Ebook: The Harp and the Constitution: Myths of Celtic and Gothic Origin

This co-authored book is based on the proceedings of a conference, 'Celtic Romanticism and the Gothic Revival', which was held at the University of Bristol on 15th to 16th January 2005.

'Celtic' and 'Gothic' both words refer today to both ancient tribes and modern styles. 'Celtic' is associated with harp music, native knitwear, and spirituality; 'Gothic' with medieval cathedrals, rock bands, and horror fiction. The eleven essays collected together here chart some of the curious and unexpected ways in which the Celts and the Goths were appropriated and reinvented in Britain and other European countries through the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries - becoming not just mythologised races, but lending their names to abstract principles and entire value systems.

Contributed by experts in literature, archaeology, history, and Celtic studies, the essays range from broad surveys to specific case-studies, and together demonstrate the complicated interplay that has always existed between 'Celticism' and 'Gothicism'.