The whole renaissance of the Victorian (how's that for mixed-image
metaphor?) is fascinating, but I think you ought to discriminate it
from `millineum fever' which we're also seeing as 2000 rolls ever
onward.
***************************************************************
We are expressing our millenium fever through familiar conduits-- there
was anxiety at the turn of the last century. In fact there is an
upsurgeance of disturbing, dark romantic art at the turn of nearly every
century, a kind of cycle we go through as creatures.
It would be a mistake to think that this turn of the century is
fundamentally different-- it's really century fever ten times hotter.
S'funny-- three years ago when I was initiating my studies into the
gothic I mentioned the turn of the millennium axiety to my committee and
they said-- No, No it's just some revival of the victorian gothic.
BTW-- Lovecraft is a wonderful modern novelist. I havea link to a good
Lovecraft site on my homepage.
But the aspect of the gothic thatmost interested me is that it is an
*inherently* subversive text. It sets itself up to disregard any
delineation between good and evil, moral and amoral-- and in the finest
works-- unseats our faith in reason. It is the one literary form that
provides *no* position on anything.
-- Regards +--------------------------------------------------------+ Ken Pantheists http://www.lucifer.com/~kenpan +--------------------------------------------------------+