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The need for a chilling frisson

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From: The Spectator
Date: 19990102
Author:Hensher, Philip

GOTHIC

by Richard Davenport-Hines Fourth Estate, 20, pp. 438

I have never heard a good explanation or, come to that, any explanation at all, of how it was that 'Gothic', which once just described the neole who sacked Rome came to mean the predominant artistic style of most of mediaeval Europe, and subsequently Horace Walpole, Mrs Radcliffe, the Palace of Westminster, Dracula and the sort of provincial young ladies who hang around popular music combos with their nails and lips painted purple. It's just one of those things which one has to accept. To the Renaissance, of course, 'Gothic' just ...

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