Gothic versus Romantic: A Revaluation of the Gothic Novel

Author(s): Robert D. Hume

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 GOTHIC VERSUS ROMANTIC: A REVALUATION
OF THE GOTHIC NOVEL
BY ROBERTD. HUME

THE Gothic novel has not fared well among The literature of the later eighteenth century
literary critics, even in this age of sym- attempts to rouse the reader's imaginative
pathetic evaluations of largely forgotten minor sympathies; the particular device employed
works. Literary histories treat the subject with toward this end by the Gothic novel writers is
chilly indifference or condescension, granting it terror, which Burke had stressed as a factor in
only cursory attention.' emotional involvement in his A Philosophical
It is usually assumed that all Gothic novels Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime
are much the same, and that the form is defined and Beautiful (1757). By Walpole's account in
by the presence of some stock devices. These his "Preface to the First Edition," "terror" is
"Gothic trappings" include haunted castles, "the author's principal engine" and serves to
supernatural occurrences (sometimes with nat- grip and affect the reader.8To what end we will
ural explanations), secret panels and stairways, have to see. First, some discriminations must be
time-yellowed manuscripts, and poorly lighted attempted.
midnight scenes. Such "Gothicism" is only too There were three varieties of novel widely
often ridiculous, even in the hands of its leading current in the late eighteenth century, sentimen-
exponents. In consequence, the Gothic novel tal-domestic (the novel of manners), "Gothic,"
writers have been associated with "the sub- and didactic. The Vicar of Wakefield (1766),
literary depths of romanticism...into [whose] The Castle of Otranto(1764), and Caleb Williams
noisome fastnesses we need not descend."2 1 Historically,the term"Gothic"is
appliedto the novelsof
The object of this essay is to suggest that the Walpole,Mrs. Radcliffe,M. G. Lewis, Mary Shelley, and
Gothic novel is more than a collection of ghost- Maturin. It can be extended to include such works as
story devices, "the product of a dilettante in- WutheringHeights,Moby Dick, and Faulkner'sSanctuary.
The workof Poe, Hawthorne,and CharlesBrockdenBrown,
terest in the potentialities of the Middle Ages for
though not discussedhere, is actually part of the original
picturesque horror."3 Specifically, I wish to do Gothictradition;at that periodliteraryfashionsin America
three things: to analyze the characteristics and ran abouta generationbehindthose in Europe.
2 SamuelChew,TheNineteenthCenturyandAfter,Bookiv
development of the Gothic novel; to define the
essence of that "Gothic" which can be significant of A Literary History of England, ed. A. C. Baugh, 2nd ed.
(New York,1967),p. 1196.
for Walpole, Melville, and Faulkner alike; and 3 David Daiches,A Critical
Historyof EnglishLiterature,
to set the original Gothic novels in better his- 2 vols. (London,1960),ii, 740.
torical perspective by defining their relation to 4That Gothicism is closely related to romanticismis
the romantic literature of the same period.4 perfectlyclear,but it is easierto state the fact thanto proveit
As a historical form the Gothic novel flourished tidily and convincingly.There is a persistentsuspicionthat
Gothicismis a poor and probablyillegitimaterelation of
between 1764 and 1820; Walpole's The Castle of romanticism,anda consequenttendencyto treatit that way.
Otrantoand Maturin's Melmoth the Wandererare Thereare those,indeed,who wouldlike to deny the relation-
its limits of demarcation. The appearance of the ship altogether.James Foster, in his History of the Pre-
form has been variously accounted for.6 But in RomanticNovel in England (New York, 1949), pp. 202,
186-189,ignoresWalpolealmostcompletely,whilediscussing
general it can be seen as one symptom of a Ann Radcliffe'sworkas "a specialdevelopmentof the senti-
widespread shift away from neoclassical ideals of mental novel" (p. 262) and dismissingGothicismas mum-
order and reason, toward romantic belief in mery importedinto sentimentalfiction.
6 MontagueSummerscalls the form romantic
emotion and imagination. Horace Walpole saw escapism;
his novel as part of a resurgence of romance J. M. S. Tompkinsblamesits appearanceon incipientroman-
ticism and the bad taste of contemporaryreaders;Lowry
against neoclassical restrictions: "the great Nelson believesthat Gothicnovels are the productof their
resources of fancy have been dammed up, by a authors'pursuit of "daydreamsand wish fulfillment."See
strict adherence to common life."6 Within the Montague Summers,The GothicQuest (London: Fortune
limits of the cliche, we can view the Gothic Press, n.d.), pp. 12-13; J. M. S. Tompkins, The Popular
Novelin England(Lincoln,Neb., 1961),pp. 208-209;Lowry
novel as a manifestation of Northrop Frye's Nelson,Jr., "NightThoughtson the GothicNovel," YR,LII
age of growing "sensibility" to aesthetic impres- (Dec. 1962),238.
sions. Like the work of Ossian, Smart, and 6 The Castleof Otranto,ed. W. S. Lewis
(London,1964),
"Prefaceto the SecondEdition,"p. 7.
Sterne, the Gothic novel is part of the new 7 Northrop Frye, "TowardsDefining an
"literature of process" which reflects its creator's Age of Sensi-
bility," ELH, xxii (June 1956), 144-152.
mind.7 8 Otranto,"Prefaceto the FirstEdition," 4.
p.
282
 Robert D. Hume 283

(1794) are examples of each type respectively. Walpole, Beckford, Lewis, Radcliffe, Mary
The popularity of "Gothic" trappings quickly Shelley, and Maturin? Answering these questions
brought about their absorption into the other involves us in a dual task. First we must trace the
varieties of novel. (Caleb Williams exhibits some evolution of the form, trying to see what pro-
of them.) In consequence it is sometimes said duces its unity of impression. Second, we must
that there are several kinds of Gothic novel. attempt simultaneously to recognize the serious
These are usually described as (1) sentimental- features of Gothic writing, distinguishing be-
Gothic, novels which utilize ghosts and gloomy- tween the trappings which gave the eighteenth-
castle atmosphere to enliven sentimental-domestic century form its name and the essentials which
tales (e.g., Clara Reeve's The Old English Baron). the early examples share with novels in entirely
(2) Terror-Gothic, the most nearly "pure" different periods.
Gothic novel (e.g., Mrs. Radcliffe's The Mysteries What techniques, objectives, and concerns do
of Udolpho). (3) Historical-Gothic, in which the these novels have in common? One of their most
Gothic atmosphere is used in a historical setting prominent concerns, though seldom discussed,
(e.g., Sophia Lee's The Recess).9 These divisions might grandiosely be called a psychological inter-
are unsatisfactory. "Terror-Gothic" is too in- est. As early as Walpole (1764) there is a consid-
clusive a category, lumping Radcliffe and Lewis erable amount of concern for interior mental pro-
together as it does. And the historical novel must cesses. Justifying his use of the supernatural,
at some point be distinguished from the Gothic. Walpole says, "Allow the possibility of the facts,
J. M. S. Tompkins speaks of the "historical and all the actors comport themselves as persons
novel or Gothic Romance" which "in their origin would do in their situation.'14 The true Gothic
. . are not easily distinguishable."10It is per- novels pick up and advance the sort of psychol-
haps more accurate to say that the historical ogizing which Richardson began in Clarissa
novel is an offshoot or development of the (1748). I say "advance" because, while they are
Gothic novel. The relationship is essentially neither so thorough nor so subtle as Richardson,
accidental. Gothic novels are set in the past they move into deeper and more emotionally
and are, as Tompkins says, at least "nominally complex situations. Robert Lovelace is a simpler
historic,"'1 but they show no serious interest in character than Lewis' Ambrosio. But although
veracity of fact or atmosphere. For Mrs. Rad- Ambrosio is a more repulsive person, his re-
cliffe, the sixteenth century is as Gothic as the sponses to his own urges and actions are far more
thirteenth. Walpole dabbled in the genuinely complicated and meaningful than Lovelace's ir-
medieval, but his good characters, like those of resistible impulse and consequent remorse.
the other Gothic novelists, are simply a projec- Gothic novels display the reactions of their
tion of late eighteenth-century ideals, while his characters to trying or appalling situations. But
villain is a later development of the villain-hero their heroes and heroines are not subjected to
of Jacobean drama.'2The historical element in the trials merely for the sake of exhibiting fine feel-
Gothic novel does little more than contribute to ing, as in the sentimental novels of the period-
the freedom conferred by distance in time and The Old English Baron (1777), for example, whose
space. A novel like The Recess (1785), which hero Edmund is truly a trial of the reader's pa-
makes use of historical personages, is in reality a tience. Mrs. Radcliffe enjoys something of the
sentimental-domestic novel transposed into a sentimental outlook, but she seldom indulges in
supposedly historical situation with Gothic Mackenziesque feeling for its own sake. It should
trimmings added for savor. If wearing a wool tie not be forgotten that at one of the key points in
makes me a sheep, then The Recess is a Gothic The Mysteries of Udolpho, M. St. Aubert, on his
novel. The novels of Jane Porter and Scott are deathbed, gives his daughter the following ad-
the first novels whose basis is a specific historical vice:
setting.l3 "Aboveall, my dearEmily," said he, "do not indulge
I am suggesting, in short, that some Gothic
9 For this set of distinctions see
novels are more than the sentimental fiction of Montague Summers, p. 29.
10
the day fitted with outlandish trappings, in Tompkins, p. 208.
1 Tompkins, p. 227.
which case "sentimental-Gothic" and "historical- 12See Clara F.
McIntyre, "The Later Career of the Eliza-
Gothic" are misnomers. bethan Villain-Hero," PMLA, XL (1925), 874-880.
13I refer to Thaddeusof Warsaw and
specifically (1803)
What are the distinctive characteristics of the The Scottish Chiefs (1810), and Scott's Waverley(1814).
Thaddeusis morea contemporaryromancethan a historical
"Gothic" novel? What features in common are one, but the methodemployedis muchthe same.
to be found in the obviously dissimilar works of 14Otranto,"Prefaceto the First
Edition,"p. 4.
284 Gothic versus Romantic: A Revaluation of the Gothic Novel

in the pride of fine feeling, the romantic error of But where realism is not the desired object-and
amiableminds.Those, who really possess sensibility, it is not in the Gothic novel-supernaturalism
oughtearlyto be taught,that it is a dangerousquality, seems a valid enough device for removing the nar-
whichis continuallyextractingthe excessof misery,or rative from the realm of the everyday. And this
delight, from every surroundingcircumstance.And, the Gothic novels clearly try to do. What Cole-
since, in our passage throughthis world,painful cir-
cumstancesoccurmorefrequentlythan pleasingones, ridge says about his part of the Lyrical Ballads is
and since our sense of evil is, I fear, moreacute than applicable:
our sense of good, we becomethe victims of our feel- The incidentsand agents were to be, in part at least,
ings, unlesswe can in some degreecommandthem."5l supernatural;and the excellence aimed at was to
consist in the interesting of the affections by the
Another distinctive feature of the early Gothic dramatictruth of such emotions,as would naturally
novel is its attempt to involvethe reader in a new accompany such situations, supposing them real.
way. In the sentimental literature of the age one is Andin thissensethey havebeento everyhumanbeing
invited to admire fine feelings; in Gothic writing who, from whatever source of delusion,has at any
the reader is held in suspense with the characters, time believed himself under supernaturalagency.
and increasingly there is an effort to shock, alarm, . .. my endeavorsshouldbe directedto personsand
and otherwise rouse him. Inducing a powerful characterssupernatural... so as to transfer from
emotional response in the reader (rather than a ourinwardnaturea humaninterestanda semblanceof
truth sufficientto procurefor these shadowsof imagi-
moral or intellectual one) was the prime object of nation that willing suspensionof disbelief for the
these novelists. In this endeavor they prepared
moment,whichconstitutespoeticfaith.7
the way for the romantic poets who followed
them. Among the significant Gothic novelists, only Ann
Gothic novels are often ridiculed for their use Radcliffe bothers to produce natural explanations
of the supernatural, though no one condemns for all seemingly supernatural effects, and many
Coleridge, say, for introducing it in "The Rime readers find her explanations more distracting
of the Ancient Mariner." The supernatural can than the apparent events which occasion them.
be used crudely (witness Walpole's gigantic hel- Too much attention has been paid to a conven-
met), but this is no reason to condemn it out- tion which we should accept as readily as we ac-
right. In his review of The Monk Coleridge gives cept the authorial presence in Tom Jones or the
an excellent defense of the use of the supernatural symbolic levels of Ulysses.
in fiction: The distinguishing mark of the early Gothic
The romance-writer novel is its atmosphere and the use to which that
possessesan unlimitedpowerover
situations;but he must scrupulouslymake his char- atmosphere is put. The involvement of the read-
acters act in congruity with them. Let him work er's imagination is central to the Gothic endeavor,
physical wonders only, and we will be content to even in an attempt as relatively crude as Wal-
dream with him for a while; but the first moral miracle pole's. In retrospect the Gothic atmosphere seems
which he attempts, he disgustsand awakensus. Thus mechanical, even in the greatest of these novels,
our judgmentremainsunoffended,when, announced but originally its purpose was to arouse and sensi-
by thundersand earthquakes,the spirit appears to tize the reader's imagination, giving it further
Ambrosioinvolvedin blue firesthat increasethe cold than it ordinarily enjoyed, and the use of the
of the cavern. ... But when a mortal, fresh from the play
supernatural was clearly meant to contribute to
impression of that terrible appearance . . is repre- this
sented as being at the same moment agitated by so imaginative stimulus.
Among the novels of the period 1764-1820 a
fleetingan appetite as that of lust, our own feelings
convinceus that thisis not improbable,but impossible; distinction seems necessary between the novel of
not preternatural,but contraryto nature.The extent "terror" and the novel of "horror." This distinc-
of the powersthat may exist, we can neverascertain; tion has its origin in the aesthetics of the mid-
and thereforewe feel no great difficultyin yielding a eighteenth century. As Mrs. Radcliffe puts it,
temporarybelief to any, the strangest, situation of "Terror and horror are so far opposite, that the
things.But that situationonce conceived,how beings first expands the soul, and awakens the faculties
like ourselveswouldfeel and act in it, our own feelings to a
high degree of life; the other contracts,
sufficientlyinstruct us; and we instantly reject the
clumsy fiction that does not harmonizewith them.16 11TheMysteriesof Udolpho,ed. BonamyDobree(London,
1966),pp. 79-80.
Direct use of the supernatural in fiction contra- 1 Critical Review, Vol. xix (Feb. 1797); reprinted in
venes our ingrown idea of the essential realism of Coleridge's MiscellaneousCriticism,ed. T. M. Raysor (Cam-
narrative fiction; symbolic use of the supernatu- bridge,Mass., 1936),p. 373.
17BiographiaLiteraria,ed. J. Shawcross,2 vols. (Oxford,
ral bothers us much less, particularly in poetry. 1965), II, 5-6.
 Robert D. Hume 285

freezes, and nearly annihilates them.... neither This change is probably related to a general
Shakespeare nor Milton by their fictions, nor Mr. shift in conceptions of good and evil. Regarded
Burke by his reasoning, anywhere looked to posi- in the Renaissance as philosophically and prac-
tive horror as a source of the sublime, though tically distinct, they drew ever closer in the next
they all agree that terror is a very high one."'8 In two centuries. This movement culminated in the
short, terror opens the mind to the apprehension "confusions" of good and evil common among
of the sublime, while (according to Mrs. Rad- some romantics and epitomized in Blake's The
cliffe) the repugnance involved in horror closes it. Marriage of Heaven and Hell and Byron's Cain.2
Terror dependent on suspense or dread is the No Augustan would have felt that Satan was the
modus operandiof the novels of Walpole and Rad- hero of Paradise Lost. Walpole and Mrs. Rad-
cliffe. The Castle of Otrantoholds the reader's at- cliffe maintain the proprieties of a strict distinc-
tention through dread of a series of terrible possi- tion between good and evil, though in Manfred
bilities-Theodore's execution, the (essentially) and Montoni they created villain-heroes whose
incestuous marriage of Manfred and Isabella, the force of character gives them a certain fearsome
casting-off of Hippolita, and so on. Mrs. Rad- attractiveness, even within this moral context.
cliffe's use of dramatic suspension is similar but But with the villain-heroes of horror-Gothic we
more sophisticated. She raises vague but unset- enter the realm of the morally ambiguous. Am-
tling possibilities and leaves them dangling for brosio, Victor Frankenstein, and Melmoth are
hundreds of pages. Sometimes the effect is arti- men of extraordinary capacity whom circum-
ficial, as in the case of the black-veiled "picture" stance turns increasingly to evil purposes.2 They
at Udolpho, but in raising and sustaining the dis- are not merely monsters, and only a bigoted
quieting possibility of an affair between St. reading makes them out as such.
Aubert and the Marchioness de Villeroi, for in- To put the change from terror-Gothic to hor-
stance, she succeeds splendidly. Mrs. Radcliffe's ror-Gothic in its simplest terms, the suspense of
easy manipulation of drawn-out suspense holds external circumstance is de-emphasized in favor
the reader's attention through long books with of increasing psychological concern with moral
slight plots. ambiguity. The horror-Gothic writers postulated
The method of Lewis, Beckford, Mary Shelley, the relevance of such psychology to every reader;
and Maturin is considerably different. Instead of they wrote for a reader who could say with
holding the reader's attention through suspense Goethe that he had never heard of a crime which
or dread they attack him frontally with events he could not imagine himself committing. The
that shock or disturb him. Rather than elaborat- terror novel prepared the way for a fiction which
ing possibilities which never materialize, they though more overtly horrible is at the same time
heap a succession of horrors upon the reader. more serious and more profound. It is with
Lewis set out, quite deliberately, to overgo Mrs. Frankenstein and Melmoththe Wanderer that the
Radcliffe. The Monk (1796), like Vathek (1786), Gothic novel comes fully into its own.
Frankenstein, and Melmoth the Wanderer, gains Because Frankenstein (1817) continues to be
much of its effect from murder, torture, and rape. read as a horror story, serious critical discussion
The difference from terror-Gothic is considerable; of it is rare. But it is both a skillfully constructed
Mrs. Radcliffe merely threatens these things, and book and one of real psychological insight. The
Walpole uses violent death only at the beginning presence of an explorer (Robert Walton) as narra-
and end of his book. The reader is prepared for tor is not merely a device for transmitting the
neither of these deaths, which serve only to catch story, but serves also as a parallel and reinforce-
the attention and to produce a climax, respective- ment for the book's main themes. The idea which
ly.19 pervades the book is that of Promethean over-
Obviously a considerable shift has occurred. Is reaching. Victor Frankenstein tries to become a
its purpose merely ever greater shock? Or has the
18 This
Gothic novelists' aesthetic theory changed? Ter- widely quotedpassageis froma posthumousarticle
ror-Gothic works on the supposition that a reader in the New Monthly Magazine, Vol. vnI (1826).
19Criticshave often called TheMonk a work of terror-
who is repelled will close his mind (if not the
Gothic,but such a descriptionboth fails to differentiateit
book) to the sublime feelings which may be fromMrs.Radcliffe'sworkandrunscounterto the aesthetics
roused by the mixture of pleasure and pain in- of the day.
20 This
duced by fear. Horror-Gothic assumes that if progressionis suggestedby LowryNelson,pp. 256-
events have psychological consistency, even 257.
n Mrs. Radcliffe'sSchedoniis close to this
within repulsive situations, the reader will find group;in The
Italian (1797)she seemsclearlyto showthe influenceof The
himself involved beyond recall. Monk.
286 Gothic versus Romantic: A Revaluation of the Gothic Novel

god, and the endeavor destroys him. "Life and Melmoth by the immensity of his suffering. This
death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I ambiguity in the reader's response Melmoth
should first break through, and pour a torrent of shares with such characters as Frankenstein and
light into our dark world. A new species would his monster, Macbeth, Captain Ahab, and Lever-
bless me as its creator and source. . . . No father kiihn. The reader sees clearly that Melmoth, like
could claim the gratitude of his child so com- Marlowe's Faustus, is damned not by what he
pletely as I should deserve theirs."22 Victor does, but by his own proud despair of forgiveness
Frankenstein is a figure similar to Thomas and salvation. In the love of Immalee Melmoth
Mann's Adrian Leverkiihn; he destroys his hu- is offered redemption; he is a Dutchman who can-
manity for the sake of a "break through" not not believe in the efficacy of his Senta.
properly belonging to man. What then in these Gothic novels is mere mum-
The being which Victor Frankenstein creates mery and what, if anything, is more than that?
(and meant to be beautiful)23mirrors in its out- The prime feature of the Gothic novel, I believe,
ward form his own inward deformity. The early is its attempt to involve the reader in special cir-
history of the monster, which craves love, is an cumstances. Terror-Gothic plays on the reader's
ironic reflection of Frankenstein's personality, for response to suspense, while horror-Gothic at-
he can neither love nor respond properly to hu- tempts to involve him with the villain-hero pro-
man feeling. The present-day confusion in comic- tagonist. Both types share an interest in the char-
book terminology between Frankenstein and his acters' psychology, and both kinds may be re-
monster is not surprising, for Frankenstein is a garded as statements or correlatives of the au-
monster, and in a real sense he is the monster. thor's state of mind.
Again and again Frankenstein calls himself the This last point requires amplification. The key
murderer of his family and friends; at first he is characteristic of the Gothic novel is not its de-
blaming himself for having let loose so dangerous vices, but its atmosphere. The atmosphere is one
a being, but as the novel advances we recognize of evil and brooding terror; the imaginary world
that he has a half-mad understanding that the in which the action takes place is the author's ob-
monster is enacting in objective form the impli- jectification of his imaginative sense of the atmo-
cations of his own inhumanity. This is what sphere. In other words, the setting exists toconvey
makes the story seem truly uncanny. Senseless the atmosphere. Neither suspense nor horror is
butchery by an inhuman monster would be dependent upon a particular setting or atmo-
frightening, but no more; here it is not senseless, sphere. The Hound of theBaskervillesand LastExit
but all too reasonable. to Brooklyn are not Gothic novels.24The Gothic
Victor Frankenstein is explicitly described as a novel uses its atmosphere for ends which are fun-
man with originally benevolent impulses and damentally psychological, though its actual use
great potentiality for good. His striving for a ranges from the relative crudity of Walpole to the
more than human greatness destroys the warmth subtlety of Mary Shelley and Maturin.
of his humanity, and gradually he becomes to- Wild landscapes, ruined abbeys, and the like,
tally involved with the monster which objectifies were merely a convenient convention, a standar-
all his own inadequacies. Their final, mad chase dized method of achieving the desired atmo-
to the north reflects literally their abandonment
sphere. The more significant components of the
of society and their total absorption with their Gothic novel are as follows. (1) A setting in space
mutual self. or time or both sufficiently removed from the
Melmoth the Wanderer is the last and clearly reader of 1800 that there would be no intrusion of
the greatest of the Gothic novels of this period.
everyday standards of factual probability and
Melmoth himself is the epitome of the romantic
morality. Thus most of the stories are set in
villain-hero, a hybrid of the Wandering Jew and Southern France, Spain, Italy, or Germany, and
Milton's Satan with a bit of the Flying Dutch-
usually in the sixteenth century or earlier. Time
man thrown in. The book's structure is themat- and place are irrelevant (real historicity is very
ically simple but narratively elaborate; it consists slight) as long as they are vague or remote. Beck-
of a series of tales inside each other, each told
from a different standpoint. The theme is sadism, 22Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (New York: Doubleday.
moral and physical, religious and social. Melmoth n.d.), p. 48.
23
wanders, destructive and self-damned, fruitlessly Frankenstein, pp. 50-51.
24Obviously both terror and horror can be established in
seeking a salvation which his self-willed character an "ordinary" setting. But this would not fulfill the Gothic
prevents. The reader is repelled by his sadism, novel's need to escape the interference of everyday standards
but cannot help feeling the tragic stature given and moral judgment.
 Robert D. Hume 287

ford's Vathekis sometimes discussed as an "orien- This analysis pushes the case for these novels
tal tale" in the tradition of Rasselas, but it is rather hard. I am offering it in an attempt to off-
basically a Gothic novel whose oriental setting set the common view that they have nothing but
provides the necessary "distance."25 (2) There amusement value. Emphasis on the serious quali-
is a moral norm present in the story. The villain- ty of these early Gothic novels makes their rela-
hero is thus measured against a standard which tionship to the later Gothic novels much clearer.
the reader recognizes as close to his own everyday WutheringHeights, Moby Dick, and Faulkner's
outlook. Walpole's Theodore and Isabella, Mrs. Sanctuary are all Gothic novels. Each one creates
Radcliffe's Emily St. Aubert and Adeline (the a very distinct world of its own-as novels of
latter in The Romance of the Forest), and Lewis' manners or social conditions do not. All three
Raymond de las Cisternas and Lorenzo de Me- novels possess a distinctive and pervasive atmo-
dina all serve this normative function. Mary sphere. Though all occur in contemporary time,
Shelley presents Frankenstein's friend Clerval as each is isolated in space; Faulkner's decaying
an ordinary, decent man. Maturin's use of multi- South, Melville's whaling ship, and Bronte's des-
ple narrators fulfills the same function. Although olate country residences are far removed from
the reader is to be immersed in an extraordinary the reader's sphere of experience. Similarly, each
world, he must not feel that its psychological (as novel presents a clear standard of the ordinary.
distinct from its factual) bounds are utterly for- Melville's Ishmael and Bronte's Mr. Lockwood
eign to him. If he does, then the story loses its im- serve as both narrators and moral norms. Faulk-
mediacy for him; any application to his own mind ner's scheme is more complex, but Horace Ben-
is ruled out. (3) The action derives from a com- bow and his sister Narcissa may be seen as the
plex villain-hero. Even in stories as relatively twin poles of ordinary morality. Ahab, Heath-
black and white as The Castle of Otrantoand The cliff, and Popeye are in their different ways the
Mysteries of Udolpho, Manfred and Montoni are villain-heroes around whom each book is built.
much more than stock villains, just as Ambrosio And each novel has an anti-Christian element:
is much more than a stock hypocrite in The Joseph in Wuthering Heights; Melville's fighting
Monk. Frankenstein and Melmoth are impres- Quakers; Faulkner's savage portrayal of a Bap-
sively grandiose characters whose undoubted tist minister and typical Christian charity.29
stature is compounded of dark aspirations and Moby Dick is perhaps the greatest of Gothic
great force of character. The world and atmo- novels, and an almost perfect example of the
sphere of the Gothic novel are like its "terrific" form. In the microcosmic world of the whaling
protagonists-fearsome and profoundly ambig- ship Ahab is the completely dominant villain-
uous. (4) The confusion of evil and good which hero. He is a figure of immense stature, a good
the Gothic novel reflects in its villain-heroes pro- man, a kindly man of real humanity (witness his
duces a non-Christian or anticlerical feeling.26 relations with Starbuck), but a man gripped by a
Coleridge seriously accused Lewis of blasphemy deadly monomania which will destroy him and
in The Monk,27and the book long remained ex- his companions with him. Symbolic-critical read-
purgated under the odium of blasphemy. Mrs. ings of the book always break down after a cer-
Radcliffe (particularly in The Italian) is some- tain point, for like other Gothic novels Moby
times anticlerical. To some extent the feeling is Dick ends in moral ambiguity; there is no mes-
simply anti-Catholic. Maturin (a clergyman) is sage, no moral, no final statement of right and
extremely critical of all churches, but particularly wrong. Moby Dick is for Ahab what the monster
the Catholic Church. Mary Shelley, her mother's is for Frankenstein. In the literal sense he is only
daughter, largely ignores religion. These writers a whale, and Ahab's vengeance is ridiculous. In a
simply cannot find in religion acceptable answers symbolic sense, who can say? The white whale
to the fundamentally psychological questions of may be the symbol of evil in the world-or not.
good and evil which they were posing. This fail- Ahab is a madman, and yet he remains a complex
ure is reflected in their satire on both religious in- and tragic figure. Like Melmoth he wilfully per-
stitutions and the simplicity of a religious mor-
26 Perhaps it should be noted that the horrors in Vathekare
ality. set on so grand a scale that the story verges on burlesque.
Seen in these terms the Gothic novel becomes The result is a lighter, almost ironic tone which is quite differ-
one kind of treatment of the psychological prob- ent from the serious blood and thunder of The Monk.
lem of evil. In its earliest form it is filled with 26See Nelson, p. 251.
27 Critical
"crude claptrap," but increasingly it takes on a Review, pp. 373-376.
28 Nelson's
terms, pp. 247-248.
"symbolic resonance"28as external suspense is 29
Sanctuary (New York: Modern Library, 1959), pp. 151,
subordinated to involvement in moral ambiguity. 216-217.
288 Gothic versus Romantic: A Revaluation of the Gothic Novel

sists in his own delusion. Yet he succeeds in The pervasive atmosphere of perversion and the
carrying his crew with him, and the reader fol- macabre is the backdrop to Faulkner's demand
lows, irresistibly drawn into a mad and exalted that we recognize and agonize over the evil which
quest. Ahab is a Promethean figure: if the sun in- is inextricably bound up with the good in every
sults him, he will strike at it, come what may. human being. If the book can be said to have a
Very skillfully, Melville involves the reader with message, it is simply that there are no answers;
Ahab; we follow the narration of Ishmael into the even Popeye must be absolved of personal re-
situation, and then the narration vanishes, leav- sponsibility.
ing us immersed in Ahab's world. In a similar This much should be clear by now: the Gothic
manner we are drawn by Lockwood's narration novel offers no conclusions. In its fully developed
into the self-contained world of Wuthering form it attempts to involve the reader in a
Heights. Both books leave us with great ambigui- special world in whose atmosphere of evil man is
ties; good and evil, love and hate are intertwined presented under trying circumstances. It em-
until they are inseparable. Motives which we phasizes psychological reaction to evil and leads
might praise or blame without a second thought into a tangle of moral ambiguity for which no
in our everyday worlds appear to us in the Gothic meaningful answers can be found.
context as beyond judgment. We are brought to
see the hurts of Ahab and Heathcliff, to appreci- With a clearer idea of the essentials of the
ate their complexities, and ultimately to decline Gothic novel we are ready to return to problems
judgment on the damage they do to themselves set aside earlier-the origin of the Gothic novel
and to others. As is the case with Melmoth, and its relation to romanticism. It is plain enough
tragic stature compensates for apparent inhu- that the early Gothic novel is part of the move-
manity. ment away from neoclassicism and toward ro-
Sanctuary (1931) is quite differently con- manticism. Walpole subtitled his novel "A Goth-
structed, and yet certainly remains a Gothic ic Story"; in the mid-eighteenth century "Goth-
novel. It is a book about the pervasiveness of ic" meant basically antique and barbarous with
moral evil. Like some of the early Gothic novels reference to architecture. In this context it car-
it has been popular on account of its sensational ried the connotation of the rude, wild, and
elements: rape with a corncob, brothel scenes, irregular-by eighteenth-century standards, the
and mob-burning of an innocent man-and this Shakespearean. Walpole's imaginative excesses
has hampered serious discussion of the book. are part of a widespread reaction against the
Faulkner dispenses with the convention of a dominance of Locke's mechanistic concept of the
heroic villain; Popeye is an impotent, vicious mind. Even Mrs. Radcliffe, whose sense of de-
monster. But Faulkner went to some pains, in a corum and propriety is notorious, was closer to
chapter (xxxi) he added when revising the book, Wordsworth than to Pope in her admiration of
to make it clear that even Popeye cannot be held the sublime. The early Gothic novels, to borrow
morally responsible for his actions. He is merely Walpole's terms again, were "romances,"30un-
the victim of a syphilitic father and an insane restrained exercises of that imagination against
grandmother. The novel's point is that all men whose excesses Dr. Johnson warned so sternly.
are victims of the evil in human nature: there Gothic and romantic writing are closely related
can be no good distinct from evil, and so there chronologically and share some themes and char-
can be no definitive distinction between them. acteristics, such as the hero who is a guilt-
Systematically, Faulkner demolishes the illu- haunted wanderer. Both have a strong psy-
sions of the idealistic Horace Benbow, whose be- chological concern with interior mental processes.
lief in justice and the distinction between good The realistic novel, the novel of manners, and
and evil collapses as he is forced to recognize his neoclassical poetry generally lead the reader to
own suppressed potentiality for violent sexual contemplate the exterior actions of the life
response. around him. In sharp contradistinction, Gothic
Sanctuary is an extreme and violent book, but and romantic writing usually lead the reader to
a powerful one. The world Faulkner creates is consider internal mental processes and reactions.
diseased and disgusting; its effectiveness depends The one sort of writing is basically social in its
on the reader's willingness to be drawn into a concern, the other essentially individual.31 It is
world of evil in which nothing admirable is effec-
tive. There is no tragic grandeur here, no com- 80Otranto,"Preface to the Second Edition," pp. 7-8.
31
Montague Summers makes a distinction between litera-
pensatory greatness. Faulkner's novel is a state- ture which is a reflection of life and literature which leads
ment of despair over the inescapability of evil. away from life, calling the latter the expression of the roman-
 Robert D. Hume 289

from this absorption with the individual that deepest conflicts and contradictions of this world;
Gothic and romantic writing gain their preoccu- this is precisely what the romantics try to do, and
pation with the mind. what the Gothic novel never does.
Yet though the same set of conditions gave The early Gothic novels can be considered the
rise to both Gothic and romantic writing, and precursors of romanticism in their concern with
though they share many characteristics, they sensibility, the sublime, and the involvement of
remain quite distinct. Their difference has al- the reader in a more than rational way. Gothic
ways been easier to recognize than to define; here also prepares the way for and shares the roman-
I wish to attempt the distinction with reference tic "confusion" of good and evil. But where
to some Coleridgean literary theory. Gothic remains darkened by the necessary am-
The key characteristics of Gothic and romantic biguities of its conclusions, romantic writing as-
writers are concern with ultimate questions and sumes the ultimate existence, if not the easy ac-
lack of faith in the adequacy of reason or religi- cessibility, of clear answers to the problems which
ous faith to make comprehensible the paradoxes of torment man in this world.
human existence. English romanticism in its first From this perspective a writer like Byron
form (early Wordsworth and Coleridge; Keats seems closer to the Gothic camp than to the ro-
and Shelley) can be viewed as an attempt to find mantics. Biographically, he is practically the
the emotional certainty of revealed religion di- archetype of the Gothic-romantic hero, but as a
rectly from nature rather than from God. From romantic poet he fits only uneasily the type de-
nature alone the romantics attempt to derive limited by Wordsworth, Keats, and Shelley. Per-
feelings which earlier in European history were haps it is his Augustan affinities which so severely
organized and sustained in a supernatural Chris- undermine his faith in the transcendent power of
tian framework.32The romantics turn to "im- imagination, but Byron's cosmic despair is not
agination," which, according to Coleridge, re- offset even by his glorying in the mysterious
casts the objects of the exterior world into a new grandeur of heroes modeled on himself. Manfred,
and more profoundly "true" reality, giving the Cain, and Childe Harold are all more Gothic
materials with which it chooses to work a unity than romantic in their moral confusions and ulti-
and meaning which they do not possess in their mate paradoxes. Byron shows few signs of faith
original form.33It is the imagination which serves in the romantic metaphysic; his escape from his
the romantics as their vehicle of escape from the existential predicament, if it comes at all, comes
limitations of the human condition. in the comic perspective of Don Juan.35
The Gothic writers, though possessed by the In the twentieth century most writers have
same discontent with the everyday world, have no accepted human limitations and uncertainty more
faith in the ability of man to transcend or trans- easily than those writers of earlier centuries who
form it imaginatively. Their explorations lie believed that man is intrinsically a great and
strictly within the realm of this world and they noble being. Yeats was perhaps the last great
are confined to the limits of reason. Thus the
writers of Gothic never offer intuitive solutions; tic spirit (Summers,pp. 17-18). This can scarcely be the
they cannot present the sensed order found by case; romanticliteraturede-emphasizesexternalaction, but
the romantics in their highest flights. The Gothic if it led away fromlife it wouldbe eitherworthlessor point-
less. Greatromantic-and Gothic-literature has morethan
literary endeavor is not that of the transcendent amusementvalue.
romantic imagination; rather, in Coleridge's 2 See D. G. James, Matthew Arnold and the Decline of
terms, Gothic writers are working with fancy, EnglishRomanticism
(Oxford,1961),p. 21, andCh. i, passim;
which is bound to the "fixities and definites" of and D. D. Perkins, The Questfor Permanence (Cambridge,
the rational world. Mass., 1965).
" Biographia Literaria, I, 202. See my forthcoming essay
In saying this I do not mean to denigrate the in JAAC, "Kant and Coleridgeon Imagination."
Gothic novel. Within the Biographia Lileraria 84In a muchlaterperiodof his life (afterhavingabandoned
fancy is sharply distinguished from imagination, the romanticpoetic endeavorand turned to the Anglican
but its present connotation of frivolous and Church) Coleridgehimself seems to take the view that
whimsical is by no means necessary.34Secondary imaginationis used in serious writing and fancy in less
profoundwork (TableTalk, 1833).This later view has often
imagination is that faculty of the mind which been used-erroneously, in my opinion-as a gloss on the
may surmount the limitations of this world to definitions in the Biographia Literaria (1817).
3 I have concentratedalmostentirelyon Gothicas a novel
seek clarity and truth in a world of permanence
form,but thereis certainly Gothic poetry as well-"Chris-
beyond it. Fancy, on the other hand, however tabel," for example."The Eve of St. Agnes," despitesome
seriously it is used, can find only paradox, never architecturaland atmosphericresemblances,does not, I
high truth. Fancy will never appear to resolve the believe, so qualify.
290 Gothic versus Romantic: A Revaluation of the Gothic Novel

romantic writer. Gothic writing too has been on the great Gothic novels-Frankenstein, Melmoth
the decline, for evil is explained away sociolog- the Wanderer,Moby Dick-to open our eyes, we
ically today. Yet occasionally, as with Sanctuary can see the considerable aesthetic potential latent
and perhaps Thomas Mann's Dr. Faustus (1947), in the form crudely forged by Walpole and de-
a novel is still written with the Gothic aims and veloped by Radcliffe and Lewis. The later,
characteristics. greater Gothic novels do not appear full-blown
Looking back, it may seem that we have come from nowhere. They inherited a form and tradi-
a long way from the Gothic novels of Horace tion which had undergone half a century of ex-
Walpole and Mrs. Radcliffe. So indeed we have. ploratory development.
But it is not always easy to see in a single work Gothic and romantic writing spring alike from
all of the implications which attach to it. The a recognition of the insufficiency of reason or re-
Castle of Otrantois a terror story, but it is also the ligious faith to explain and make comprehensible
beginning of a form. Walpole opened possibilities the complexities of life. We may distinguish be-
of which he was but dimly aware. Yet, in speak- tween Gothic and romantic in terms of what
ing of a new kind of "romance" in which the they do within this situation. The imagination,
"fancy"36 is freed from restraint to treat the Coleridge tells us, reveals its presence "in the
psychological reactions of men and women in balance or reconciliation of opposite or discor-
"extraordinary positions," Walpole says that dant qualities."38Romantic writing reconciles the
"if the new route he [Walpole] has struck out discordant elements it faces, resolving their ap-
shall have paved a road for men of brighter tal- parent contradictions imaginatively in the cre-
ents, he shall own with pleasure and modesty, ation of a higher order. Gothic writing, the prod-
that he was sensible the plan was capable of re- uct of serious fancy, has no such answers and
ceiving greater embellishments than his imagi- can only leave the "opposites" contradictory and
nation or conduct of the passions could bestow on paradoxical. In its highest forms romantic writ-
it."37He was quite correct. ing claims the existence of higher answers where
I have tried to treat the early Gothic novels Gothic can find only unresolvable moral and
less as terror stories than as experiments in a emotional ambiguity.
literary form which later came to full flower.
Knowing the overall development of the form is a UNIVERSITYOF PENNSYLVANIA
great aid to recognizing the promise of the early Philadelphia
novels. We look now at Shakespeare's first plays
and see signs of the coming greatness we know is 36Walpole uses the terms "fancy" and "imagination"
interchangeably.
there; looking at Marlowe's work we have no idea "Prefaceto the SecondEdition,"pp. 7-8.
37 Otranto,
whether he would have developed further. With a8 Biographia Literaria, nr, 12.