"The gothic castle itself, that formidable place, ruinous yet an effective prison, phantasmagorically shifting its outline as ever new vaults extended their labyrinths, scene of solitary wanderings, cut off from light and human contact, of unformulated menace and the terror of the living dead - this hold, with all its hundred names, now looms to investigators as the symbol of a neurosis; they see it as a gigantic symbol of anxiety, the dread of oppression and of the abyss, the response to the insecurity of disturbed times..."
Sir Herbert Read, from the introduction to 'The Gothic Flame' by Dr. P. Varma (Arthur Barker, 1957)
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