Identity, Community and Victorian Medievalism in the South West

对维多利亚时代的人来说，中世纪是宗教、政治和社会辩论的重要试金石。因此，清晰地了解维多利亚时代的中世纪对于理解这一时期的文化以及我们从中继承的遗产至关重要。中世纪主义者通过回顾过去来理解快速科技化、城市化和全球化的当下。也许由于这一运动的广泛范围和非凡的复杂性，学者们倾向于将维多利亚时代的中世纪主义视为一场全国性的运动。但英格兰西南部的作家、艺术家和建筑师对过去感兴趣，认为这是一种定义他们的地区和人民的特殊、真实和典范的方式，与整个国家截然不同。我们最初的研究表明，西南中世纪以独特的方式回应了日益增长的民族同质感。根据西南中世纪学家的说法，大都市的普遍性，世界性的都市化威胁着当地的身份，他们将这些价值观与真实性，对自由的热爱，同情和与康沃尔郡和德文郡的风景密切相关的诗意感性联系在一起。本案例研究将探讨社区如何转向其区域历史和当地景观，以应对经济、技术和社会变革。本研究将探讨一个有影响力的美学运动是如何被用来促进一种基于地方身份的社区意识的，这种认同感可以追溯到几个世纪以前。我们将探讨设计师和作家如何从他们所在地区过去的文学作品和视觉图像中借鉴，以形成一种他们认为能够激发“社区意识”的美学——即一种关于社区生活繁荣意味着什么的共同情感。与其他艺术家和思想家不同，他们对社会意识的特殊看法并不针对普遍；相反，它针对的是当地的和特殊的。我们将追溯西南中世纪主义者如何构建与当地历史和景观密不可分的社区理念。这些想法，我们将展示，反映在他们产生的艺术，建筑和文学。我们认为，鉴于最近在面对全球化的世界时保持和加强地方特色所面临的挑战，这是一项及时的研究。最近，公众的注意力转向了考虑地方在全球中的重要性。然而，这些不仅仅是新的问题：社会不满，地区特征的丧失和社区的解体是19世纪的重要问题。维多利亚时代的中世纪主义话语是我们当代对全球与地方的理解的根源。当社区感到受到威胁时，他们会寻求共同的过去。这项对英格兰西南部维多利亚时代中世纪的研究将证明，转向一个地区独特的过去，对该地区的物理形态和社区的文化形态的影响往往是深远的。

For the Victorians, the Middle Ages were a vital touchstone in debates on religion, politics and society. Consequently, a clear picture of Victorian medievalism is crucial to understanding the culture of the period, and our inheritance from it. Medievalists looked to the past to make sense of a rapidly technologizing, urbanizing, globalizing present. Perhaps as a result of the extensive scope and remarkable complexity of this movement, scholars have tended to approach Victorian medievalism as a national movement. But writers, artists and architects in South West England were interested in the past as a way to define what was exceptional, authentic and exemplary about their region and its people -- as distinct from the nation as a whole. Our initial research reveals that South West medievalism responded in distinct ways to a growing sense of national homogeneity. According to South West medievalists, the universalizing, cosmopolitan urbanity of the metropolis threatened local identities they associated with such values as authenticity, a love of liberty, sympathy and a poetic sensibility intimately connected to the landscape of Cornwall and Devon. This case-study will explore how communities turned to their regional histories and local landscapes in response to economic, technological and social change. This study will investigate how an influential aesthetic movement was used to promote a sense of community grounded in local identities that stretched back over the centuries. We will explore how designers and writers borrowed from the literary artefacts and visual imagery of their region's past in order to forge an aesthetic that they thought capable of inspiring 'sensus communis' - that is, a shared sensibility about what it means for the life of a community to flourish. Their particular vision of sensus communis did not aim at the universal as was the case with other artists and thinkers; rather, it aimed at the local and particular. We will trace how South West medievalists constructed ideas of community inseparable from local history and landscape. These ideas, we will show, were reflected in the art, architecture and literature they produced. We believe that this is a timely study in light of recent challenges to retain and strengthen local character in the face of a globalizing world. Public attention has recently turned to consider the significance of the local within the global. However these are not solely new concerns: social disaffection, the loss of regional character and the disintegration of community were important issues in the nineteenth century. The discourse of Victorian medievalism lies at the root of our contemporary understanding of global vs. local. When communities feel under threat they reach for a common past. This study of Victorian Medievalism in South West England will demonstrate the ways in which the turn to a regionally-distinct past influenced the physical shape of the region and the cultural shape of its communities in often profound ways.