"The dominant culture of eighteenth-century England was not averse to a spot of wild irregularity, not least when it came to gardening […] English ideology has always been canny enough to incorporate a fair amount of fancy and freewheeling, of that stubborn contingency which resists the high-rationalist schemes of the inhuman French."
Terry Eagleton on the Gothic in Hugh Grant’s fringe. (‘Allergic to Depths’, LRB)
