Plotting Gothic

This book, more than any other I know, evokes the participatory excitement in experiencing a medieval masterpiece. Murray's premise is that (despite marks of the 'push and shove of real life' upon them) the great medieval cathedrals possess legible plots, motives, and designs on their experiencing subjects. Balancing stories told about them and stories they tell, he freshens the discussion of medieval architecture in an entirely welcome way. This is a risk-taking study, truly rather than just gesturally interdisciplinary, and the risks pay off. --Paul Strohm, author of Theory and the Premodern Text Journal of the British Archaeological Association With insight and verve, Murray pries open the major rhetorical constructions of Gothic--writings that nurtured Gothic's emergence and bore witness to its contemporary reception--and in the process reconciles, indeed synthesizes, them in a totally novel way. Murray's reputation among art historians and medievalists will galvanize a wide audience for this book; his innovative approach to historiography and discourse analysis will attract even more readers. There is really nothing comparable in the recent literature on Gothic architecture and art. --Mitchell B. Merback, author of Pilgrimage and Pogrom: Violence, Memory, and Visual Culture at the Host-Miracle Shrines of Germany and Austria Journal of the British Archaeological Association This book is full of invigorating observations on three of the most iconic witnesses of Gothic. -- Journal of the British Archaeological Association The real joy of the book [is] seeing how the witnesses, builders and rulers transform thought into stone and mortar. . . . A doorway to understanding how the power of Gothic came to be and why it resounds and amazes even to our time. -- Manhattan Book Review Murray expertly intertwines his interlocutors' narrative with a wealth of scholarly information, and while his overall narrative is linear, as each chapter builds on the previous, he tells many interconnected stories that demonstrate his own love affair with the subject, providing a window into the motives and feelings of the people who lived Gothic. -- ARLIS/NA Reviews A compact overview of the phenomenon of Gothic architecture. . . . Although some of Murray's conclusions may be controversial, the discussion they generate can only be beneficial to the continued study of the great Gothic structures of the Middle Ages. Recommended. -- Choice Plotting Gothic is not a new book about an old subject; it's a new kind of architectural history. Murray reads cathedrals as objects of desire by those who planned and built them . . . and makes us see them with avid eyes. --Stephen G. Nichols, author of Romanesque Signs: Early Medieval Narrative and Iconography Journal of the British Archaeological Association