Medievalism: The Middle Ages in Modern England

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Yale University Press, 2007 M01 1 - 306 pages
The style of the medieval period, which flows through the bloodstream of western culture, was vigorously re-established in post-Enlightenment England. This one-volume history of the Medieval Revival is the first coherent account of it, especially those aspects that are expressed and reflected in literature. The book focuses on the period 1760 to 1971, with an Epilogue on the reverberations of medievalism in the present day.
The rebuilding of the Palace of Westminster, after its destruction by fire in 1834, re-established Gothic as the national style. But medieval imitation manifests itself wherever one cares to look: in literature, architecture, the applied arts, religion, politics, and even Hollywood. In this skilled dissection of the components of this pervasive cultural movement, Michael Alexander rejects the idea that medievalism was confined to the Victorian period, and overturns the suspicion that it is by its nature escapist.

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Contents

The Advent of the Goths
1
Chivalry Romances and Revival
22
Dim Religious Lights
50
Residences for the Poor
65
Back to the Future in the 1840s
84
The Death of Arthur was the Favourite Volume
105
History the Revival and the
127
History and Legend
149
The Working Men and the Common Good
165
Among the Lilies and the Weeds
193
Modernist Medievalism
227
Twentiethcentury Christendom
245
Riding through the glen
262
Bibliography
284
Jones David In Parenthesis London 1937 1963
288
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About the author (2007)

Michael Alexander was professor of English, St. Andrews University. Among his publications are translations and editions of Old and Middle English literature, and A History of English Literature.

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