The Gothic A Very Short Introduction

Download or read book The Gothic: A Very Short Introduction written by Nick Groom and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2012-09-27 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Gothic is wildly diverse. It can refer to ecclesiastical architecture, supernatural fiction, cult horror films, and a distinctive style of rock music. It has influenced political theorists and social reformers, as well as Victorian home décor and contemporary fashion. Nick Groom shows how the Gothic has come to encompass so many meanings by telling the story of the Gothic from the ancient tribe who sacked Rome to the alternative subculture of the present day. This unique Very Short Introduction reveals that the Gothic has predominantly been a way of understanding and responding to the past. Time after time, the Gothic has been invoked in order to reveal what lies behind conventional history. It is a way of disclosing secrets, whether in the constitutional politics of seventeenth-century England or the racial politics of the United States. While contexts change, the Gothic perpetually regards the past with fascination, both yearning and horrified. It reminds us that neither societies nor individuals can escape the consequences of their actions. The anatomy of the Gothic is richly complex and perversely contradictory, and so the thirteen chapters here range deliberately widely. This is the first time that the entire story of the Gothic has been written as a continuous history: from the historians of late antiquity to the gardens of Georgian England, from the mediaeval cult of the macabre to German Expressionist cinema, from Elizabethan Revenge Tragedy to American consumer society, from folk ballads to vampires, from the past to the present. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Download or read book The Gothic: A Very Short Introduction written by Nick Groom and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2012-09-27 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There are many interpretations of the word 'Gothic'. Nick Groom explores the rich history and chronology of the term, bringing together various underlying and disparate elements to clarify its meaning. By examining its history, he argues that we can better interpret and understand society today.

Download or read book Horror written by Darryl Jones and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fear is one of the most primal emotions, and one of the hardest to reason with and dispel. So why do we scare ourselves? Delving into the darkest corners of horror literature, films, and plays, Darryl Jones explores its monsters and its psychological chills, discussing why horror stories disturb us, and how they reflect society's taboos.

Download or read book The Gothic Tradition written by David Stevens and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Gothic Tradition is a new title in the Cambridge Contexts in Literature series. It is designed to support the needs of advanced level students of English literature. Each title in the series has the quality, content and level endorsed by the OCR examination board. However, the texts provide the background and focus suitable for any examination board at advanced level. The series explores the contextual study of texts by concentrating on key periods, topics and comparisons in literature. Each book adopts an interactive approach and provides the background for understanding the significance of literary, historical and social contexts. Students are encouraged to investigate different interpretations that may be applied to literary texts by different readers, through a variety of activities and questions, the use of study aids, such as chronologies and glossaries, and the inclusion of anthology sections to exemplify issues." http://www.loc.gov/catdir/description/cam022/2001278650.html.

Download or read book Architecture: A Very Short Introduction written by Andrew Ballantyne and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2002-08-22 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This highly original and sophisticated look at architecture helps us to understand the cultural significance of the buildings that surround us. It avoids the traditional style-spotting approach in favour of giving an idea of what it is about buildings that moves us, and what it is that makes them important artistically and culturally. The book begins by looking at how architecture acquires meaning through tradition, and concludes with the exoticism of the recent avant garde. Illustrations of particular buildings help to anchor the general points with specific examples, from ancient Egypt to the present day. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Download or read book Late Antiquity: A Very Short Introduction written by Gillian Clark and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2011-02-24 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Late antiquity: decline or transformation, conflict or interaction? Late antiquity is the period (c.300 - c.800) in which barbarian invasions ended Roman Empire in Western Europe by the fifth century and Arab invasions ended Roman rule over the eastern and southern Mediterranean coasts by the seventh century. Asking 'what, where, and when' Gillian Clark presents an introduction to the concept of late antiquity and the events of its time. Not only a period of cultural clashes, political restructurings, and geographical controversies, Clark also demonstrates the sheer richness and diversity of religious life as well as the significant changes to trade, economy, archaeology, and towns. Encapsulating significant developments through vignettes, she reflects upon the period by asking the question 'How much can we recognise in the world of late antiquity?' ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction written by Jerrold E. Hogle and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2002-08-29 with total page 526 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gothic as a form of fiction-making has played a major role in Western culture since the late eighteenth century. In this volume, fourteen world-class experts on the Gothic provide thorough and revealing accounts of this haunting-to-horrifying type of fiction from the 1760s (the decade of The Castle of Otranto, the first so-called 'Gothic story') to the end of the twentieth century (an era haunted by filmed and computerized Gothic simulations). Along the way, these essays explore the connections of Gothic fictions to political and industrial revolutions, the realistic novel, the theatre, Romantic and post-Romantic poetry, nationalism and racism from Europe to America, colonized and post-colonial populations, the rise of film and other visual technologies, the struggles between 'high' and 'popular' culture, changing psychological attitudes towards human identity, gender and sexuality, and the obscure lines between life and death, sanity and madness. The volume also includes a chronology and guides to further reading.