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Gothic Discourse: in the cracks of reason (Daniel Serravalle de Sá, 2005)

The gothic lives in the cracks of Reason. A moment of bewilderment, a split second of disorientation that transports us outside recognisable boundaries. Textually, it is presented as a rhetorical effect which challenges the reader`s epistemological assurances. Order might immediately be called in again, by means of authorial explanation, bringing the readers to their senses and making the eerie instant recoil back to its crack. But the gothic will remain as a seed of uncertainty lodged in the foundation of Reason ready to stem again, or perhaps, wedge its way in deeper bringing the whole building down.

From this angle, the gothic constitutes a response to a disquietude; a reaction that takes place when we are pushed beyond familiar cultural limits. It is curious to note how this gothic cultural uneasiness frequently unfolds into political matters and questions of national identity. As a discourse the gothic began with English novelists in the 18th century, encompassing an answer to the anxiety caused by the French Revolution across the channel. With the proliferation of the novel in the 19th and 20th centuries, gothic images and conventions found their way around the world and, in the 21st century, they still linger on strongly in books and in the cinema. Although the gothic discourse is a trans-cultural and trans-historical phenomenon, its significance can only be recognised in a defined space and time. That is to say, the meanings and implications of these conventions have to be culturally and historically observed.

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Gothic Villains (Daniel Serravalle de Sá , 2005)

As the setting of gothic novels is rarely Britain, the portraiture of Nature in them is mainly oriented by foreign geography. Displacing anxieties in time and space was a way of projecting on to the ‘other’, issues the Protestant tradition[1] did not want to approach in its own territory. From the margins of an Enlightenment culture, dramatising conflicts and uncertainties in the face of a fast-changing social and economic world, gothic became the standard vehicle for authors to address the aesthetic and political questions raised by the events of 1789 in France. British novelists re-interpreted the ghost of the 1688 revolution through the French Revolution, transferring their anxieties to distant countries and past times, setting their horror stories predominantly in Italy, and also in France and in Spain.

The development of capitalism, in this period of internal realignment and external revolution, would explain the success of this fiction which questions the constitution of the ‘real’, making way for a blend of fear and attraction, anxiety and desire, which seem to have characterised the relationship between the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy. The gothic novel exposes its ambivalences, by the intention of consolidating bourgeois values, such as domesticity, sentiment, virtue and family; alongside a fascination for medieval architecture, customs and values. Expressing admiration for a feudal world which was at the same time a source of tyranny, barbarism, and autocracy; lead to the creation of cruel and malevolent villains, who were either aristocrats or religious elements.

The events that take place in gothic novels are frequently depicted in an ironic manner. Outbursts against the inequities of overseas nations were a familiar cliché for the 18th century British reader. In this light, gothic novels can be considered novels of nationality, conveyed through the notion of ‘otherness’ in the story which contrasted with the ‘English’ beliefs. The gothic obsession with the Catholic clergy and aristocracy as repositories of evil represents the danger from the outside. By doing that, novelists helped to consolidate a national identity by creating a dichotomy between the multitude of British readers and the Continental, Catholic and often infamous characters. “Your picture is complete’, said he, ‘and I cannot but admire the facility with which you have classed the monks together with banditti” (The Italian, p.50) says the wicked friar Schedoni, outwitting the young hero Vivaldi and relativising the certainties. Only gothic villains are capable of great evil and yet maintain certain majesty of demeanour. In Northanger Abbey (1818), Jane Austen points out the limits of these conventions by reinscribing a parodical gothic novel in her own idiosyncratic form. She exposes the structure of gothic novels by satirising their stereotypical aspects.[2]

The reader usually takes sides from the very first description, in which they are made complicit with an ideological point of view. Frequently older and more experienced than the hero and heroine (as those Romanic nations were in relation to Britain), the villain’s physical complexion is described as dark, and usually there is something disturbing or magnetic about him. Drawing attention to the features is a way of proposing contrast with the ‘fair’ English type. This initial cue serves as a hook to introduce a whole national statement, where the narrator will make use of images and linguistic subtleties to create a rapport with the readers. The appearance of the padre Ambrosio in The Monk (1796)[3] exemplifies:

He was a Man of noble port and commanding presence. His stature was lofty, and his features uncommonly handsome. His Nose was aquiline, his eyes large black and sparkling, and his dark brows almost joined together. His complexion was of a deep but clear Brown; Study and watching had entirely deprived his cheek of colour. Tranquillity reigned upon his smooth unwrinkled forehead; and Content, expressed upon every feature, seemed to announce the Man equally unacquainted with cares and crimes.
(The Monk, vol. I, chapter I, pp. 8-9)

Ambrosio personifies the Mediterranean physical stereotype, although he is young and rather inexperienced at this point in the novel, all his wickedness will soon show through. His respectable public persona contrasts with his depraved intimacy. The villain’s corruption, allied with his obsessive fiery nature, inclined to outbreaks of rage, is a constant in almost all gothic novels. In spite of the antagonists’ studied self-control, they are naturally aggressive and their untamed ardour will often breakthrough the veneer of their composed appearance, taking them from the ‘summit of exultation to the abyss of despondency’ (The Romance of the Forest, p.317), note the metaphor of the landscape here. The propensity for violence, immorality and general tantrums by the villain underpins a central idea in the construct of ‘otherness’ that characterises the gothic. The way these novels debate alterity and differences is by demonising the other. Depicting the ‘other’ in such a sinful manner has implications. It leads readers to believe in, or at least entertain the idea of a general ‘righteousness’ on behalf of the British nation, in which ‘virtue’ is a code for ‘civilisation’. In that light, gothic novels contributed to the construction of the British national and institutional identity. Ultimately, they address the question of nationality by means of promoting racial, religious, cultural and institutional distinctions.

These antagonists will fulfil their cultural role. As they are expected to be, villains are shifty characters, a mark of their cunning. Their behaviour and discourse will mould itself to suit the occasion. Gothic antagonists will rely on intimidation, trickery, and even flattery to achieve their aims. Spurred by deceitfulness Schedoni adopts a suave tone with the Marchesa di Vivaldi.

‘To what do you allude, righteous father’ enquired the astonished Marchesa; ‘what indignity, what impiety has my son to answer for? I entreat you will speak explicitly, that I may prove I can lose the mother in the strict severity of the judge.’
‘That is spoken with the grandeur of sentiment, which has always distinguished you, my daughter! Strong minds perceive that justice is the highest of the moral attributes, mercy is only the favourite of weak ones’

(The Italian, vol. I, chapter X, p. 111)

This scene shows how Schedoni appropriates the sentimental jargon of the heroine and uses it for his own benefit. His rhetorical mastery induces the Marchesa to side with him. On the narrative level, Schedoni’s sudden mockery of the hero and heroine’s naiveté reveals Radcliffe’s command of her writing. In these moments, she is exposing her structure with this teasing, showing that ‘moral attributes’ are a pose rather than a genuine feeling. In the villain, this kind of self-interested wickedness is largely linked to the study of the history of the Venetian Serenissima Republica, then an archetypal example of oligarchic despotism outside the Far East.[4] The Venetian ‘republic’ was based on slavery, midwifery of finances and totalitarism. To a certain extent gothic novelists constructed this ‘other’ by capitalising on notions of political expediency stemming from the trade practices of Venice. Texts like Machiavelli’s The Prince (1513) also contributed to this stereotyping of Italians, frequently represented as shady and deceitful people. Shakespeare also used the theme in Othello, the Moor of Venice (16o1) and the idea lingered at least as far as Schiller’s ‘gothic’ re-reading of the subject in Der Geisterseher (1786-9), published in three parts over three years. In 1792, Heinrich Zschokke created a double aristocrat/mercenary antagonist in The Bravo of Venice (1805), a gothic type tale translated from the German by Mathew Lewis. The story confirms Venice as a centre of political corruption and treachery, but it also addresses a noteworthy shift in the villain’s typical identity. The dual character Abellino/Flodoardo represented simultaneously the dark side of nobility and a rich thirst for adventure. He is an entrepreneurial fortune seeker, in a bourgeois way.

In this respect, the Italian villain functions as a depository for social apprehensions, fluctuating between the evil aristocrat and the evil bourgeois (or both in Zschokke’s case), depending on the writer’s view. However, as Fred Botting points out, villains are rarely the cause of evil themselves; real vice is identified as an institutional problem.[5] The power of Venetian cultural and political ideology reached down into the modern era, even after the Serenissima collapsed. Paradoxically, it became the precise method of the British nation’s imperial project, encapsulated in the guiding principle dividi et impera (divide and rule). In the 19th century, the winged lion from Piazza di San Marco turned into the British lion at the service of the Queen, continuously vigilant in several public places and buildings in London.[6]

Watchful eyes were a preferred symbol of authoritarian behaviour, an attribute particularly suitable when dealing with themes related to power, oppression and tyranny. In fact, piercing eyes seem to be a common feature employed to represent these degenerate gothic banditti who ‘seemed to penetrate, at a single glance, into the hearts of men, and to read their most secret thoughts; few persons could support their scrutiny, or even endure to meet them twice’ (The Italian, p. 35). Throughout gothic novels we can find examples of browbeating, overpowering eyes. Ambrosio, in The Monk, exhibits ‘a certain severity in his look and manner that inspired universal awe and few could sustain the glance of his eye at once fiery and penetrating’ (p. 9). Melmoth had a ‘full-lighted blaze of those demon eyes’ (Melmoth, the wanderer,1820, p. 12).[7] The caliph Vathek (Vathek, 1786)[8] was a pleasing figure, but when enraged ‘one of his eyes became so terrible, that no person could bear to behold it’ (p. 2). It is curious that Vathek seems to have just one menacing eye, perhaps a bit of Beckfordian humour jesting at the cyclopic nature of totalising, authoritarian governments.

As mentioned before, gothic characters are generally not psychologically profound; the great majority remains unchanged in thought and resolution throughout the story. Their thoughts are rarely disclosed to the reader and their voices are heard mostly within dialogues. The use of the third person, instead of the first, makes the whole reading experience less dramatic. Although these subjective incursions are not taken very far, perhaps the villains can be considered as the only characters that undergo some internal conflict. These poor psychological deliberations (a step back in comparison to Lovelace) become especially evident in their final punishment, when their personalities swing between sinfulness and absolution. Unfortunately, all the defiance the villains displayed throughout the novel is invariably subdued at the end. It is my opinion that some of the skilful construction of gothic villains is harmed ultimately due to a ‘Puritan’ regret and exoneration.

Although he manages to poison his rival friar, a dying and weak Schedoni ends his participation as a bent and curbed antagonist. Overthrown, Manfred (The Castle of Otranto, 1764) also regrets his vileness and withdraws to a life of seclusion. The caliph Vathek blames his mother for putting boundless ambition in his heart. His repentance comes too late, as his heart will burn forever in the Hell of the Giaour. The padre Ambrosio, who sold his soul to the devil, also cries for divine mercy. The Daemon, infuriated by his sobbing, takes him for a vertiginous flight and then drops him from the heights. In agony, he is left to die for seven days, pestered by flies and scavengers, until a torrent finally washes his carcase away. Public confessions, sudden changes of heart and final repentances bend these narratives to moral conclusions. In order to re-establish balance in the social fabric, it is not enough to punish Evil, but it is also necessary to end the villains participation with a penitent ‘I am sorry for what I have done’ in order to secure the appropriate ethical conditions in the dénouement. This apologetic condition is prevalent in the ‘classical’ English gothic, despite the minor variations concerning how it happens. As a reaction against the international power represented by the Catholic Church, the repentance of the villain reaffirms the honourable political, social and religious track of British identity. It reinforces the idea of national construction by opposition of values and cultures. These sometimes rather blunt, last minute accommodations of interests, seem also to mirror political resolutions taken at the time, which assisted the ‘landed’ and the ‘monied’ interests[9] in finding ways to keep the upper classes in power.

[1] Sage interprets Protestantism as a social ‘cement’, ‘a common set of doctrines which hold English culture together’. IN: Victor Sage. Horror Fiction in the Protestant Tradition. London: Macmillan, 1988 (p. xiii).
[2] I am referring here to the famous passage in which Henry Tilney reprehends Catherine Morland for indulging in absurd gothic fantasies, after all she should ‘Remember the country and the age in which we live. Remember that we are English, that we are Christians.’ IN: Jane Austen. Northanger Abbey. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985 (chapter XXIV, p. 199).[3] Mathew Lewis. The Monk. London: The Folio Society, 1984. All subsequent quotations taken from this edition. References in parenthesis.
[4] There are many different literary images in the depiction of Venice. Sage discusses paradoxes in the city’s literary representations (e.g. Venice the Rich, Venice the Wise, Venice the Just, Venice, citta galante and Black Venice). I take here the ‘Black Venice’ as a part of the representational model of the gothic. IN: ‘Black Venice: Conspiracy and Narrative Masquerade in Schiller, Zschokke, Lewis, and Hoffman’. Still unpublished.
[5] Fred Botting. The Gothic. London: Routledge, 1996 (p. 89).[6] The similarities between the Venetian and the British symbols are my observations.
[7] Charles Maturin. Melmoth, the wanderer. London: Penguin, 2000. All references from this edition.
[8] William Beckford. Vathek. London: Oxford University Press, 1970. All references from this edition.
[9] The ‘landed’ interest was represented by the aristocracy and the ‘monied’ interest by the up-and-coming bourgeoisie. IN: Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (p. 52).

Ann Radcliffe, the great enchantress (Daniel Serravalle de Sá, 2005)

When The Italian first came out, in 1797, it soon achieved a huge popular success. Its publication contributed to consolidate Ann Radcliffe’s celebrity, but previous honours and glory were already conferred to the lady known as ‘Queen of Romance’. For this novel, considered by some the roof and crown of her work, Mrs. Radcliffe received the sum of 800 pounds[1], a substantial amount for the time and significantly more than any other novelist was being paid. ‘The Great Enchantress’, as she was also known, rejoiced then in a comfortable position. She was an established affluent writer, acclaimed by the public and famous for her captivating books.

Following her first novel, The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne (1789), Ann Radcliffe published A Sicilian Romance (1790), which was regarded by Sir Walter Scott as the first English poetical novel[2]. This was succeed by The Romance of the Forest (1791). Then came The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), upon which her literary reputation greatly rests, it is regarded as a masterpiece of the genre.

Ann Radcliffe seemed to be a rare case of pleasing both public and critic. She often received favourable attention from the reviewers who approved her ‘correctness of sentiment’, her ‘elegance of style’ and ‘proper characterisation’. This reverence towards her work was due to her postulation of traditional ideals amidst an uproar of new ones, a stand much valorised by right-wing parties of that English society. Mrs. Radcliffe was quite conservative in her views, she was not a writer who aimed at questioning the established order, and by the end of her stories she would have conveyed a message of bourgeois moral, value and domesticity, according to the 18th century historical understandings.

However, this mannerly veneration of her books was not an unanimous practice. Some aspects of her style disappointed the critical reception and were severely scrutinised by the faultfinders. Instead of praising, they alluded to the fact her latter literary production was inferior to the former. Opposing criticism pointed out her formulas of ‘explained supernatural’ were growing tiring and predictable from overuse. Essays published in literary magazines stated her ‘suspense technique’ aroused the reader so high that, in the outcome, it could not fulfil expectations. It was also noted in these reviews her talent for description was ‘exhaustive’ and ‘excessive’. Fred Botting points out the ambivalence concerning this matter: “These criticism of the novel’s excess point to a contradiction between style and project of the novel which as to warn against the danger of excess”[3]. Nevertheless, in the turn of the18th century Mrs. Radcliffe’s books were indisputable best sellers. She had become the most read author of her time, positively excelling at landscaping painting and at portraying of villainies.

She was born Ann Ward in 1764, the very year Sir Horace Walpole was publishing The Castle of Otranto. Her father, William Ward, was a haberdasher in London, though, he and his wife had contacts in artistic circles. When her family moved to Bath (1772), she may have attended a school run by Sophia and Harriet Lee[4] and been influenced to write gothic fiction. In 1787, she married the lawyer William Radcliffe, who later in life became proprietor of English Chronicle and who is credited to have encouraged her in writing ventures. From 1789 to 1797 she wrote the works that made her a respected novelist and poet. However, Ann Radcliffe interrupted her career at this point and never, herself, published a book again. She withdrew from the literary scene and lived a secluded life.

Her literary production include more titles, still, they made little success when compared to the novels previously mentioned. Mrs. Radcliffe was a travel enthusiast and wrote a book of her tour through Holland and Germany, A Journey Made in the Summer of 1794..., published in 1795. Gaston de Blondeville was written in 1801, but only published posthumously in 1826. Earlier on, Ode to Terror (1810) was published, in which it was declared that Ann Radcliffe had gone insane and died of the ‘terrors’. In 1816, she was assumed dead, and a compilation of her verse came out, The Poems of Ann Radcliffe. In later life Ann Radcliffe suffered from asthma and died on 7th February 1823. It was claimed in the Monthly Review that ‘she died in a state of mental desolation not to be described’.

Roger Lonsdale[5] offers an explanation for Mrs. Radcliffe early retirement. Based on a 1802 report by Charlotte Smith, Lonsdale sustains her husband restrained her from calling anymore ‘spirits from the vastly deep’ of her imagination. She was also said to have inherited property from her parents in 1798 and 1800, so she may have had less financial motivation, furthermore, she suffered from and old -fashioned uneasiness about being a professional author. From a different perspective J.M.S. Tompkins[6] demonstrates she retired mainly due to disapprobation with the ways gothic fiction writing had trodden. A trend of gothic based on the German type of novel, Schauerroman, introduced blunt terror and heavy handed violence, contrasting with the subtle thrills of the English mode. In order to disassociated herself from the extravagant mob gothic novels had become, she dropped the pen. However, the actual reason why Mrs. Radcliffe, having reached such a high degree of success, retired from the writing business, remains more mysterious than any of her mysteries.


[1] CLERY, E.J. Research Fellow in English at Sheffield Hallam University, wrote the introduction and notes on The Italian edition I used for this work, he reckons it would be worth £ 60,000 today.[2] Ibid, Ibidem.
[3] BOTTING, Fred. Gothic. London, Routledge, 1996 (p.67).
[4] E.J. Cleary. Notes on The Italian.
[5] LONSDALE, Roger(ed.). Eighteenth-Century Women Poets. Oxford, Oxford University Press,1990. (p.449)
[6] TOMPKINS, J.M.S. The Popular Novel in England 1770-1800. London, Methuen & CO LTD, 1961(p.247).