Gothic: Four Hundred Years of Excess, Horror, Evil and Ruin [Anglais] [Broché]

Though separated by time, place and vocation, Neapolitan landscape painter Salvator Rosa, English novelist Mary Shelley and American filmmaker David Lynch all belong to the same exclusive club. So argues Davenport-Hines (Auden), often persuasively, in his sweeping examination of modern Western culture's fascination with the dark side. Davenport-Hines holds that a coherent antirationalist tradition can be traced through the work of figures as diverse as Francisco Goya, the Duke of Argyll, Lord Byron, Theodor Adorno and 1980s rock singer Robert Smith of the Cure. He deftly situates the gothicAbroadly defined here as a nonconformist sensibility marked by a morbid fascination with death, decay and the uncannyAin a history that includes the barbarian invasions of Rome and the nature-defying hubris of medieval European architecture. Of course celebrated gothic novelists such as Ann Radcliffe, Matthew "Monk" Lewis and Horace Walpole receive treatment, but more interesting is the author's identification of gothic elements in the work of artists seldom placed in the gloom-and-doom tradition, such as Alexander Pope's carefully planned, and to the 20th-century eye almost kitschy, gardens. The book's efforts to make spiritual confreres of figures as apparently unrelated as Pope and Ian Curtis, the suicidal frontman of gloomy rock group Joy Division, accounts for much of its appeal. And, indeed, the clear delight Davenport-Hines takes in making bedfellows of poets and pop stars, philosophers and splatterpunks, indicates his own penchant for the bizarre and subversive. Although his definition of the gothic becomes at times too elastic, this richly illustrated survey is no less enjoyable and informative for its author's ambition. (June)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

The enduring interest in Gothic and macabre images and stories has drawn the attention of contemporary scholars and critics. Departing from recent volumes that analyze the Gothic in contemporary culture and arts, British critic Davenport-Hines (Auden, Pantheon, 1996) has produced a comprehensive survey of Gothic themes in art, architecture, literature, and film since the early 17th century. Arranged in a sometimes disjointed combination of historic and thematic exposition, the book traces the Gothic imagination: its roots, the 18th-century "Gothic revival," the 19th-century classics (such as Frankenstein and Dracula) that epitomize the genre, the American Gothic, and manifestations of the Gothic in popular culture and film. The level of detail is sometimes excessive, and some chapters seem to lose their focus, but overall, this work provides an informed and readable survey of the genre. Unfortunately, the notes are difficult to use, and the in-text citations are not always clear or explicit. For larger public libraries.AJulia Burch, Cambridge, MA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

Full of amusing digressions and offhandedly sweeping opinions, the book leaps from one discipline to another to illuminate the enduring appeal of its topic. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

"A masterful job . . . An intelligent, provocative guide to one of the more enduring and entertaining artistic forms this millennium produced."

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. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

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.

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.