Suchergebnisse

The essays in this book focus on various social, political, cultural, and aesthetic meanings ascribed to Gothic cathedrals in Europe in the post-medieval period. Central to many medieval ritual traditions both sacred and secular, the Gothic cathedral holds a privileged place within the European cultural imagination and experience. Due to the burgeoning historical interest in the medieval past, in connection with the medieval revival in literature, visual arts, and architecture that began in the late seventeenth century and culminated in the nineteenth, the Gothic cathedral took centre stage in numerous ideological discourses. These discourses imposed contemporary political and aesthetic connotations upon the cathedral that were often far removed from its original meaning and ritual use. This volume presents interdisciplinary perspectives on the resignification of the Gothic cathedral in the post-medieval period. Its contributors, literary scholars and historians of art and architecture, investigate the dynamics of national and cultural movements that turned Gothic cathedrals into symbols of the modern nation-state, highlight the political uses of the edifice in literature and the arts, and underscore the importance of subjectivity in literary and visual representations of Gothic architecture. Contributing to scholarship in historiography, cultural history, intermedial and interdisciplinary studies, as well as traditional disciplines, the volume resonates with wider perspectives, especially relating to the reuse of artefacts to serve particular ideological ends

The juxtaposition of these two terms would surprise few, for who would question that the medieval edifice and the study of it in archaeology and art history, and its use in promoting religious, political, social, or aesthetic ideologies since the fifteenth century is a rich subject of medievalism? And yet, at three recent conferences dedicated to the subject: La Cathédrale (2000), The Idea of the Gothic Cathedral (2005), and L'imaginaire moderne de la cathédrale (2006), medievalism as a point of view or even point of departure for the discussions about modern representations of the Gothic edifice, was practically non-existent. This might be explained by the fact that the majority of scholars were focusing on modern discursive or visual techniques for representing the cathedral, in which context medievalism might be considered retrograde. Of course, it may also be that the medieval origins of the Gothic edifice are entirely taken for granted, which makes medievalism seem superfluous; more likely, however, is that since most of the speakers hail from the French Academy, which until recently, has conveniently ignored that a medieval revival or medievalism even existed in classically-oriented France, medievalism is an unfamiliar discourse.1 And yet, looking beyond the national discourses which have created or neglected medievalism, it is evident that the Gothic cathedral touches upon such a wide array of fields of study that perhaps medievalism falls short of encompassing the rich plethora of meanings and interpretations of the Gothic edifice. Indeed, after more than a decade of research on the subject, I have become convinced that the Gothic cathedral and its reception both in academic fields as well as in literature, the visual arts and music often transcend medievalism and constitute a discourse of their own.