Gothic Antiquity: History, Romance, and the Architectural Imagination, 1760-1840

Gothic Antiquity: History, Romance, and the Architectural Imagination, 1760-1840 explores the fascinating and complex relationship between Gothic architecture (medieval and revivalist) and Gothic literature (romance, poetry, and drama) in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Britain. Coining the notion of the ‘architectural imagination’, it shows how Gothic romancers, poets, and dramatists were often inspired by Gothic architectural forms. In turn, it draws attention to the ways in which the revival of interest in medieval architecture in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was to a certain extent shaped and influenced by the Gothic literary aesthetic. Offering fresh perspectives on such well-known writers as Horace Walpole, Ann Radcliffe, Jane Austen, Walter Scott, and William Wordsworth, it also addresses the work of a number of lesser-known poets and Gothic romancers, including Jane Harvey, William Hutchinson, Edward Montague, Edward Jerningham, and T. J. Horsley Curties.