Locating the Gothic in British Modernity

This book investigates the dynamic relationships between Gothic impulses/expressions and British literature between the 1880s and 1930s, with a particular focus upon how both modernity (as a set of technological, social, cultural and historical circumstances) and modernism (as a literary movement) stimulate and express relations to place in terms of Gothic ideas and aesthetics. The project draws new links between these areas, and examines the extent to which the period is characterized by a distinctive and coherent set of Gothic impulses and aesthetic manifestations; additionally, it interprets these in the context of the experience and representation of place. The dialectic of modern explorations of both metropolitan and rural place forms a central line of investigation, pursuing the hypothesis that the Gothic is a critically valuable lens for considering these relationships.