Charting Rocks in the Golden Stream: Or, Why Textual Ornaments Matter to Victorian Periodicals Studies

The endless variety of pictorial initials in Victorian periodicals similarly express individual work, collaborative design, and human social relationships. [...]like the ornaments of Gothic architecture, the ornaments of Victorian periodicals are structurally related to their supporting columns. According to Spuybroek, "Gothic patterns are essentially digital" because of the fundamental variability of ornamental figures and because these figures are structurally relational.50 Like computer code, the Gothic "specifically demands an art of configurational variation," which Spuybroek names "a digital Gothic.