The Gothic Revival

Description

At the height of the Victorian period, a passion for the Gothic style swept England and spread far beyond. Gothic architecture, associated with the social and cultural ideals of the Middle Ages, was seen as a means of remaking the modern world. In this lucid exposition, Chris Brooks unravels the layers of meaning that Gothic held for its many reinventors, from the political uses of Gothic history in the seventeenth century to Barry and Pugin’s Houses of Parliament in the mid-nineteenth. Yet the Gothic revival is not just manifest in buildings continually recreated; it has taken the form of poetry and fiction, of painting and sculpture, of movies and video games, of Gothic music and Gothic punk. This is the first book to deal comprehensively with the whole scope of the Gothic Revival.Chris Brooks lectures on Victorian culture at Exeter University’s School of English. He is also Chairman of the Victorian Society, a Trustee of the Albert Memorial, and a member of English Heritage’s Cathedrals and Churches Advisory Committee. He has written and edited several books, including Signs for the Times: Symbolic Realism in the Mid-Victorian World.

“Chris Brooks fulfills every expectation, indeed exceeds it. This breathtaking and stimulating survey offers, in one grand, sweeping narrative, an entirely new interpretation, at a stroke advancing a field which has been stagnant for too long.”—Burlington Magazine

“This book is animated by so rich an appreciation of the difference between a stylistic fashion and a major cultural strain as to be something of a miracle. Chris Brooks’ text is a skillful descriptive and analytical synthesis. It ranges convincingly between matters as far apart, chronologically and otherwise, as the rebuilding of Orleans Cathedral and the absurdities of Gothic Punk.”—World of Interiors

“This is the most complete study available, and Brooks is a confident and reliable guide.”—Independent

On the Art & Ideas series

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