Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2004. Vol. 4. Eger Journal of English Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 30)
MATTHEW PALMER The English Cathedral: Prom Description to Analysis
74 Matthew Palmer stressing the fact that England and Hungary formed constituent parts of the same Gothic world to which the Kingdom of Hungary also belonged, albeit at the furthest extents of Jenő Szücs's "the three regions of Europe", we are adopting a standpoint which is not only topical, as Hungary has recently joined the European Union, but entirely in the spirit of Villard de Honnecourt, whose travels took him to Hungary. 5 The paper intends to raise issues, each of which will be introduced by a "keyword". "Englishness" The conceptual jump from saying that English cathedrals have common generic features to suggesting that these features contain some essentially national characteristics is enormous, and one which critics of Nikolaus Pevsner have been only too happy to draw our attention to. The most famous contribution to this particular debate probably being David Watkin's in his essay on Pevsner in Morality and Architecture in which he writes: [...] in order to sustain the argument that there must be some unconscious synthesis, some underlying uniformity which will be a reflection of national character, the historian has to bring to his subject all sorts of assumptions about the national character, language, religion, politics, and so on. And these assumptions, unlike the art-historical assumptions, are rarely analysed or defended. 6 Whilst it might be wise to avoid the question of "national character" in an analysis of English cathedrals, its existence as part of a cultural debate should be recognised, albeit as part of an introduction to the historiography of the subject. It would, however, be unfair to expect students of English in Hungary to be completely familiar with core texts such as Paul Rrankl's classic study The Gothic: Literary Sources and Interpretations through Eight Centuries (Princeton, I960), who has this to say on the topic of "Gothic as a National Phenomenon": "Nobody will deny that there exists a Gothic particular brand of the Isle of Rrance, Burgundy etc. Yet there is no connection with «blood and soil» as the same provinces created—or copied —other styles at other times. Again the explanation lies in intellectual or spiritual reasons common to those who dwell together all their lives." 7 It is for this reason, that while we agree that the study of English Gothic cathedrals has a valid place within a British Studies curriculum, and 5 Szűcs J, Vázlat Európa három történeti régiójáról (Budapest, Magvető, 1983), pp. 10-11. Franki, Paul, The Gothic: Literary Sources and Interpretations through Eight Centuries (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1960), pp. 685-6.
