The introductory chapter charts the evolution of Victorian medievalism in art and architecture, literature and language, politics and social life in Britain, but also in Europe and the Americas. The introduction compares and contrasts what were often described as the two great cultural movements of the century: medievalism and classicism. It examines the turn toward the Middle Ages in earlier eras, and traces the various nineteenth-century offshoots of this turn, including antiquarian collecting, Romantic poetry, Gothic novels, Pre-Raphaelite painting, church building in New Zealand and Canada, popular music and dance, colonial economic discourse, and in the language of Toryism, radicalism, High Church Anglicanism and even utilitarianism. The introduction describes how Victorian medievalist architecture, art, and literature are finally receiving the attention and appreciation they deserve—far more than they had received throughout much of the twentieth century—from scholars, curators, collectors, conservators, town planners, and members of the general public alike.
Gothic elements in contemporary detective story : Matthew Gregory Lewis and Minette Walters compared
