Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1998. Vol. 2. Eger Journal of English Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 26)
Studies - Endre Abkarovits: Teaching the Englishness of English Gothic cathedral architecture
English arts as the topic of their final thesis, many of them wrote on Gothic cathedral architecture. We have to cope with fundamental difficulties with each year of students. They have little knowledge of art history, they lack the basic vocabulary of art terms both in their mother tongue and in English, they don't know much about the Christian religion, without which it is impossible to understand Western art. We should not forget that Medieval art is basically of a liturgical nature. At that time most works of art were created to please and serve God. All parts of a cathedral were built with some liturgical function. It is rather rare - although in England it is perhaps a bit more common than in some other countries - that something was built just for its beauty, and not for some function. (Think of the cloisters at Salisbury.) But even in such cases the ultimate aim of people may have been to please and glorify God. England is a very special country, known for its conservatism. Gothic has stayed with English people eversince the Gothic age, not only through the survival of the works of art of that age, but they applied some of its features in the following periods as well. English aristocrats usually did not want to live in direct imitations of French Renaissance or Baroque palaces, they were happy to dwell in Gothic or timber-framed buildings. In their new palaces Gothic often survived either in the structure or in the decoration, until it was explicitely revived in the Romantic period of the 18 t h and 19 th centuries. So, Gothic is not simply one of the periods of art in England. And cathedral architecture is not just one of the fields of English Gothic, but the most important one. This is why studying about English Gothic cathedral architecture is an indispensable element in our understanding English culture. References Abkarovits Endre: Introducing Students of English to English Arts. In: Medacta '95, volume 3, pp 23-28, Nyitra, 1995. Clark, K.: Civilisation. Thames and Hudson, London, 1969. Clifton-Taylor, A.: The Cathedrals of England. Thames and Hudson, London, 1986. Coldstream, N.: The Decorated Style. British Museum Press, London, 1994. Cs. Tompos-Zádor-Sódor: Az építészet története. Középkor. Tankönyvkiadó, Budapest, 1971. Duby, G.: A katedrálisok kora. Corvina, Budapest, 1998. 64
