SOURCE: Rielly, Edward J. “Thomas Warton's Gothic Sensibility.” In Man and Nature/L'Homme et La Nature, 10 (1991): 147-58.

In the following essay, Rielly illustrates how Warton's writings and other scholarly interests reveal his Gothic sensibility.

Thomas Warton was an ardent antiquarian who contributed significantly to the late eighteenth century fusion of the antiquarian and the man of taste (the latter the discerning critic or editor whose successful enterprises depend on the former's diligence and judgment).¹ Warton, of course, was also much more than an antiquarian, even more than an antiquarian of taste. He was a poet, literary historian, critic, and editor. This paper is concerned not only with Warton's antiquarianism, but also with what bound together Warton's many activities. This common, synthesizing link was his abiding love for the distant past, more specifically his Gothic sensibility; and virtually all of his interests, personal and professional, manifested that sensibility. His...