Gothic: Four Hundred Years of Excess, Horror, Evil and Ruin - Softcover

Richard Davenport-Hines

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1841150797 ISBN 13: 9781841150796

Publisher: Fourth Estate, 2000

Synopsis

Beginning with the eruption of Vesuvius in 1631, an event so powerful it created a new landscape and inspired the desolate and savage paintings of Salvator Rosa, Richard Davenport-Hines traces the evolution of the gothic imagination. This revelatory history ranges through art, architecture, gardening, literature, photography, filmmaking, music, and clothing design, and takes in artists and creations as various as Byron, Horace Walpole, Goya, Frankenstein's monster, Edgar Allan Poe, Jackson Pollock, David Lynch, The Terminator, and The Cure.

About this title

About the Author

Richard Davenport-Hines is the author of five books, most recently Auden. His articles and reviews have appeared in many publications, including The Times (London), The Times Literary Supplement, The Observer, and The Independent. He lives in London.

From Kirkus Reviews

Mad monks, maleficent marquises, monster movies, Mount Vesuvius, and more, all mix boisterously in this potboiling witches cauldron, creating a strange, often heady brew that is two parts popular history of the gothic, one part academic maundering, and for the most part, a passionate defense and exploration of humanitys insuppressible gothic impulses. According to Davenport-Hines (Auden, 1996, etc.), much of the long-running revival (almost 400 years and counting) of interest in things gothic can be traced to the eruption of Vesuvius in 1631 and its aesthetic impact on the Neapolitan painter Salvator Rosa. Though Rosas wild landscapes, witches covens, and other such ``gothic'' subjects ran directly counter to the prevailing neoclassical Zeitgeist, aristocratic English aesthetes developed a taste for his work, and via gardening, architecture, and eventually literature, a movement was born. While Davenport-Hines defines Goths as persons who admire ``the Dark Ages, superstition and fear, or regard human identity as a masquerade of discontinuous, improvised performances,'' his embrace and understanding of the gothic at times seems overly broad, stretching to include almost anything nasty or even a bit off. At other times, hes maddeningly specific, spending dozens of pages, for example, delving into the histories of various British gothic ``power'' houses. In fact, he has an unhappy, parochial tendency to overweight all things English, making his account, thorough as it is, less than definitive. However, he does touch on all the expected gothic highlights, providing quick critical sketches of the usual suspects: Walpole, Sade, Goya, Piranesi, Poe, and Mary Shelley, as well as notable gothic design, movies, and ``moments.'' His lapidary, epigrammatic style and his keen analysis make all his tics, lacunae, and prejudices not merely bearable but even enjoyablea perfect gothic inversion. Like so many gothic novels and movies, flawed but compelling. (b&w illustrations throughout, 8 pages color) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Fourth Estate
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 1841150797
• ISBN 13: 9781841150796
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 448