineteenth-century. It opens by considering the intentions behind the ...
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This chapter explores how architecture has been used to aid experience of the divine in church buildings up to the end of the nineteenth-century. It opens by considering the intentions behind the Temple at Jerusalem, and notes how Romanesque can be seen to continue some aspects of Temple theology. As such, it is to be contrasted with the Gothic transcendence that follows, while a more sympathetic hearing is attempted for ‘Renaissance Rationalism’ and ‘Baroque Exuberance.’ In pursuing the theories behind such architecture, it is argued that insufficient attention has been given to the notion that each church (in whatever style) should be seen as a Gesamstkunstwerk, an organic whole that includes architecture, individual works of art, music and liturgy, with the transcendence of one element often acting as a counterpoise to the immanence of another.Less
This chapter explores how architecture has been used to aid experience of the divine in church buildings up to the end of the nineteenth-century. It opens by considering the intentions behind the Temple at Jerusalem, and notes how Romanesque can be seen to continue some aspects of Temple theology. As such, it is to be contrasted with the Gothic transcendence that follows, while a more sympathetic hearing is attempted for ‘Renaissance Rationalism’ and ‘Baroque Exuberance.’ In pursuing the theories behind such architecture, it is argued that insufficient attention has been given to the notion that each church (in whatever style) should be seen as a Gesamstkunstwerk, an organic whole that includes architecture, individual works of art, music and liturgy, with the transcendence of one element often acting as a counterpoise to the immanence of another.
G. A. Bremner
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780197265871
- eISBN:
- 9780191772030
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197265871.003.0010
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History
This essay examines the long known but little studied relationship between E. A. Freeman and George Gilbert Scott (1811–78), one of the foremost architects of the Victorian age. Given his interests ...
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This essay examines the long known but little studied relationship between E. A. Freeman and George Gilbert Scott (1811–78), one of the foremost architects of the Victorian age. Given his interests in architecture, it was only natural that Freeman would be drawn within the ambit of the key practitioners of his day. It is argued that the close friendship that developed between Freeman and Scott from the early 1840s influenced appreciably the latter’s historical conception of architecture, thus affecting his architectural output, both theoretical and practical. Their engagement over such topical issues as the ‘national question’ in British architecture, John Ruskin, the cultural origins and significance of Gothic architecture, and the debate over style, particularly with regard to the New Government Offices (1857–68), Whitehall, are all discussed. It is concluded that Freeman’s ideas, despite being overshadowed by those of Ruskin and the Ecclesiologists, had a wider impact in the world of Victorian architecture than previously thought.Less
This essay examines the long known but little studied relationship between E. A. Freeman and George Gilbert Scott (1811–78), one of the foremost architects of the Victorian age. Given his interests in architecture, it was only natural that Freeman would be drawn within the ambit of the key practitioners of his day. It is argued that the close friendship that developed between Freeman and Scott from the early 1840s influenced appreciably the latter’s historical conception of architecture, thus affecting his architectural output, both theoretical and practical. Their engagement over such topical issues as the ‘national question’ in British architecture, John Ruskin, the cultural origins and significance of Gothic architecture, and the debate over style, particularly with regard to the New Government Offices (1857–68), Whitehall, are all discussed. It is concluded that Freeman’s ideas, despite being overshadowed by those of Ruskin and the Ecclesiologists, had a wider impact in the world of Victorian architecture than previously thought.
Fiona Robertson
- Published in print:
- 1994
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198112242
- eISBN:
- 9780191670725
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198112242.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, 18th-century Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
This chapter draws together the main proposals made in this study by examining the questions of Gothic form, suspenseful narrative, and legitimacies–both novelistic and political–as raised by one ...
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This chapter draws together the main proposals made in this study by examining the questions of Gothic form, suspenseful narrative, and legitimacies–both novelistic and political–as raised by one last novel, Woodstock. Woodstock, published six years before Scott's death, highlights his interest in frames, narrative and pictorial, symbolic and metonymic structure, and the figure of the labyrinth. It is also a good example of the way in which historical events are re-imagined as tales of mystery. The chapter examines the intense and repetitive imagery which leads up to these fake confrontations.Less
This chapter draws together the main proposals made in this study by examining the questions of Gothic form, suspenseful narrative, and legitimacies–both novelistic and political–as raised by one last novel, Woodstock. Woodstock, published six years before Scott's death, highlights his interest in frames, narrative and pictorial, symbolic and metonymic structure, and the figure of the labyrinth. It is also a good example of the way in which historical events are re-imagined as tales of mystery. The chapter examines the intense and repetitive imagery which leads up to these fake confrontations.
Fiona Robertson
- Published in print:
- 1994
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198112242
- eISBN:
- 9780191670725
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198112242.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, 18th-century Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
This chapter focuses on the subjects and styles of Gothic itself, interpreting Gothic in a way which establishes parameters for the analysis of the narrative and historiographical techniques of the ...
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This chapter focuses on the subjects and styles of Gothic itself, interpreting Gothic in a way which establishes parameters for the analysis of the narrative and historiographical techniques of the Waverley Novels. It brings together Gothic's dual preoccupation with history and narrative, relating both to anxieties of literary origin by way of the figure of the recess. The frame narrative of The Monastery, which describes the search for the lost heart of the Abbot Ambrosius in the ruins of St Mary's at Kennaquhair, makes architecture the focus of a search which is really about ways of telling, or narrating. So, too, in Gothic, narrative and historical processes are repeatedly figured as tortuous approaches through hidden subterranean passageways to a secret which may finally be revealed, but which can never be an adequate recompense for the terrors of the quest. The interpretation of Gothic in the chapter is allusive rather than exhaustive, and it does not engage in the kind of comparative analysis which would allow it to claim that the techniques and preoccupations which it highlights in late 18th-century Gothic are exclusive to that form. It does, however, emphasize certain matters rather more than has been done in previous criticism, paying particularly close attention to devices of historical authentication in Gothic, to questions of literary and historical origin, and to the problems which arise when Gothic conventions intrude into non-Gothic works.Less
This chapter focuses on the subjects and styles of Gothic itself, interpreting Gothic in a way which establishes parameters for the analysis of the narrative and historiographical techniques of the Waverley Novels. It brings together Gothic's dual preoccupation with history and narrative, relating both to anxieties of literary origin by way of the figure of the recess. The frame narrative of The Monastery, which describes the search for the lost heart of the Abbot Ambrosius in the ruins of St Mary's at Kennaquhair, makes architecture the focus of a search which is really about ways of telling, or narrating. So, too, in Gothic, narrative and historical processes are repeatedly figured as tortuous approaches through hidden subterranean passageways to a secret which may finally be revealed, but which can never be an adequate recompense for the terrors of the quest. The interpretation of Gothic in the chapter is allusive rather than exhaustive, and it does not engage in the kind of comparative analysis which would allow it to claim that the techniques and preoccupations which it highlights in late 18th-century Gothic are exclusive to that form. It does, however, emphasize certain matters rather more than has been done in previous criticism, paying particularly close attention to devices of historical authentication in Gothic, to questions of literary and historical origin, and to the problems which arise when Gothic conventions intrude into non-Gothic works.
Fred Botting and Catherine Spooner (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780719089770
- eISBN:
- 9781781708651
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719089770.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Monstrous Media/Spectral Subjects explores Gothic, monstrosity, spectrality and media forms and technologies (music, fiction's engagements with photography/ cinema, film, magic practice and new ...
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Monstrous Media/Spectral Subjects explores Gothic, monstrosity, spectrality and media forms and technologies (music, fiction's engagements with photography/ cinema, film, magic practice and new media) from the later nineteenth century to the present day. Placing Gothic forms and productions in an explicitly interdisciplinary context, it investigates how the engagement with technologies drives the dissemination of Gothic across diverse media through the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, while conjuring all kinds of haunting and spectral presences that trouble cultural narratives of progress and technological advancement.Less
Monstrous Media/Spectral Subjects explores Gothic, monstrosity, spectrality and media forms and technologies (music, fiction's engagements with photography/ cinema, film, magic practice and new media) from the later nineteenth century to the present day. Placing Gothic forms and productions in an explicitly interdisciplinary context, it investigates how the engagement with technologies drives the dissemination of Gothic across diverse media through the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, while conjuring all kinds of haunting and spectral presences that trouble cultural narratives of progress and technological advancement.
Laura Helen Marks
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780252042140
- eISBN:
- 9780252050886
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252042140.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This book argues that pornographic film relies on a particular "Victorianness" in generating eroticism—a Gothic Victorianness that is monstrous and restrained, repressed but also perverse, static but ...
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This book argues that pornographic film relies on a particular "Victorianness" in generating eroticism—a Gothic Victorianness that is monstrous and restrained, repressed but also perverse, static but also transformative, and preoccupied with gender, sexuality, race, and time. Pornographic films enthusiastically expose the perceived hypocrisy of this Victorianness, rhetorically equating it with mainstream, legitimate culture, as a way of staging pornography’s alleged sexual authenticity and transgressive nature. Through an analysis of porn set during the nineteenth century and porn adaptations of Lewis Carroll’s Alice books, Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula, this book shows how these adaptations expose the implicit pornographic aspects of “legitimate” culture while also revealing the extent to which “high” and “low” genres rely on each other for self-definition. In the process, neo-Victorian pornographies draw on Gothic spaces and icons in order to situate itself as this Gothic other, utilizing the Gothic and the monstrous to craft a transformative, pornographic space. These neo-Victorian Gothic pornographies expose the way the genre as a whole emphasizes, navigates, transgresses, and renegotiates gender, sexuality, and race through the lens of history and legacy.Less
This book argues that pornographic film relies on a particular "Victorianness" in generating eroticism—a Gothic Victorianness that is monstrous and restrained, repressed but also perverse, static but also transformative, and preoccupied with gender, sexuality, race, and time. Pornographic films enthusiastically expose the perceived hypocrisy of this Victorianness, rhetorically equating it with mainstream, legitimate culture, as a way of staging pornography’s alleged sexual authenticity and transgressive nature. Through an analysis of porn set during the nineteenth century and porn adaptations of Lewis Carroll’s Alice books, Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula, this book shows how these adaptations expose the implicit pornographic aspects of “legitimate” culture while also revealing the extent to which “high” and “low” genres rely on each other for self-definition. In the process, neo-Victorian pornographies draw on Gothic spaces and icons in order to situate itself as this Gothic other, utilizing the Gothic and the monstrous to craft a transformative, pornographic space. These neo-Victorian Gothic pornographies expose the way the genre as a whole emphasizes, navigates, transgresses, and renegotiates gender, sexuality, and race through the lens of history and legacy.
Julia Round
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781496824455
- eISBN:
- 9781496824509
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496824455.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Comics Studies
This book is the first full-length critical study of any British girls’ comic and sheds light on an often-ignored era and genre of the comics industry. It explores the production and reception of the ...
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This book is the first full-length critical study of any British girls’ comic and sheds light on an often-ignored era and genre of the comics industry. It explores the production and reception of the notorious girls’ mystery comic Misty (IPC, 1978-80), considering its influences, themes, visuals, plots, and use of Gothic symbols. Containing exclusive interview material with the comic’s creators and editorial team, rare scripts and photographs, and surveying the entire archive of Misty stories, it preserves and analyzesMisty for fans and scholars.
By exploring and defining the particular type of mystery and fear that this comic offered, the strange case of Misty also becomes a tool to develop existing Gothic scholarship and identify a new and under-theorised subgenre. Gothic for Girls challenges and instructs its readers in a number of ways: offering warnings and moral lessons, exposing societal expectations and limitations, and embracing the liminality and Otherness of childhood.Less
This book is the first full-length critical study of any British girls’ comic and sheds light on an often-ignored era and genre of the comics industry. It explores the production and reception of the notorious girls’ mystery comic Misty (IPC, 1978-80), considering its influences, themes, visuals, plots, and use of Gothic symbols. Containing exclusive interview material with the comic’s creators and editorial team, rare scripts and photographs, and surveying the entire archive of Misty stories, it preserves and analyzesMisty for fans and scholars.
By exploring and defining the particular type of mystery and fear that this comic offered, the strange case of Misty also becomes a tool to develop existing Gothic scholarship and identify a new and under-theorised subgenre. Gothic for Girls challenges and instructs its readers in a number of ways: offering warnings and moral lessons, exposing societal expectations and limitations, and embracing the liminality and Otherness of childhood.
Bertrand Lancon
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748612390
- eISBN:
- 9780748651009
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748612390.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, European History: BCE to 500CE
This is an account of life in ancient Rome from the end of the third century to the beginning of the seventh. At the beginning of the period Rome was an imperial power and the centre of a classical ...
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This is an account of life in ancient Rome from the end of the third century to the beginning of the seventh. At the beginning of the period Rome was an imperial power and the centre of a classical civilisation, albeit with a growing Christian minority. By its end, Rome was a Papal power, the centre of western Christianity – the Pantheon itself was being transformed into a church. The book charts the change in terms of its effect on the city and its environs (the destruction of temples, the building of St Peter’s), the nature and consequences of Vandal and Gothic invasions, the survival and conversion of the nobility and the plebes, and the long struggle between ancient religions and rituals and Christianity and its consequences for the social and physical fabric of the city. There are chapters on the family and life cycle, the changing measurement of time (a crucial cultural revolution), education, the final years of the games, and the early years of the papacy. The book provides a social history of the city of Rome during a period when its role as the centre of western civilisation was transformed yet, against considerable odds, maintained.Less
This is an account of life in ancient Rome from the end of the third century to the beginning of the seventh. At the beginning of the period Rome was an imperial power and the centre of a classical civilisation, albeit with a growing Christian minority. By its end, Rome was a Papal power, the centre of western Christianity – the Pantheon itself was being transformed into a church. The book charts the change in terms of its effect on the city and its environs (the destruction of temples, the building of St Peter’s), the nature and consequences of Vandal and Gothic invasions, the survival and conversion of the nobility and the plebes, and the long struggle between ancient religions and rituals and Christianity and its consequences for the social and physical fabric of the city. There are chapters on the family and life cycle, the changing measurement of time (a crucial cultural revolution), education, the final years of the games, and the early years of the papacy. The book provides a social history of the city of Rome during a period when its role as the centre of western civilisation was transformed yet, against considerable odds, maintained.
Bettelou Los
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199274765
- eISBN:
- 9780191705885
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199274765.003.0002
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Historical Linguistics
This chapter describes the earliest syntactic function of the to-infinitive: that of purpose adjunct, as in Present-day English, I left early to catch the train. Data from Gothic and Old English show ...
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This chapter describes the earliest syntactic function of the to-infinitive: that of purpose adjunct, as in Present-day English, I left early to catch the train. Data from Gothic and Old English show that this function could be encoded by three expressions: the du- or to-infinitive, the du- or to-prepositional phrase, and the subjunctive clause introduced by ei in Gothic and by þæt in Old English. It has been claimed in the literature that the bare infinitive could also express purpose in Old English, but a closer look at the data shows that these infinitives occur after verbs of motion and rest, and are parallel to the present participles in Present-day English, he came running, he sat thinking. Such bare infinitives do not express purpose by simultaneity.Less
This chapter describes the earliest syntactic function of the to-infinitive: that of purpose adjunct, as in Present-day English, I left early to catch the train. Data from Gothic and Old English show that this function could be encoded by three expressions: the du- or to-infinitive, the du- or to-prepositional phrase, and the subjunctive clause introduced by ei in Gothic and by þæt in Old English. It has been claimed in the literature that the bare infinitive could also express purpose in Old English, but a closer look at the data shows that these infinitives occur after verbs of motion and rest, and are parallel to the present participles in Present-day English, he came running, he sat thinking. Such bare infinitives do not express purpose by simultaneity.
Dominic Janes
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195378511
- eISBN:
- 9780199869664
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195378511.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Church History
This chapter surveys the background to ritualism in the religious and cultural ferment of the early 19th century. It explains how Tractarianism and Ecclesiology both led to an impetus amongst a ...
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This chapter surveys the background to ritualism in the religious and cultural ferment of the early 19th century. It explains how Tractarianism and Ecclesiology both led to an impetus amongst a minority of Anglican clergy for the development of elaborate liturgical forms based on those of the late medieval English Church which quickly became known as ritualism. This process can be considered as part of the wider phenomenon known as the Gothic Revival in art and architecture. In essence, a romanticised view of the Middle Ages which was itself a reaction against Enlightenment notions of progress and of escape for the supposedly primitive ways of the European past. Perhaps best conceptualised by Pugin, gothic styles were meant to be provide a model for the re-sacralisation of England, particularly its blighted urban areas. It is made clear, however, that Pugin’s vision, like that of most contemporary ritualists, was not based primarily upon contemporary Roman Catholic reality but upon an imaginary and idealised English Catholicism. Therefore, the ensuing battles over ritualism in the Church of England were in fact evidence of a fight over the nature of England and English identity.Less
This chapter surveys the background to ritualism in the religious and cultural ferment of the early 19th century. It explains how Tractarianism and Ecclesiology both led to an impetus amongst a minority of Anglican clergy for the development of elaborate liturgical forms based on those of the late medieval English Church which quickly became known as ritualism. This process can be considered as part of the wider phenomenon known as the Gothic Revival in art and architecture. In essence, a romanticised view of the Middle Ages which was itself a reaction against Enlightenment notions of progress and of escape for the supposedly primitive ways of the European past. Perhaps best conceptualised by Pugin, gothic styles were meant to be provide a model for the re-sacralisation of England, particularly its blighted urban areas. It is made clear, however, that Pugin’s vision, like that of most contemporary ritualists, was not based primarily upon contemporary Roman Catholic reality but upon an imaginary and idealised English Catholicism. Therefore, the ensuing battles over ritualism in the Church of England were in fact evidence of a fight over the nature of England and English identity.
