Y3XTERNAL AND REAL, BUT NôT SZTPERNA-": TEE TERROR OF THE SOUL IN BROCKDEN BROWN AND POE
David Martin Shaw
A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of English University of Toronto
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Abstract William Hazlitt noted in 1829 that the works of Charles Brockden Brown "were a banquet of horrors," arguing that the lack of European Gothic settings in the New World produced a different vein in the history of the tale of terror, as "the genius of America is essentially mechanical and modern. " Brown was obliged to suit his Gothic narratives to his New World environment by explaining apparently supernatural elements as being fundamentally natural in origin. In this, Brown was heir to the Gothic tradition of William Godwin and Ann Radcliffe in advocating psychological and rational explanations, rather than to that of M. G. Lewis which espoused patently supernatural excesses. Edgar Allan Poe wrote fiction which was much more internalized than Godwin's or even Brown's, exploring terrors that were "not of Germany, but of the soul," placing the emphasis on psychological observation rather than grounding his tales in Brown's realistic locales. This dissertation will explore how Brown and Poe deviated from the European schools, with their rejection of Gothic trappings in favour of presenting the capacity for violence inherent in the human mind. The Gothic tradition is analyzed in Chapter 1, which details how Brown and Poe present an American translation of European terrors without resorting to the actual supernatural. Brown's novels are treated in Chapter 2, which examines his explanations of the apparently supernatural through such devices as ventriloquism and spontaneous combustion, along with religious mania. Poe's short stories are analyzed in Chapter 3, which depicts how he further internalizes Brown's exploration of unbalanced mental states with depictions of insanity, revenge, and mournful obsession. Brown's and Poe's works are compared in Chapter 4, which examines how both authors explore the phobias of premature burial and the loss of physical control, through somnambulism or mesmerism, as well as the terrors implicit in outbreaks of plague. Both Brown's subjective but rational realism and Poe's more romantic subjectivism emanate front the Gothic tradition.
iii Table of Contents
Paqe
Introduction...... m...... a...... m....m1 Endnotes ...... m...... 15 Chapter 1: The Gothic Tradition ...... 18 end no tes...... ,...... ^ 69
Chapter 2: Charles Brockden Brown ...... m. 83 end note^...... ^..^..^^...... ^..^..^..^.^^. 151 Chapter 3: Edgar Allan Poe ...... 168 Endnotes ...... m...... m.....~...... ~..229 Chapter 4: Brown and Poe - The Relationship ...... 238 end note^...... 277 Conclusion...... 284 Endnotes ...... m...... ~.....m...... ~.295 Works Cited and Consulted ...... 300 Introduction
Charles Brockden Brown and Edgar Allan Poe reinvigorated the Gothic tradition in the New World by divorcing it £rom European trappings and machinery. Foremost arnong these Old World elements was a predilection for the supernatural. While the Gothic novel was conceived by Horace Walpole in the vein of the marvellous, the zenith of the genre mirrored the split between the uncanny and the supernatural, as witnessed by the works of Ann Radcliffe and Mo Go Lewis. Critical reaction to such writers, as well as to German works which achieved popularity in translation, tended to favour the more refined terrors of Radcliffe over the blood-and-thunder excesses of Lewis. Brown's works, written in the infancy of American literature, did not usher in an era of creativity, either in the Gothic tradition or in other types of fiction. Two decades after Brown's Gothic works appeared, the state of American literature prompted the jaundiced question of English critic Sydney Smith, "In the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American book?"' Shortly thereafter, when the works of writers of the American Renaissance dismissed the need for such a question, Poe continued the tradition of the uncanny, which had been abandoned by Brown. Given the paucity of
Gothic materials in the New World, authorities such as William Hazlitt and James Fenimore Cooper bemoaned the lack of Gothic paraphernalia in America. However, a different view is prof fered by Henan Melville, who suggested that native writers should make the most of this potential disadvantage. For a discussion of how Brown and Poe reversed this potential disadvantage and created terror by avoiding the supernatural, not only is an examination of the Gothic tradition required, but a deiinition of tenns is necessary for such wosds as "supernatural," "uncanny," "fantastic," Gothic," and "allegory ." The earliest def inition of "supernatural" in The Oxford Enqlish Dictionan may be traced to 1526: "That is above nature; belonging to a higher realm or system than that of nature; transcending the powers or the ordinary course of nature. " A second meaning, which may be traced to 1533, is "More than the natural or ordinary; unnaturally or extraordinarily great; abnormal, extraordinary." Although the word was used to describe "Supernatural things" as early as 1587, it was not until 1729 that the word was used to refer to "A supernatural being." In addition, a use of the word from 1830 was the earliest example of "supernatural" being defined as "That which is supernatural" The original meaning of
"uncanny, " traced to 1596, is "Mischievous, malicious. " By 1638, it had assumed the meaning of "Careless, incautious." The meaning, "Unreliable, not to be tnisted, " can be traced to the following year. It was not until 1773 that the word acquired the meaning, "Nat quite safe to trust to, or have dealings with, as being associated with supernatural arts or powers," in referring to persons. However , the c losely 3 related meaning, "Partaking of a supernatural character; mysterious, weird, uncomfortably strange or unfamiliar," only dates from 1843.
Whereas the original def inition of the word, " f antastic, " as "Existing only in imagination; proceeding merely from imagination; fabulous, imaginary, unreal," can be traced to
1387, the meaning "Pertaining to, or of the nature of, a phantasm" was initiated by 1483. Its meaning, "Of or pertaining to phantasy, in its various psychological senses...as denoting either the faculty (and act) of apprehending sensible objects, or that of imagination; imaginative, " may also be traced to 1483. The word, "Gothic, " was defined originally, in 1611, as "Of, pertaining to, or concerned with the Goths or their language." Its definition,
"Belonging to, or characteristic of, the Middle Ages; mediaeval, 'romantic, ' as opposed to classical, " dates f rom 1695, while its denotation of the architectural style of the late Middle Ages dates from 1641. The definition, "Barbarous, rude, uncouth, unpolished, in bad taste. Of tempes: Savage," may be traced to 1695. Finally, the original definition of the word, "alleg~ry,~traced to 1382, is "Description of a subject under the guise of some other subject of aptly suggestive resemblance." By 1534, it had assumed the following meaning: "An instance of such description; a figurative sentence, discourse, or narrative, in which properties and circumstances attributed to the apparent subject really refer to the subject they are meant to suggest; an extended or continued metaphor."
With these definitions, it is possible to analyze the connection between the uncanny and the fantastic. Sigmund Freud undertakes a philological study of the German word, "unheimlich," literally "unhomely," but translated as "uncanny." He places it under "the subject of aesthetics" of
"the theory of the qualities of feeling": The subject of the 'uncanny' is ...undoubtedly related to what is frightening - to what arouses dread and horror; equally certainly, too, the word is not always used in a clearly definable sense, so that it tends to coincide with what excites fear in general. Yet we may expect that a special core of feeling is present which justifies the use of a special conceptual term. One is curious to know what this common core is which allows us to distinguish as 'uncanny' certain things which lie within the field of what is frightening.
While Freud defines "the uncanny" as "that class of the frightening which leads back to what is known of old and long f amiliar, "' Tzvetan Todorov def ines the uncanny as "the supernatural explained," as opposed to the rnarvellous, which is "the supernatural accepted," with the fantastic as a median point between the uncanny and the marvellous. However , Todorov's use of the term "uncanny" does not derive from
Freud's definition, since it is actually an inaccurate translation from the French text in which Todorov devised his structural approach to genres. In his original text, Todorov refers to "l'étrangev and "le merveilleux."' Therefore, less confusion would have resulted if his translater had used "the strange," rather than "the uncanny," to denote his concept of 5 "the supernatural explained." The situation is further complicated by Todorov's use of the term "supernatural" to describe a genre, rather than to limit the term to its definitions given above, as a mode of representation. With such philological limitations in mind, Todorov, it is apparent, views the fantastic as a genre which requires the reader to hesitate between a natural and supernatural explanation of events, a hesitation which also may be experienced by a character with whom the reader identifies, and to treat the text with a literalness that allegory or poetry does not require. Such a hesitation is only permitted during the act of reading, as the reader assigns the text upon completion to the genre of the uncanny or the marvellous according to his taste, unless the narrative sustains its ambiguity to the conclusion and beyond, as in Henry James' "The Turn of the ScreweW Todorov specifies the terms of his analysis by includingthe subgenres of "the fantastic-uncanny" and "the fantastic-marvelous,w which "indude works that sustain the hesitation characteristic of the true fantastic for a long period, but that ultimately end in the marvelous or in the uncanny."' Allan Gardner Lloyd-Smith later clarified Todorov's point by noting that "the uncanny is itself simply a reading-effect in which the perhaps inevitable disjunction between words and things produces a space of ambiguity in meaning and affect." As well, he criticizes Todorov's assertion that "the supernaturalw is an effect born of 6
language alone, since it is "a category of events that depend for their explanation on the hypothesising of another realm of causation than the natural world, and is therefore an effect based upon uncertainties of cultural ascriptionmm5 Thus, in Todorovfs tenns, "the fantastic-uncanny" or "supernatural explained" include works of an unaccustomed character that depict events which lead the characters as well
as the reader to believe in supernatural intervention. Terry Heller notes that the fantastic-uncanny differs from the
fantastic-marvellous only at the conclusion of the work, when the laws of nature are either affirmed or denied. But such a distinction is of small consequence to the aesthetic eff ect of
the story, as the world returns to its normal laws after the defeat of a supernatural monster, if the supernatural is defeated, just as when the supernatural is revealed to have natural originsm6 Noël Carroll rejects Todorovfs structures in favour of his own definition of horror, since the subgenre of the fantastic-marvellous includes the beatific as well as the horrific in its acceptance of the supernatural. Carroll distinguishes between "art-horror" and "natural horror"; the latter includes such evente as ecological catastrophes or the atrocities of war, whereas the former category designates
certain works of art which crystallized with the rise of the Gothic novel. Carroll's distinction leads to a division between supernatural horror, a genre characterized by the
inclusion of monsters, and uncanny terror, whose eerie and unnerving effects are achieved through natural psychological phenornena.' Furthemore, horror induces a general feeling of
revulsion in the reader, which lacks the element of fear that
terror offers,' "the authentic fris~on,"~which may be traced to Aristotle's concept of fear inculcated %y the misfortune
of a man like ourselves. "'O This more refined quality of fear lends a sublime quality to terror, a characteristic noted by Burke and Kant. In his
the Sublime, " the Critique of Judgment (1790), Imanuel Kant argues that any aesthetic satisfaction is inimical to disgust:
There is only one kind of ugliness which cannot be represented in accordance with nature without destroying al1 aesthetic satisfaction, and consequently artificial beauty, viz. that which excites disgust. For in this singular sensation, which rests on mere imagination, the object is represented as if it were obtruding itself for our enjoyment, while we strive against it with al1 our might. And the artistic representation of the object is no longer distinguished from the nature of the object itself in our sensation, and thus it is impossible that it can be regarded as beautiful." in his treatise, A Philosophical Inquirv into the
Oriqin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful Edmund Burke of fers a slightly di£ferent view. While not addressing the concept of disgust in discussing the sublime, Burke notes: Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain, and danger ...whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a mannes analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime; that is, it is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling. The sublime operates an a principle of terror: No passion so effectually robs the mind of al1 its powers of acting and reasoning as fear. For fear being an apprehension of pain or death, it operates in a manner that resembles actual pain. Whatever therefore is terrible, with regard to sight, is sublime too, whether this cause of terror, be endued with greatness of dimensions or not; for it is impossible to look on any thing as trifling, or contemptible, that may be dangerous . .. .Indeed terror is in al1 cases whatsoever, either more openly or latently the ruling principle of the sublime. For Burke, objects of terror can produce sublime delight, as long as the viewer is not in danger, since the pain which would be produced is relieved by the distancinq effect. Such a vicarious position corresponds to that of the reader of terror fiction. Cornmentators such as C. B. Macpherson, who were primarily concerned with Burke's political views, found his work to have little theoretical interest, because it lacked a moral dimension/ However, literary critics, such as ~avidB. Morris, have recognized Burke's influential work. But Morris distinguishes between what he views as the Burkean sublime and the Gothic sublime. The former regards the causes of terror as abstract, external, and universal, such as Nature or death, whereas the Gothic sublime incorporates individual desire to evoke terror: In exploring the entanglements of love and terror, the Gothic novel pursues a vision of the sublime utterly without transcendence. ft is a vertiginous and plunging - not a soaring - sublime, which takes us deep within rather than far beyond the human sphere.. ..Gothie sublimity - by releasing into fiction images and desires long suppressed, deeply hidden, forced into silence - greatly intensifies the dangers of an uncontrollable release from restraint. Morris goes so far as to argue that the Gothic sublime produces an uncanny effect at the level of language, employing
"representation as a means of expressing and of evoking what cannot be represented. ..of what lies outside lang~age."'~
Ann Radcliffe distinguishes terror from horror: Terror and horror are so far opposite, that the first expands the soul, and awakens the faculties to a high degree of life; the other contracts, freezes, and nearly annihilates them. 1 apprehend, that neither Shakspeare nor Milton by their fictions, nor Mr. Burke by his reasoning, anywhere looked to positive horror as a source of the sublime, though they al1 agree that terror is a very high one; and where lies the great difference between horror and terror, but in the uncertainty and obscurity, that accompany the first, respecting the dreaded evil?' Within such a theoretical framework, the fiction of Brown and Poe falls under the category of terror rather than horror, as their works appear either under the rubrics of the uncanny or the fantastic-uncanny. In contrast to the abundance of Gothic machinery throughout Europe, William Hazlitt bemoaned the paucity of similar materials in America. In an article for The Edinbursh Review in October, 1829, Hazlitt argues that Brockden Brown's "works are a banquet of horrors." Praising Brown as "the author of several novels which made some noise in this country," Hazlitt sees the inspiration of Godwin, but finds this "hint ...exaggerated, and carried to disgust and outrage," arguing that Brown's works "are full (to disease) of imagination, - but it is forced, violent, and shocking. " Yet, such fiction is "to be expected...in a country like America, where there is, generally speaking, no natural imagination. 10 The mind must be excited by overstraining, by pulleys and levers." Hazlitt reflects that Brown's "genius was not seconded by early habit, or by surrounding sympathy. " In such a context, Brown's fiction is "not wrought out, therefore, in the ordinary course of nature," but, like the Frankenstein monster, are "made by art and determined will.ll Hazlitt affirms that "no ghost ...was ever seen in North America," as the New World lacks the tradition of European ignorant superstition "which favours their appearance."
America is "so exempt from the knowledge of fraud or force, so free from the assaults of the flesh and the devil," that such devices as those in The Beagar's Opera, "poverty and crime, pickpockets and highwaymen, the lock-up-house and the gallows, 'l are "incredible" to their sensibilities. In such an
"orderly and undramatic state of security and f reedom f rom natural f oes," although Brown provides "one of his heroes with a demon to torment him, and fixed him at his back, " Hazlitt asks, "But what is to keep him there?" Since the American reader shares no lurking superstition, Brown "is obliged ta make up by incessant rodomontade, and face-making." Hazlitt notes that "the want of genuine imagination is always proved by caricature: monsters are the growth, not of passion, but of the attempt forcibly to stimulate it." In respect to this faculty of imagination, Hazlitt views England as the fortunate possessor of "an old and solid ground in previous manness and opinion" which favours the growth of imagination. English 11
"legendary lore" contains "not a castle without the stain of blood upon its floor or winding steps: not a glen without its ambush or its feat of arms: not a lake without its Lady!" In contrast, Hazlitt sees America as being "not historical."
Thus, fiction does not take root in such soil, since such fiction, "to be good for any thing, must not be in the author's mind, but belong to the age or country in which he lives." In what may be regarded as an ambiguous compliment,
Hazlitt decrees that "the genius of America is essentially mechanical and modern. "16
By using the terms "mechanical and modern," Hazlitt praises American industriousness while disparaging its lack of comparable cultural history. Compared to Europe, America presented a New World in which the superstitions of the Old found no natural shelter. With the lack of ancient institutions, the trappings of Gothic literature could not be taken seriously. New devices were required as substitutes; if external settings could not be utilized to conjure terror, then the American writer was left with two options: the internalization of Gothic trappings or the use of pseudo- scientific devices. By internalizing the landscapes and settings of the Gothic novel, Brown and Poe presented characters who were far more psychologically complex than their counterparts in European Gothic fiction. In their depictions of unbalanced mental states, Brown and Poe af forded their works a greater degree of realism in their studies of 12 mania and obsession. Furthermore, their use of pseudo- scientific devices, that is , devices closely resembling science, added another layer of realism to their fiction. Brown's use of ventriloquism and spontaneous combustion, with Poe's utilkation of mesmerism, present fictive New World attempts to counter European Gothic trappings with novel elements. Such devices had the benefits of being unusual and even startling, yet they appeared to be justified by the light of contemporary science. These psychological and pseudo- scientific responses by Brown and Poe were representative of the "mechanical and modern" American genius Hazlitt praised. If followed to its logical end, Hazlitt's argument would lead to a theory that al1 American literature avoided the supernatural, with greater internalization of characters as the decades progressed. ~hisis clearly not the case and it would be a dogmatic fallacy to draw such a conclusion, given the supernatural tradition in American fiction which became so prominent in the twentieth century. Similarly, the trajectory of European literature neither entirely embraces nor avoids the supernatural. Nevertheless, Hazlitt's contention that American writers had "no natural imagination" stresses Brown's subjective but rational realism. Brown's fiction is presented in a realistic manner which, although it may be subjective because of unreliable narrators, is nevertheless rooted in reason. Given Hazlitt's view, Brown was obliged to suit his Gothic narratives to the American environment by explaining 13 apparently supernatural elements as fundamentally natural in origin. Brown became the American heir to the Gothic tradition, not of Mo G. Lewis, which espoused patently supernatural excesses, but of Ann Radcliffe and, more importantly, William Godwin, in advocating rational and psychological explanations. Poe's fiction was even more rornantically subjective, not only because of narrators who were more unreliable than Brown's, but also because of his deeper psychological studies of his character's minds, characters who were often as romantic in their obsessions as they were troubled in their phobias. In exploring such terrors, Poe placed the emphasis on psychological observation instead of Brown's method of grounding his tales in realistic locales. G. R. Thompson argues that the "characteristic attitude toward the supernatural" in American literature is a tendency to be "ambiguous." Thompson notes that Poe gives the reader what amounts to a "supernaturalw thrill within what constitutes the weird subjective t'reality' of the wpsychological state of the narrator's mind." The vision which arises from "the complex of literary technique and philosophy" in such fiction is "one of despair over the ability of the mind ever to know anything, either about the ultimate reality of the world or about the mind itself."17 The history of the Gothic background, from which Brown and Poe drew their inspiration, requires analysis in order to delineate the popularity of terror in literature. This 14 division between the uncanny and the marvellous in Gothic literature will be analyzed in the first chapter. Brown's novels are treated in the second chapter, which examines his explanations of the supernatural through such pseudo- scientific devices as ventriloquism and spontaneous combustion, along with religious mania. Poe's short stories are examined in the third chapter, which studies how Poe further internalizes Brown's exploration of unbalanced mental states with depictions of insanity, revenge, and mournful obsession. Brown0s and Poe ' s works are compared in the f ourth chapter, which examines how both authors explore such phobias as those of premature burial and the loss of physical control, through such devices as somnambulism or mesmerism, as well as the terrors implicit in outbreaks of plague. This dissertation will explore how both Brown and Poe emerge £rom the Gothic tradition and deviate from the European school, with their rejection of Gothic trappings in favour of presenting the capacity for violence inherent in the human mind . Endnotes
[sydney Smith], "Art. III. Statistical Annals of the United States of America. By ADAM SEYBERT. 4to. Philadelphia, 1818," The Edinburqh Review 33.65 (January
1820) : 79.
'sigmund Freud, "The Tncanny, "' An Infantile Neurosis and Other Works, trans . James Strachey , Anna Freud, Alix Strachey , and Alan Tyson (1919; London: Hogarth P and the ~nstituteof Psycho-Analysis, 1955) 219, 220, vol. 17 of The Standard
Edition of the Complete Psvcholosical Works of Siqmund Freud (24 vols ., 1953-74) .
3~zvetan Todorov, Introduction a la Littérature Fantastique (Paris: Éditions de Seuil, 1970) 46.
4~odorov, The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a
Literarv Genre, trans. Richard Howard (Ithaca: Corne11 UP, 1973) 41-42, 33, 43, 44.
5~llanGardner Lloyd-Smith, Uncann~ American Fiction : Medusa's Face (London: Macmillan P, 1989) 29.
'~erry Heller, The Deliqhts of Terror: An Aesthetics of the Tale of Terror (Urbana and Chicago: U of ~llinoisP, 1987) 13.
'~oël Carroll, The Philoso~hvof Horror or Paradoxes of the Heart (New York and London: Routledge, 1990) 16-17, 13, *~oris Karlof f , ed., "Introduction," Tales of Terror (Cleveland and New York: World Publishing Company, 1943) 10- 11.
'~hristo~her Lee, "Introduction," Realrns of Darkness : Niqhtmarish Tales of the Supernatural and Macabre, ed. Mary Danby (London: Octopus Books, 1985) 11.
'O~ristotle, Aristotle's Poetics, trans. S. A. Butcher (New
York: Hill and Wang, 1961) (13.2): 76.
11 ILImmanuel Kant, Critique of Judment, 1790; trans. J. H. Bernard (New York: Bafner Publishing Co., 1951) 155.
12~dmundBurke, A Philoso~hicalEnauirv into the Oriain of
our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, rev. ed. 1759; ed.
J[ames]. T. Boulton (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1958) 39, 57-58.
13c. B. Macpherson, Burke (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1980) 19.
140avid B. Morris, "Gothie Sublimity, " New Literary Aistom 16 (1985): 306, 311, 313.
15~nnRadcliffe, "On the Supernatural in Poetry. By the Late Mrs . Radcliffe, " The New Monthly Masazine and Literarv Journal 16.62 (February 1826): 149-50.
16[~illiam Hazlitt], "Art. VIL - Sermons and Tracts; including Remarks on the Character and Writings of Milton, and of Fenelon [sic];and an Analysis of the Character of Napoleon Bonaparte. By W. E. Channing ...," The Edinbursh Review 50.99 (October 1829): 126-28.
"G. Re Thompson, " 'Proper Evidences of Madness ' : American
Gothic and the Interpretation of '~igeia',"ESQ: A Journal of the American Renaissance 18.66 (1972): 30-31, 46-47. Cha~ter1: The Gothic Tradition
The English Gothic novel has usually been characterized as terror fiction. It employs such machinery as archaic settings, usually amid Medieval castles or ruins, and stereotyped characters, such as the innocent heroine attempting to evade the schemes of a charismatic villain. In addition, it attempts to create suspense through intricate narrative techniques and melodramatic plots, along with a prominent use of the supernatural. As a genre, it covers almost six decades, from 1764 to 1820, beginning with Horace Walpole and ending with Charles Maturin. But this convenient, retrospective division of literary history is also coterminous with the works of the authors of sensibility and romanticism. Horace Walpole initiated the Gothic genre with his only novel, The Castle of Otranto: A Gothic Story. The subtitle lent its name to the genre which his successors would explore, one which critics have attempted to analyze in thematic, psychological, and cultural tenns as a historically limited entity, using such categories as historical, sentimental, and terrifie. David Punter characterizes the Gothic novel by paranoia, the notion of the barbarie, and the preoccupation with taboo.' Such a characterization emphasizes the qualities of the genre, as its primary works are too disparate for convenient comparison.
As Chris Baldick notes, unlike "Romantic," the term "Gothic," particularly as it f lourished during the Enlightenment, never escaped £rom its pejorative sense of being equated with the barbaric past, an equation shared by alp pole,' whose love of the medieval inspired the remodelling of his villa, Strawberry Hill. In the Preface to his first edition, Walpole offered an apology for the use of supernatural machinery by crediting his work, which had been inspired by a dream, to an Italian manuscript of 1529 written by a certain "Onuphrio Muralto": Miracles, visions, necromancy, dreams, and other preternatural events, are exploded now even £rom romances. That was not the case when our author wrote.. .If this air of the miraculous is excused, the reader will find nothing else unworthy of his perusal.' The plot involves the supernatural and includes an ancient castle, with ruined wings and catacombs, a tyrannical villain, a valiant, young hero, and two somewhat insipid heroines, with whose terrors the reader is supposed to identify. Ra P. Lovecraft identifies "the infinite array of stage properties" which would dominate the genre: "strange lights, damp trap- doors, extinguished lamps, mouldy hidden manuscripts, creaking hinges, shaking arras, and the like." Such "paraphernalia reappears with amusing sameness, yet sometimes withtremendous effectw4 throughout the history of the genre. Walpole's novel had two noteworthy predecessors. Tobias Smollett's novel, The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom (1753), was probably the first novel to propose terror and cruelty as its main themes. In his preface, Smollett argues, "The impulses of fear which is the most violent and interesting of al1 the passions, remain longer than any other upon the memory ."S In contrast, Thomas Leland's novel, Lonssword, Eari of Salisburv: An Historical Romance (1762), was set during the thirteenth centurp6 This first example of the " historical-Gothic" combines antiquity with detail, but avoids the supernatural. Fifteen years later, Clara Reeve's novel, The Cham~ionof Virtue, retitled The Old Endish Baron the following year, attempted to synthesise Leland's Medievalism and Walpole's s~pernaturalism.~ The latter appears in Reeve's use of a ghost in a dream and a haunted apartment in a castle. In her preface to the second edition, Reeve acknowledges her debt to Walpole, but while she did not object to his use of the supernatural in itself, she objected to his degree of excess in handling such effects:
. .. it palls upon the mind (though it does not upon the ear); and the reason is obvious, the machinery is so violent, that it destroys the effect it is intended to excite. Rad the story been kept within the utmost verge of probability , the ef f ect had been preserved, without losing the least circumstance that excites or detains the attention. Reeve allows that "we can conceive, and allow of, the appearance of a ghost; we can even dispense with an enchanted sword and helmet," but she argues that "they must keep within certain limits of credibility. Reeve felt that the supernatural was permissible as long as it remained credible. Her view echoes Aristotle's preference for "probable impossibilities to improbable 2 i pos~ibilities,"~as it is easier for the supernatural to gain credence if it is treated in a manner which avoids
exaggeration. Such a concern did not deter William Beckford from presenting an exotic "Oriental Gothic" with the
publication in 1786 of his novel, Vathek, which he had written
in French four years earlier. A fantasy of a ruthless caliph who ends his career in hell, this Eastern version of the European Gothic setting, replete with demons and genii, presents a tale of terror more marvellous than Walpole's. But
not until the last decade of the eighteenth century did the Gothic craze reach its zenith. William Godwin's novel, Thinqs
As They Are: or, The Adventures of Caleb Williams (1794), represents the non-supernatural, paranoid strain of the Gothic. In his depiction of relentless persecution, Godwin, the theorist of anarchy, portrays the cruelties inherent in his contemporary hierarchical society. Godwin conveys a
psychological characterization not usually associated with the
Gothic novel through his story of how a servant's curiosity ruins his life, in what '5s generally regarded as the first
novel of crime and detection. "1°
In contrast to Godwin's psychological realism, Ann Radcliffe and Matthew Gregory Lewis achieved perhaps the greatest fame among Gothic writers with their uncanny and marvellous fiction. Evoking the superstitious cruelty and barbarism of Medieval Europe with novels which were among the most popular of the entire genre, these authors popularized 22 what Edith Birkhead called "the novel of suspense" and "the novel of terror";" in fact, Birkhead argues that Radcliffe's
arriva1 on the scene probably saved the genre from an early demise. Radcliffe, who was born in 1764 and died in 1823, shared a coterminous lifespan with the English Gothic novel. The author of five novels published between 1789 and 1797, as well as a posthumous novel, Radcliffe attained the greatest
success in the genre. Ber lengthy novel, The M~steries of Udol~ho(1794), detailing the adventures of the innocent Emily
St. Aubert caught in the schemes of the villainous Count
Montoni, and The ~talian, or the Confessional of the Black
Penitents (1797), concerning the machinations of the villainous monk, Schedoni, brought her the incredible sums of 500 and 600 pounds sterling.'* In contrast to Radcliffe, Lewis' reputation rests on one novel, The Monk, which was published in 1796, two years after he wrote it at the age of
nineteen; even after his death, he remained known as "Monk" Lewis. The tale of Ambrosio, a monk seduced by a demon to rape and murder, and whose pact with the devil leads him to a gruesome fate, Lewis' novel offered an alternative framework for the Gothic, in which the evocation of terror was the paramount goal, to be achieved by any means necessary. There are several similarities between Radcliffe and Lewis: Lewis admired Udol~ho,while The Italian appears to be Radcliffe's response to The Monk; both draw on anticlerical literature in their themes; and both use the subtitle, A Romance, in their 23 novels. But the differences between the two authors are far more significant. They may be viewed as the founders of two schools: one derives its effect from curiosity and the other depends entirely on the stronger, more primitive instinct of
fear;13 one espouses the uncanny while the other champions the marvellous. Whereas Radcliffe places emphasis on emotions, Lewis sympathizes with the passions, a characteristic of the German fiction in which Lewis was grounded. Translating German tales of terror into English, Lewis joined the vanguard of those promoting German literature during this period, as Germany and England became allies against France in 1793. Radcliffe may have obtained the idea of explaining the supernatural from
Friedrich von Schiller 's Der Geisterseher ( 1789 ) . Translated in 1795 as The Ghost-Seer, or Apparitionist, it tells the story of the Armenian, a character modelled on Cagliostro, who is revealed to be a juggler, rather than a sorcerer. The influence of German Gothic fiction in England in the 1790s is reflected by the reading of Isabella Thorpe in Jane Austen's Northanaer Abbey (1818). She recommends several "horrid" novels to Catherine Morland when the latter asks what books she should read after Udolr>ho. Two of them are translations from the German: Peter Teuthold's Necromancer: or the Tale of the Black Forest and Karl Grosse's Horrid Mysteries. Three of the other novels are given German settings; thus, Francis Lathom's The Midniqht Bell and Mrs. Eliza Parsons' Castle of 24
Wolfenbach are both subtitled A German Storv, while Parsons' The Mvsterious Warninq is subtitled A German Tale. Grosse's novel, to take the most "horrid" example, relates the machinations of a secret society based on the Illuminati, an organization which appears to have supernatural powers until its chicanery is revealed. However, Gennan fiction differed from its English counterpart primarily in its social content. Schiller typified the German writer who was committed to political change, as he stressed the viewpoint of the individual against the taboos of social convention. In this respect, the implicit anticlericalism of German fiction was more critical social comment than the shock value of Radcliffe or ~ewis.'4 The tradition of the fantastic flourished under such early nineteenth-century Gelman Romantic writers as Johann Ludwig Tieck, the Baron de la Motte Fouqué, Adelbert von Chamisso, E. T. A. Hoffmann, and Heinrich von Kleist. A German influence lies behind perhaps the most famous of al1 Gothic novels. The book Lord Byron read to the Shelleys in the summer of 1816 which inspired the writing of Frankenstein was a collection of terror stories, Fantasmacroriana (1812), which was a French translation from the ~erman." Percy Shelley had written two Gothic novels in his youth: Zastrozzi (1810) and St. Irvvne: or. the Rosicrucian (18113, which shared the subtitle A Romance. However, Lovecraft termed both novels wschoolboy ef fusionswf6 imitating Charlotte Dacre's Zoflova: or. the 25
Moor. A Romance of the Fifteenth Centurv (1806), with many reminiscences of Radcliffe and Lewis. But his wife's novel would contribute the most mernorable character to the Gothic genre. Mary Shelley's ~rankenstein:or The Modern Prometheus, written in 1816 and published in 1818, while depicting a supernatural creature, a being created out of dead bodies, would fit into Todorov's category of the "scientific marvelous." The supernatural is explained in a rational manner, but according to laws not acknowledged by contemporary science. l7
The publication of Frankenstein was followed in 1820 by
Charles Robert Maturin's lengthy novel, Melmoth the Wanderer:
A Tale, which depicts the attempts of a Faustian villain to find someone to take his place in facing the consequences of a diabolic bargain. Devendra P. Varma terms Maturin's novel
"the apotheosis of the whole cult" of the ~othic,'~as it uses the supernatural while invoking such machinery as a mysterious portrait, decaying parchment, entombed lovers, stonns, ruins, and the Inquisition. While Radcliffe had removed the reader from her apparent terrors through the reassuring presence of an omniscient narrator, Maturin's complex narrative structure contains narratives within narratives, which include intense first-person accounts testifying to the presence of the supernatural. As with Frankenstein, Melmoth wraps the central horror within protective enclosures of distancing reports, which gives the 26 novel what Baldick sees as "a special resonance to the mythic crime while unsettling or corroding the moral certaintiesw by which the villain's crimes might be condemned. Maturin's novel has been viewed as the climax of the genre, as it brings together the supernaturalism of Lewis, the suspense of Radcliffe, and the psychological probing of Godwin, while providing a belated injection of vitality into what appeared an exhausted convention.l9 But while traces of the Gothic novel lingered, such as James Hogg's The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824), a novel of religious mania and diabolic possession, its influence as a genre dissipated. The genre's greatest authors, Radcliffe, Lewis, and Maturin, had al1 died by 1824, Godwin had fallen into obscurity, and Mary Shelley's The Last Man ( 1826 ) , a melancholy novel of a future plaque, was written in the wake of the deaths of her husband, Byron, and Keats. Although the occasional Gothic novel would appear, such as Thomas DeQuincey's Klosterheim or: The Masque (1832), the Gothic novel's primary influence on the creation of terror was overtaken by periodical literature, with such sensational tales as those in Blackwood's Edinbursh Masazine, in particular, William Maginn's "The Man in the Bell" ( 1821) and William Mudford's "The Iron Shroud" (1830). The supernatural appears tangentially in Maginn's story, which describes a man's sensations while trapped under a ringing bell. He begins to doubt his reason, relating that "the most awful of 27
al1 the ideas that seized on me were drawn from the supernatural,"" as he imagines he is visited by the Devil. Of special note during this twilight of the Gothic novel is Lt. John Richardson's Wacousta; or, The Prophecy: A Tale of the Canadas (1832), which may be considered a Canadian response to the genre. The subject of Indian attacks, which had served Brockden Brown in Edsar Huntlv and Fenimore Cooper in The Last of the Mohicans (1826), provides Richardson with
a Gothic wilderness backgr~und.~~The novel is set in late
September, 1763 in Fort Detroit, now within the American border, an instance of "Richardson's drarnatization of a fractured Canadian psyche." The complex plot details the revenge of Wacousta, later revealed to be a European who has become an Indian, against De Haldimar, the colonel who wronged
him. Michael Hurley notes the resemblance to ~rankensteinin Wacousta's and De Haldirnar's roles of "the demon and his maker," as Wacousta is "hideous and deformed," while De Haldimar is "emotionally stifled, unmarried, joyless, and obsessed with praprieties." Both Wacousta and the Frankenstein monster "refuse to kill their adversaries outright/' preferring to torture them by slaying innocent family members. Richardson uses the Gothie " f lashback" technique which parallels Shelley's monster's sirnilar "tale- within-a-tale" in another "tragic fa11 of a noble being of great potential." Hurley concludes that Richardson seems drawn to the Gothic genre as a way to show the "oppressive garrison mentality bent on perpetuating moribund Old World customs and institutions in the New W~rld."'~ The degeneration of the Gothic tradition by the mid- nineteenth century was also evident in numerous serialized "penny dreadfulsw such as the works of Go W. M. Reynolds, whose Faust (1845-46), Waaner. the Wehr-Wolf (1846-47), and The Necromancer (1851-52), al1 bear the subtitle A R~rnance.~~ While Reynolds introduced the werewolf to the English novel, the vampire f lourished in Varnev the Vamr>vre: or. The Feast of
Blood (1847), originally attributed to Thomas Preskett Prest, but now believed to be the work of James Malcolm RymerO2' As the genre of the English Gothic novel became exhausted and outdated as tastes changed with the onset of the Victorian era, the Gothic tradition travelled across the Atlantic. Before the turn of the eighteenth century, Brockden Brown transfomed the genre by ejecting European supernatural machinery in favour of a psychological exploration of character, after the manner of Godwin. Poe would follow Brown in his adherence to the Radcliffean tradition of explaining the supernatural. Yet he would surpass Brown by internalizing even further the Gothic landscapes of nature to landscapes of the mind. In terms of the distinction between the natural and the supernatural, Todorov cites Reeve and Radcliffe as examples of the uncanny, and places Walpole, Lewis, and
Maturin in the category of the rnarvell~us.'~ Heller narrows Radcliffe's position to the category of the fantastic-uncanny, a category to which he also assigns Brown's ~ieland." This distinction between the uncanny and the marvellous is apparent in the preferences of contemporary critics of the ~nglish Gothic novelists.
The issue of how contemporary critics perceived these Gothic authors is rooted in contemporary conditions. Just as Godwin equated Caleb Williams with current events in the novel's prirnary title, Thinqs As Thev Are, Gothic writers used the trappings of the barbaric past to depict the violence of their time. In his preface, Godwin wrote: "What is now presented to the public is no refined and abstract speculation; it is a study and delineation of things passing in the moral ~orld."~~After Godwin had written a pamphlet in defense of several of his friends on trial for high treason," he discussed the controversy surrounding the preface in his second edition of 1795:
This preface was withdrawn in the original edition, in compliance with the alarms of booksellers. Caleb Williams made its first appearance in the world, in the same month in which the sanguinary plot broke out against the liberties of Englishmen, which was happily teminated by the acquitta1 of its first intended victims, in the close of that year. Terror was the order of the day; and it was feared that even the humble novelist might be shown to be constructively a traitor.'"
The Marquis de Sade argues that the Gothic novel was a product of its time; this contemporary reaction to political turmoil was the inevitable result of the revolutionary shocks which al1 of Europe has suffered. For anyone familiar with the full range of misfortunes wherewith evil-doers can beset mankind, the novel became as difficult to write as monotonous to read. There was not a man alive who had not experienced in the short span of four or five years more misfortunes than the most celebrated novelist could portray in a century. Thus to compose works of interest, one had to cal1 upon the aid of hell itself, and to find in the world of make-believe things wherewith one was fully f amiliar merely by delving into man's daily lif e in this age of iron."
As the era of the Gothic novel witnessed the American and
French Revolutions, it should not be a surprise that the tale of terror should reach its height of popularity so soon after the Reign of Terror.
At the beginning of the age of the ~othicnovel, the interest of conternporary readers resided prirnarily in the plot rather than with any aesthetic concerns. Thomas Gray wrote to
Walpole that his novel made "some of us cry a little, and al1 in general afraid to go to bed O' nights."" A quarter- century later, the first Lord Stanley of Alderley wrote how he read Otranto to his friends during a journey between the Faroe
Islands: "The scene was suitable to the subject. The fog just let us see the high rocks by which we rowed.. . .We reached our ship.. .sorry to leave off the story before we knew to whom the great enchanted helmet bel~nged."~~Yet, by 1811, Walter Scott found Walpole's novel "remarkable not only for the wild interest of the story, but as the first modern attempt to found a tale of amusing fiction upon the ancient romances of chivalry." Scott praised Walpole as an author "who can excite the passions of fear and of ~ity."~~But in 1819, William Hazlitt reiterated Reevefs critique of Walpole: The great hand and am, which are thrust into the court- yard, and remain there al1 day long, are the pasteboard machinery of a pantomime; they shock the senses, and have no purchase upon the imagination. They are a matter- of -f act impossibility; a f ixture, and no longer a phantom .. .By realising the chimeras of ignorance and fear, begot upon shadows and dim likenesses, we take away the very grounds of credulity and superstition; and, as in other cases, by facing out the imposture, betray the secret to the contempt and laughter of the spectatord5 Although Hazlitt shares Reeve's objection to Otranto's excessive supernaturalisrn, he has a low opinion of her own work and Sophia Lee's novel, The Recess: or, A Tale of Other Times (1783-86), another example of what Devendra P. Varma terms the "Historical-Gothic school" in which the supernatural is confined to a ghost's appearance in a dream? Hazlitt pronounces them to be "dismal treatises," with little in them at which "our fell of hair is likely to rouse and stir as life were in it." Such novels "are du11 and prosing, without the spirit of fiction, or the air of tradition to make them interesting. "" In contrast, Beckf ord's Vathek was praised by The Enqlish Review in September, 1786 for its "solemn and awful, though sometimes horrid" use of the s~pernatural.~' The Monthlv Review, in May, 1787, reversed the critique Reeve made of Walpole, praising Beckford's prese~ationof "the peculiar character of the Arabian Tale, which is not only to overstep nature and probability, but even to pass beyond the verge of possibility, and suppose things, which cannot be for a moment conceivedaW The novel was "written with spirit, fancy, and humour, and will af f ord much entertainment to those who are fond of this kind of readi~~g."'~ The avoidance of the supernatural was praised by Scott in 1805, in his review of Godwin's Fleetwood: or the New Man of Feelinq. Scott praised Caleb Williams over his later novel,
St Leon: A Tale of the Sixteenth Centurv (1799), which dealt with the supernatural theme of the elixir of life: ...although the story of Caleb Williams be unpleasing, and the moral sufficiently mischievous, we acknowledge we have met with few novels which excited a more powerful interest...our sense of the fallacy of his arguments ...is lost in the solemnity and suspense with which ne expect the evolution of the tale of mystery. After Caleb Williams, it would be injustice to Mr Godwin to mention St Leon, where the marvellous is employed too frequently to excite wonder, and the terrible is introduced till we have become familiar with terr~r.~'
Poe praised Godwin in December, 1835, in a review of his last work, Lives of the Necromancers: "The name of the author of Caleb Williams, and of St. Leon, is, with us, a word of weight, and one which we consider a guarantee for the excellence of any composition to which it may be affixed."
But while Godwin's work offers a skeptical view of avowed sorcerers throughout the ages, debunking them as mere charlatans, Poe differs, perhaps somewhat playfully, as he quotes Barnlet's advice to Horatio: "There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in thy phil~sophy."~' But Poe concurs with Godwin that there "are many things, too, in the great circle of human experience, more curious than even the records of human credulity." According to Poe, the "only drawback to the great pleasure" found in Godwin's book is the latter's announcement that it
signifies a farewell to literature. Poe argues, just five rnonths before Godwin's death at the age of eighty, "The pen which wrote Caleb Williams, should never for a moment be
Given the importance of Radcliffe's stature among Gothic novelists, as well as her particular influence on Brockden
Brown in terms of explaining the supernatural, it is significant that initial reviews of Udol~ho deplored her explanation of apparently supernatural events, a judgment rendered by numerous later readers. In August, 1794, The Critical Review offered the following critique:
Curiosity is raised oftener than it is gratified; or rather, it is raised so high that no adequate gratification can be given it; the interest is completely dissolved when once the adventure is finished, and the reader, when he is got to the end of the work, looks about in vain for ihe spell which had bound -him so strongly to it .43 The same month, The British Critic echoed the above opinion: ...the Mysteries of Udolpho have too much of the terrific: the sensibility is sometimes jaded, and curiosity in a manner worn out. The endeavour to explain supernatural appearances and incidents, by plain and simple facts, is not always happy." However, an opposite view appeared in William Endfield's anonymous critique in The Monthlv Review for November, 1794, which praises her use of the uncanny: Something of the marvellous is introduced in the first volume, sufficient to throw an interesting air of mystery over the story; and the reader feels the pleasing agitation of uncertainty concerning several circumstances, of which the writer has had the address not to give a glance of explanation till toward the close of the work. In the remaining volumes, however, her genius is employed to raise up forms which chi11 the sou1 with horror....Without introducing into her narrative any thing really supernatural, Mrs. Radcliffe has contrived to produce as powerful an effect as if the invisible world had been obedient to her magic spell; and the reader experiences in perfection the strange luxury of artificial terror, without being obliged for a moment to hoodwink his reason, or to yield to the weakness of superstitious credulity ...we will not hesitate to Say, in general, that, within the limits of nature and probability, a story so well contrived to hold curiosity in pleasing suspence, and at the same time to aqitate the sou1 with strong emotions of sympathetic terror, has seldorn been produ~ed.~~ In a letter of May 18, 1794 to his mother, M. G. Lewis wrote that reading him continue writing -The -Monk, but he "did not feel much flattered by the likeness" of her villain, Montoni, to his protagonist, Ambr~sio.~' Charles Brockden Brown wrote his terror fiction during the high tide of the Gothic novel, in the wake of Radcliffe and Lewis, but Godwin remained his primary influence. While Brown's introductory note "To the Public," which preceded his fourth novel, Edqar Huntly (1799), remains his best known critique of "Gothic castles and chimeras," along with "puerile superstition and exploded manners" (CBB 4: 3), he also wrote several essays which condemned the machinery of the Gothic novel. In "A Receipt for a Modern Romance," an essay for The
Weeklv Maaazine of June 30, 1798, to which Brown appended the significant pseudonym, "Anti-Ghost," he offered the following prescription :
TAKE an old castle; pull dom a part of it, and allow the grass to grow on the battlements, and provide the owls and bats with uninterrupted habitations among the ruins. Pour a sufficient quantity of heavy rain upon the hinges and bolts of the gates, so that when they are attempted to be opened, they may creak most fearfully. Next take an old man and woman, and employ them to sleep in a part of this castle, and provide them with frightful stories of lights that appear in the western or the eastern tower every night, and of music heard in the neighbouring woods, and ghosts dressed in white who perambulate the place. Brown's burlesque of Gothic machinery suggests that Wieland was written as a deliberate response to such works, to show that he could create a far more effective work of terror by dispensing with the trappings he deplores. He continues his
Convey to this castle a young lady; consign her to the care of the old man and woman, who must relate to her al1 they know, that is al1 they do not know, but only suspect. Make her dreadfully terrifieci at the relation, but dreadfully impatient to behold the reality. Convey her, perhaps on the second night of her arrival, through a trap-door, and from the trap-door to a flight of steps downwards, and £rom a flight of steps to a subterraneous passage, and £rom a subterraneous passage, to a door that is shut, and from that to a door that is open, and £rom that to a cell, and from that to a chapel, and from a chapel back to a subterraneous passage again; here present either a skeleton with a live face, or a living body with the head of a skeleton, or a ghost al1 in white, or a groan from a distant part of a cavern, or the shake of a cold hand, or a suit of amour moving - fierce "put out the light, and then" - Let this be repeated for some nights in succession, and after the lady has been dissolved ta a jelly with her fears, let her be delivered by the man of hex heart, and married. Brown offers a brie£ poem on the subject: ...lest any one should think 1 have too many ingredients into the above recipe, let take the following: A novel now, says Will, is nothing more Than an old castle, and a creaking door: A distant hovel, Clanking of chahs, a gallery, a light, Old amour, and a phantom al1 in white -, And there's a novel .47 Brown's closest friend, Dr. Elihu Hubbard Smith, shared his views regarding Gothic machinery , and criticized Radcliffe harshly for her use of this technique in a letter to his
The general character of her plan of writing appears to me, simply this: To excite & sustain curiosity, by a succession of contrivances, as long [as] this will answer; & when this is carried as far as it will bear, to clear up al1 the difficulties, by a disclosure of the insignificant machinery by means of which the illusions have been effected. The great fault of this plan is, that it raises expectations, which it never gratifies. How marvellous the events have been, the causes are trifling; they, therefore, bear no proportionate consequence to them; the mind is fatigued by the former, & disgusted by the latter. It appears the labour of a Mountain, to bring forth a mouse.. . .[Elvery chapter abounds with tricks, which keep alive your curiosity, on a first reading, but never have that effect a second time. And why? Because, there is very little character, very little sentiment, very little variety; b the style is a constant ringing of bells, & mists, & glens, h portcullises, & moats, &c. &cmthe miserable & tattered coverings of a feeble imagination & a languid & barren understanding. However, Brown differed £rom Smith in praising Radcliffe. In "On a Taste for the Picturesque," an essay for The Monthlv Maaazine of July, 1800,49 which Brown wrote under the pseudonym "Looker-On," he addresses Radcliffe's novels while adopting the convention of listening to a companion speaking on the picturesque: Ann Radcliff [sic] is, without doubt, the most illustrious of the picturesque writers. Ber "Travels on the Rhine and in Cumberland" is, in' this view, an inestimable performance. In reading this work, the reader is surprised to find how much, in this respect, can be done by mere words, and is frequently affected in a way shnilar to the effect produced by the actual view. Ber two last romances, "Udolpho," and "The Italian," are little else than a series of affecting pictures, connected by a pleasing narrative, and in which human characters and figures are introduced on the same principles that place them on the canvas, to give a moral energy and purpose to the scene. This is the great and lasting excellence of her works; and, to limit the attention, as is usually done, to her human figures, is no less absurd than to look at nothing in a sea-view but the features of the pilot, and to scrutinize, in a picture of Salvator, only the hooked nose of the sybil, the sorry steed of the bandit, or the uncouth foms of the imps that hovered round St. Anthony. Yet Mrs. Radclif f 's [sic] narrative is beautif ul and interesting . Although he does not specifically treat her explanation of the supernatural, his assertion that her novels are "little else
than a series of affecting pictures" shows his realization
that such an explanation of the supernatural required a strong plot for the greatest effect. In "Romances," his essay for The Literarv Maqazine of January, 1805, Brown equates a delight in the marvellous, corresponding to that exemplified by Walpole or, more particularly, Beckf ord, with a childish or defective taste:
The "Arabian Nights" delight us in childhood, and so do the chivalrous romances; but, in riper age, if enlightened by education, we despise what we formerly revered. Individuals, whose minds have been uncultivated, continue still their attachent to those marvellous stories Two months later, Brown wrote an essay on "Marvellous Stories"
for The Literarv Maqazine, which treated the "credulity," the "probability of factsw contrasted with one's
own experience, and the problem of facts versus appearancem5'
A month after this last article, in April, 1805, Brown contributed "Terrifie Noveisw to The Literarv Maqazine. In this essay, Brown praises Radcliffe as the heir to Walpole, whose novel .. .laid the foundation of a style of novel writing, which was carried to perfection by Mss . Radclif f , [sic] and which may be called the terrific style. The great talents of Mrs. Radcliff [sic] made some atonement for the folly of this mode of composition, and gave some importance to exploded fables and childish fears, by the charms of sentiment and description; but the multitude of her imitators seem to have thought that description and sentiment were impertinent intruders, and by lowering the mind somewhat to its ordinary state, marred and counteracted those awful feelings, which true genius was properly employed in raising. Although this was written several years after Brown abandoned the writing of novels, he displays his awareness of the techniques in which suspense is created and maintained. Foreshadowing Poe ' s championing of the short story for its totality of effect in creating suspense, Brown appears particularly cognizant of the need to create suitable episodes of relief, as it is a matter of great difficulty to enchain a reader in constant suspense, especially over the course of several hundred pages. Be criticizes current Gothic writers who .. .endeavour to keep the reader in a constant state of tumult and horror, by the powerful engines of trap-doors, back stairs, black robes, and pale faces: but the solution of the enigma is ever too near at hand, to permit the indulgence of supernatural appearances. A well-written scene of a party at snap-dragon would exceed al1 the fearful images of these books. There is, besides, no keeping in the authors' design: fright succeeds to fright, and danger to danger, without permitting the unhappy reader to dsaw his breath, or to repose for a moment on subjects of character or sentiment. Brown claims to have read a novel "of this kindt* and transcribes an excerpt. No source has been identified for
Brown's citation, and it is more than probable that he followed his own directions from "A Receipt for a Modern 39
Romancew to create an example, particularly when he declares that "the sagacious reader need not be apprized of preliminary matters," as "al1 its chapters are so nearly alike that any one will answer. " The passage from this "specimen of the prevailing taste" relates how young Edmund discovers Adelaide, his beloved, mourning over the casket of her aunt. The description of the scene is ovewrought: words are needlessly italicized to bludgeon the reader with supernumerary details: "...a deadly chilling stopped the circulation of his blood: without having fainted, and in an erect posture, he appeared annihilated. " The presence of the colour black in itself causes terror: "On a table, surrounded by large sable wax tapers, lay a coffin, covered by a black cloth reaching the ground. " Edmund withdraws "behind a curtainn when a young lady appears, "arrayed in deep mourning." When he recognizes Adelaide, his sudden entrance produces an unexpected affect: "...the terrified, amazed Adelai.de shrunk from his touch, uttered a piercing shriek, and sunk on the ground." Clearly, Brown enjoys hie alliterative parody. Brown concludes the fragment with the appearance of an apparently supernatural character, as Edmund "...felt himself touched by a kind of wand, and as he turned round, a deep- toned voice awf ully pronounced the portentous word - FORBEAR 1 " The author hammers the reader with the terrors implicit in the colour black: "Edmund then beheld a ta11 figure completely clad in a loose black gown that swept the ground. The face of the object was concealed by a veil of the same colour reaching his girdle." Edmund's inquiry, "Who art thou? Whence comest thou? Why this disguise?" is met with "the awful reply,"
" FORBEAR : 1 CHARGE THEE, FORBEAR!" Edmund ' s valiant defiance, "To thine admonition, in that treacherous garb, I shall not attend; but, by Heaven, 1'11 know who thou art," is scant preparation for the repulsive description which met Brown's audience of 1805: .. .while, with his left hand he sustained the swooning rnaid, by a sudden spring with his right he tore off the veil, that, to his amazement and horror, had concealed the fleshless, worm-eaten head of a skeleton, whose eyes alone rolled alive in their hollow sockets. Immediately following this excerpt, Brown undercuts the horrific impact of such a spectacle by revealing its non- supernatural origin: This dismal visage was enough to rob ordinary mortals of their five wits, it must be acknowledged. - What wonders may be extracted from a simple piece of paste-board, painted into a resemblance of a death's head, with two holes, through which the wearer's eyes may perform their part! Such a conclusion clearly shows Brown's dissatisfaction with Radcliffe's technique of having the supernatural explained as being nothing more than mere legerdemain on the part of the author. By utilizing unusual, pseudo-scientific explanations, such as spontaneous combustion, Brown maintains his reader's equivocal sense of speculative wonder at such a phenomenon, while Radcliffe's readers invariably feel disappointed by the revelation that her supernatural agencies are natural. In Udol~ho,Radcliffe reveals that such uncanny devices as an unearthly voice and mysterious music proceed from human origin. Although the reader expects the secret to possess some degree of supernatural agency, the explanation causes constant disappointment in the reader, an emotion shared by readers from Coleridge to Lovecraft. The latter praised her "genuine sense of the unearthly in scene and incident which closely approached genius," but deplored her
"provoking custom of destroying her own phantoms at the last through laboured mechanical explanations." Such "prosaic disillusionment" is unworthy of her strong "visual
imagination. lvs4
The greatest disappointment of Udol~hois the revelation of what Emily St. Aubert saw beneath the black veil of a picture, a revelation which does not occur until near the end of Radcliffe's lengthy novel: ...there appeared, instead of the pictures she had expected, within a recess of the wall, a human figure of ghastly paleness, stretched at its length, and dressed in the habiliments of the grave. What added to the horror of the spectacle was that the face appeared partly decayed and disfigured by wonns, which were visible on the features and hands. On such an object, it will be readily believed, that no person could endure to look twice.
But what promises to be an agency worthy of provoking fear in the reader instead borders on the ridiculous: Bad she dared to look again, her delusion and her fears would have vanished together, and she would have perceived that the figure before her was not human, but formed of wax. The history of it is somewhat extraordinary, though not without example in the records of that fierce severity, which monkish superstition has sometimes inflicted on mankind. A member of the house of Udolpho, having committed some offence against the prerogative of the church, had been condemned to the penance of contemplating, during certain hours of the day, a waxen image made ta resemble a human body in the state, to which it is reduced after death. Radcliffe explains why such a ludicrous device was not destroyed: "...the Marquis of Udolpho ...had made it a condition in his will, that his descendants should preserve the image.. .that they also rnight profit by the humiliating moral it conveyed. 55 But the real humiliation is that which Radcliffe inflicts upon her reader, as she enjoys what Birkhead terms "a quietly malicious triumph."" Brown's opinion as to the reason for the popularity of ~adcliffe's works may be seen in his introduction to "Remarks on ~ysteries." Brown signed one of the pseudonyms derived from the letters of his surname, "W," to this essay for The Literarv Magazine of October, 1806, just as "Terrifie Novels" had been signed "O." He argues that nothing "is more agreeable to al1 readers than mystery. A fictitious performance cannot recomntend itself more to general attention than by exhibiting and gradually unfolding some tissue of mysterious incident^.^^ Noting that "a thousand transactions daily occur in common life, which excite interest only by involving some unfathomable mystery," Brown argues that "without this seasoning, by whichthe agreeable employments of wondering and conjecturing is afforded, many circumstances which now engage attention would be soon entirely f orgotten. w57 Finally, in "On the Cause of the Popularity of Novelstw an essay for The Literary Maaazine of June, 1807, Brown off ers one last critique of the Gothic novel: ...the common adventures of novels were actually becoming as insipid as the progress of real life, when a bold and successful attempt was lately made to enliven these narratives by a certain proportion of murders, ghosts, clanking chains, dead bodies, skeletons, old castles, and damp dungeons. Happily for those who are tired with themselves and al1 around them, this atternpt produced a number of imitations, and we now rarely see a novel that is not entirely composed of the terrific materials above enumerated. Brown designates murder as a theme which has become a topic for parody:
Murder is certainly a very f ruitful topic: it can be contrived in so many ways, and if once we return to the old-fashioned belief in ghosts, it is incredible with what ease we may increase our stock of personages, for every one mentioned in the work may have a ghost, and, living or dead, we may in this way exactly double our amusement...And surely it is no wonder if Our timid females are pushed from their stools in reading the "horrid, barbarous, and bloody murdersw that are now served up for their amusement. Brown's shock at the trivialization of murder as a plot device for the pleasure of the reader leads to his questioning the rationale behind Gothic fiction: Amusementl did 1 say? - Yes, certainly, for their amusement. This is the most favourable conjecture, for surely it never could have entered into the brain of any writer of this description that our lovely females wanted instruction how to commit or avoid murders. Amusement it therefore must be, and certainly is amusement of a very singular kind, such as appears to me to be very incompatible with tenderness of frame, or purity of mind. What should we think, if a lady, who had the command of an extensive library, should ransack the indexes, and reject every page but that which contained an account of a murder? A question then very naturally arises. Why are works entirely composed of murders considered as most certain of being perused? The answer to this question 1 shall leave to my readers, and content myself with hoping that the present fashion, like al1 departures from nature and common sense, will have but a short reign." Un£ortunately, Brown did not see his prediction of 1807 proven true, as he died three years later, before the end of the era of the Gothic novel.
In 1824, Scott found Radcliffe's explanation of the supernatural to be a "rule which the author imposed upon herself," which, "it must be allowed...has not been done with uniform success." To Scott, ~adcliffe "has been more successful in exciting interest and apprehensions, than in explaining the means she has made use of." Scott notes that her explanation of the supernatural "may indeed be claimed as meritorious," as "it is founded in possibilities." He cites the delusions practised by the members of "the Rosicrucians and Illuminati, upon whose machinations Schiller has founded the fine romance of The Ghost-Seer," as examples which have been "explained by deception and confederacy." Yet Scott expresses his disappointment with her treatment of the uncanny in giving "sa artificial a solution. " He does "not greatly applaud her art" in having her heroines sustain fear, and her reader suspense, from incidents "which, when explained, appear of an ordinary and trivial nature. The disappointment attending upon a feeling of being cheated by the author destroys the reader's enjoyment: A stealthy step behind the arras, may doubtless, in some situations, and when the nerves are tuned to a certain pitch, have no small influence upon the imagination; but if the conscious listener discovers it to be only the noise made by the cat, the solemnity of the feeling is gone, and the visionaq is at once angry with his senses for having been cheated, and with his reason for having acquiesced in the deception. While Scott praises Radcliffe ' s powers of description and language, he delineates the precise nature of the dissatisfaction with her surprise ending, in which the surprise is revealed to be neither terrifying nor illuminating, but merely hollow: "the interest terminates on the f irst reading of the volumes, and cannot, so far as it rests upon a high degree of excitation, be recalled upon a second perusal. " Still, Scott admits that Radcliffe 's plan of narrative, "happily complicated and ingeniously resolved, continues to please after many readingsw because the reader "admires the author's art, " and traces "a thousand minute passages, which render the catastrophe probable, yet escape notice in the eagerness of a first perusal." Thus, the pleasure of a second reading is akin to reading a detective story a second time, in which the reader appreciates clues missed during the first reading. But Scott confesses that this pleasure is negated, "when some inadequate cause is assigned for a strong emotion. With such a plan, "the reader feels tricked, and like a child who has once seen the scenes of a theatre too nearly, the idea of paste-board, cords, and pullies, destroys for ever the illusion with which they were first seen from the proper point of view. Scott finds it not surprising that Radcliffe "has not been uniformly fortunate" in gratifying her reader's curiosity, since disenchantment is a pos~ibility.~' Radcliffe faces the Scylla of having her 46 reader find a supernatural agency incredible or the Charybdis of having her reader find the explanation of the supernatural to be merely trite. While Radcliffe 's explanation of the supernatural was deplored, her talent for the picturesque and the creation of suspense was widely admired. Still, her descriptions of scenery are more glamourous than accurate, since she never visited Europe until shortly after Udolpho was published, and never visited Italy or southern France? In contrast, the forthright supernaturalism of Lewisf The Monk did not in itself provoke as much criticism as his lurid tone and suggestive treatment of such themes as incest, rape, and gruesorne murder. In fact, reviews of the anonymous first edition were generally favourable; The Anahtical ~eviewdid "not remember to have read a more interesting production.. .The whole is very skilfully managed, and reflects the highest credit on the judgement and imagination of the writermW6' Only when Lewis appended his name followed by the initials, "M.P. " were reviewers provoked into examining a novel they had overlooked by the thought that a parliamentarian should have perpetrated such suggestive passages upon his constituency. With this in mind, Coleridge denounced the work in The Critical Review: "the author of the Monk signs himself a LEGISLATORI - We stare and tremble."62 In 1797, in a note to his long satirical poem, The Pursuits of Literature, Thomas James Mathias suggested the possibility of indictment under common law:
The publication of this novel by a Member of Parliament is in itself so serious an offence to the publick, that 1 know not how the author can repais this breach of publick decency , but by suppressing it himself . Or he might omit the indecent and blasphemous passages in another edition. Nothing came of the matter, in terms of prosecution, but Lewis bowdlerized his text for the next edition. Mathias ' moralistic opinion, "Novels of this seductive and libidinous tendency excite disgust, fear, and h~rror,"~~was mirrored by Coleridge 's denunciation: "a poison for youth, and a provocative for the debauchee. w64 Such views led to Lewis' work being associated with lewd literature by the ~ictorian era. Even Hazlitt found some of Lewis' descriptions "chargeable with unpardonable grossness," but admitted that "after Mrs. Radcliffe, Monk Lewis was the greatest master of the art of freezing the bl00d."~~
Horrid Mvsteries, one of the most famous of the German Gothic novels of the 1790s, was attacked in The Critical Review of December, 1797: "more gross and absurd nonsense was surely never put together under the name of adventures. w66 Lovecraft would later associate it with Shelley's Zastrozzi and St. Irwne, as part of "the dreary plethora of tra~h"~~ produced in the wake of Radcliffe and Lewis. By the end of the century, the German Schauerroman or horror novel had become equated with what constituted the German novel in general, but it prepared the English public for the works of the German Romantic writers of the early nineteenth century . Writers such as Tieck, Fouqué, Chamisso, and Hoffmann created a new type of traditional tale in the fantastic vein, the Marchen, modern myths usually placed in Gothic settings , but more concerned with psychological terrors than supernatural machinery . In Tieck's story , "Der blonde Eckbert " ( 17 97 ) , which Thomas Carlyle translated as "The Fair- Aaired Eckbert" in 1827, nothing is ultimately explained, and
the tale ends in rnystery and terror, unlike the Radcliffean explanation of the supernatural. Carlyle notes the reaction the English public will have from reading Tieck's works, one of surprise from being accustomed to the supernatural machinery of the ma~ellousrather than the haunting spell of
the fantastic : The ordinary lovers of witch and fairy matter will remark a deficiency of spectres and enchantments here, and cornplain that the whole is rather dull. Cultivated free-thinkers again, well knowing that no ghosts or elves exist in this country, will smile at the crack-brained dreamer, with his spelling-book prose and doggrel [sic] verse, and dismiss him good-naturedly as a German Lake- poet .69
In "Mystification" ( l837), Poe mentions Tieck as "a scion of the house" of his character, the Baron Ritzner Von Jung, whose family "was more or less remarkable for talent of some description, - the majority for that species of grotesquerie in conception of which Tieck...has given some vivid, although by no means the most vivid exemplifications" (EAP 2: 293) . As well, "The Journey into the Blue Distance of Tieck" is a favourite book of Roderick Usherfs (EAP 2: 409) in Poefs story, "The Fa11 of the House of Usher" ( 1839 ) . In his second review of Twice-Told Tales, which appeared in Godey's Ladv's Book in November, 1847, Poe compares Nathaniel Hawthorne to Tieck, "whose manner, in some of his works, is absolutely identical with that habit ual to Hawthorne. w70 Similarly, in 1848, American poet James Russell Lowe11 called Hawthorne "a
Puritan Tieck" in "A Fable for CriticseN7' In the issue of Burton's Gentleman's Maqazine for
September, 1839, Poe reviewed Undine ( 1811), a German story of the supernatural about a water-sprite who gains a human sou1 by marrying a mortal, but who is forced to kill him when he betrays her memory. He praised its German author, Fouqué, and hailed its republication as a greatly needed example of the fantastic flying "in the very teeth of our anti-romantic national character." Poe argues that ...in the crisis caused by this experiment ...it becomes the duty of every lover of literature for its own sake and spiritual uses, to speak out, and speak boldly, against the untenable prejudices which have so long and so unopposedly enthralled us. It becomes, we Say, his plain duty to show, with what ability he may possess, the full value and capacity of that species of writing generally, which, as a people, we are too prone to discredit. It is incumbent upon him to make head, by al1 admissible means in his power, against that evil genius of mere matter-of-fact....
Poe praises Fouqué's "exquisite management of imaginationM and offers the highest praise to the conclusion: We calmly think - yet cannot help asserting with enthusiasm - that the whole wide range of fictitious literature embraces nothing comparable in loftiness of conception, or in felicity of execution, to those final passages ...which embody the uplifting of the stone from the fount by the order of Bertalda, the sorrowful and silent re-advent of Undine, and the rapturous death of Sir Huldbrand in the embraces of his spiritual wifeeT2 But in a "Marginalia" of December, 1846 in Graham's Masazine, Poe seems resigned to the inability of America to accept such works of the f antastic. While discussing another novel by Fouqué, he argues, It is admirable of its kind - but its kind can never be appreciated by Americans. It will affect them much as would a grasp of the hand frorn a man of ice. Even the exquisite "Undine" is too chilly for our people, and, generally, for our epoch. We have less imagination and warmer sympathies than the age which preceded us. It would have done Foqué [sic] more ready and fuller justice than ours Burton R. Pollin traces the influence of Undine in Poe's stories of 1841, "The Island of the Fayu and "Eleon~ra."'~
Heinrich von Kleist's "Der Findling, " translated as "The
Foundling," relates a story of an demonic orphan who appears destined to bring ruin to those who shelter him. In contrast, Adelbert von Chamisso's novella, Peter Schlemihl, written in 1813 and first translated into English in 1823,75 relates the story of a man who sells his shadow to the ~evil and exemplifies the Marchenys concentration on fearsome situations instead of Gothic paraphernalia. Poe refers to Chamissofs work in his story, "A ~ecidedLoss" ( 1832 ) , which was revised as "Loss of Breath" in 1835:
1 had heard of Peter Schlernil [sic], but 1 did not believe in him until now. I had heard of compacts with the devil, and would gladly have accepted his assistance, but knew not in what manner to proceed, having studied very little of diablerie (EAP 2: 54). Blackwood ' s noted that, England, tales please, but "do not touch the soul." The subject of many Marchen causes them to become problematic to the reader: Almost al1 the northern legends set out with a man's taking the bounty money of the devil; so that we guess pretty well, in the beginning, how he is to be disposed of in the end. And we feel but little interest about a man, after he has made a bargain of this sort. Be is above (or below) our ~phere.'~
Ea T. A. Hoffmann's novel, Die Elixiere des Teufels
( 1815 ) , translated as The Devil's Elixir, was in£ luenced by The ~onk," and has been seen as a peripheral source for Poe's "William Wilson" (1839) In Hoffmann% story, "Der
Sandmann" ( 1816 ) , translated as "The Sandman," the hero Nathaniel's childhood fear of the Sandman, a creature whom he believes will tear out his eyes, leads to his madness and suicide. In his essay, "The 'Uncanny"' ( lglg), Sigmund Freud probes Hoffmann's story for psychological meanings. Thus, Nathaniel's "senseless obsessive love" for Olympia, the automaton, is an expression of his "enslavement" to the "cornplex" of his "matesialization" of his "ferninine attitude towards his f ather in his infancy. " In addition, Freud traces Nathaniel's fear of being blinded by the Sandman to a "castration complex of childhood. "'' This twentieth-century critique suggests how Hoffmann 's psychological themes lead to
Poe's fascination with the unbalanced psyche. Go R. Thompson notes that through a psychological internalizing of his characters, Poe would delve further than Hoffmann into themes of obsessions and phobias, in stories which dismiss the patently supernaturalao in favour of what Todorov would terxn
"the fantastic-uncanny." Hoffmann's story, "Das Majoratw (1817), which was translated as "The Entail," has been seen as 52 a possible source for Poe's "The Fa11 of the Bouse of Usher," in its use of a gloomy house as a symbol of a family being destroyed one by one.81 Sir Walter Scott found "The Entail" to exhibit "the wildness of Hoffmann's fancy," while simultaneously showing "that he possessed power which ought to have mitigated and allayed it," although he praised "The Sandman" for its use of "the wonderful," which is "happily introduced, because it is connected with and applied to human interest and human feeling, and illustrates with no ordinary force the elevation to which circumstances may raise the power and dignity of the human mind." But Scott ultimately designates "The Sandman" as a "wild and absurd story," protesting the impossibility of subjecting stories of this
nature to criticism: "They are not the visions of a poetical mind, they have scarcely even the seeming authenticity which the hallucinations of lunacy convey to the patient,It and "we never feel disposed to yield more than momentary attention" to such "feverish dreams." In analysing the quality of his works, Scott goes so far as to suggest Hoffmann was a user of opium. 82 Scott introduces his review of Hoffmann's works with an examination of why readers delight in the supernatural. While "it is common to al1 classes of mankind," "the belief itself, though easily capable of being pushed into superstition and absurdity, has its origin...in. ..the principles of our nature, which teach us that while we are probationers in this 53
sublunary state ," we remain "neighbours to. .. the shadowy world, of which our mental faculties are too obscure to comprehend the laws, our corporeal organs too coarse and gross to perceive the inhabitants" (60). Scott details the difficulty in maintaining the mysterious draw of the fantastic without venturing into the realm of the marvellous: "the supernatural in fictitious composition requires to be managed with considerable delicacy, " as "The interest which it excites is indeed a powerful spring; but it is one which is peculiarly subject to be exhausted by coarse handling and repeated pressure." Its character is such that it is "extremely difficult to sustain," and "of which a very small proportion may be said to be better than the whole." In essence, "The marvellous, more than any other attribute of fictitious narrative, loses its effect by being brought much into view." The excitement, rather than the gratification, of the reader's imagination is the goal. If the reader follows Macbeth, to
"'sup full with horrors,'" the taste for such a banquet dissipates and the thrill of terror becomes lost in "sated indifference." Supernatural incidents ware usually those of a dark and undefinable nature," incidents "to which our fears attach more consequence, as we cannot exactly tell what it is we behold, or what is to be apprehended from itN (62). Scott stresses that supernatural machinery must be exhibited in a judicious manner to create terror. The appearance of the supernatural in fiction wought to be rare, 54 brie£, indistinct." Such appearances should be such "as may become a being to us so incomprehensible, and so different £rom ourselves, of whom we cannot justly conjecture whence he cornes, or for what purpose, and of whose attributes we can have no reqular or distinct perception." Thus, the first appearance "of the supernatural is always the most effective, and is rather weakened and defaced, than strengthened, by the subsequent recurrence of similar incidents" (63). To Scott, familiar objects are incapable of producinq the slightest degree of terror. As an example, Scott cites Hamlet, in which "the second entrance of the ghost is not so impressive as the first. ..." In this respect, any "supernatural being forfeits al1 daim both to our terror and veneration, by condescending to appear too often; to mingle too much in the events of the story, and above all, to become loquacious ...." Scott doubts "whether an author acts wisely in permitting his goblin to speak at all, if at the same the he renders him subject to human sight."
The degree of terror in the reader depends upon the supernatural remaining always beyond the ken of understanding.
Without this precaution on the part of the author, the result is that "in many of our modern tales of terror, our feelings of fear have, long before the conclusion, given way under the influence of that familiarity which begets contempt" (63-64).
Thus, the transition from the marvellous supernaturalism of authors such as Walpole and Lewis to the fantastic atmosphere 55 of the Marchen evolved from "A sense that the effect of the supernatural in its more obvious application" was "easily exhausted," and "occasioned the efforts of modern authors to cut new walks and avenues through the enchanted wood, and to revive, if possible, by some means or other, the fading impression of its horrors" (64). Still, Scott warns about the dangers of excess, as the reader who peruses "a large collection of stories of f iends, ghosts, and prodigies, in hopes of exciting in his mind that degree of shuddering interest approaching to fear," a quality which is "the most valuable triumph of the supernatural," will be "disappointed."
In short, "A whole collection of ghost stories inclines us as little to fear as a jest book moves us to laughter" (67). The influence of the Marchen on Frankenstein was noted by Scott, who argued that the "English severity of tastew would not "easily adopt this wild and fantastic tone into [its] own literature" and would perhaps " scarc [ely] tolerate it in translations. " Yet, "the only composition which approaches to it is the powerful romance of Frankenstein." Although he admits that the story revolves around "an incident of the fantastic character," the interest remains not "upon the marvellous creation of Frankenstein's monster, but upon the feelings and sentiments which that creature is supposed to express as most natural...to his unnatural condition and origin" (72). In 1817, Percy Bysshe Shelley reviewed his wif e8s novel; the review was published posthumously in The 56 Athenaeum in 1832. In addition to the Marchen influence on Frankenstein, he notes the influence of Godwin and argues that "the encounter and argument between Frankenstein and the Being on the sea of ice, almost approaches, in effect, to the expostulations of Caleb Williams with Falkland." Shelley deflects attention from the identity of its author, as the first edition was published anonymously: "It reminds us, indeed, somewhat of the style and character of that admirable writer, to whom the author has dedicated his work, and whose productions he seems to have st~died."~~Upon Frankenstein's publication in 1818, John Wilson Croker exclaimed in The Quarterlv Review, "What a tissue of horrible and disgusting absurdity this work presents. ...It cannot be denied that this is nonsense. " Croker condemns the novel and finds little worth in its handling of the supernatural: "...when we have thus admitted that Frankenstein has passages which appal the mind and make the flesh creep, we have given it al1 the praise
(if praise it can be called) which we dare to bestow." Croker concludes his attack: "Our taste and our judgment alike revolt at this kind of writing, and the greater the ability with which it may be executed the worse it is.... II 84
In Blackwood 's Edinburqh Maqazine for March, 18 18, Scott gave a far more favourable review than Croker, citing the influence of Godwin's St. Leon, and placing Frankenstein with it as an example of one of the "several subdivisions" of "the class of marvellous romances," categories which Todorov would later describe. Noting that "the probable is far from being laid out of sight even amid the wildest freaks of imagination," Scott contends, "on the contrary, we grant the extraordinary postulates which the author demands as the foundation of his narrative, only on condition of his deducing the consequences with logical precisi~n."~~In 1827, Scott returned to this novel and praises Shelley's use of what Todorov would later cal1 the scientific-marvellous, in favour of the pure marvellous: In such cases the admission of the marvellous expressly resembles a sort of entry-money paid at the door of a lecture-room, - it is a concession which must be made to the author, and for which the reader is to receive value in moral instruction. But the fantastic.. .encumbers itself with no such conditions, and daims no further object than to surprise the public by the wonder itself. Scott illustrates the inexplicable characteristic of the fantastic: "The reader is led astray by a freakish goblin, who has neither end nos purpose in the gambols which he exhibits, and the oddity of which must constitute their own reward .'m While the climax of the Gothic genre did not occur until the arriva1 of Melmoth, Scott showed his insight into Maturin's potential in his review of the latter's novel, The Fatal Revense: or. The Familv of Montorio (1807), in The Quarterlv Review for May, 1810. Although Maturin is "now like an untutored colt, wasting his best vigour in irregular efforts, without either grace or ob ject, " Scott prophesied accurately when ha daims, "there is much in these volumes 58 which promises a career that may at some future the astonish the public." In contrast, Scott complains that Maturin's numerous rivals are only tedious imitators of Radcliffe and Lewis, "personages who, to al1 the faults and extravagances of their originals, added that of dulness, with which they can seldom be charged." Scott emphasizes the similar use of Gothic machinery by these rivals: the "variety of castles, each of which was regularly called Il Castello," the "captains of condottiere," the "various ejaculations of Santa Maria and Diabolo," the "decaying lamp ...in a tapestried chamber," the "dozens of legends as stupid as the main history," the "suites of deserted apartments as might fit up a reasonable barrack," and the "many glimmering lights as would make a respectable illumination. "" In contrast to the European Gothic tradition, the lack of similar machinery in the New World led William Hazlitt to observe in 1829 that "the genius of America is essentially mechanical and modern. However , such declarations found little favour with The North American Review. In a notice
£rom October, 1836, the Americans appear to take their revenge on Hazlitt for his pronouncements: "To say that Mr. Hazlitt has been overestimated, would be to understate the case." Arguing that "it is impossible to read any one of his essays without feeling that he was any thing but a whimsical, prejudiced, fickle-minded man," the Boston reviewer finds the English critic "destitute of the power of appreciating truth," 59 as well as being " jealous, suspicious, and irritable. " The persona1 attack concludes with the bitter epitaph, "It is impossible that Hazlitt should ever take his place among the classics of English Literature.' The most this anonymous
American critic will offer his late English counterpart is the faintest of praise: "At best he will occupy a debatable ground, where his name will be but little heard if so fortunate as to be not quite forgotten. In striking contrast, Poe's assessment of Hazlitt in a review in The Broadwav Journal for August 16, 1845 was the direct opposite of this harsh view, as he praised his English counterpart on his critical insight: "He is emphatically a critic, brilliant, epigrammatic, startling, paradoxical, and suggestive, rather than accurate, luxninous, or profound." Poe finds him, "At al1 points, except perhaps in fancy," to be "superior to Leigh Hunt, whom nevertheless he remarkably resembles . From its inception in 1815, The North American Review presented a Bostonian view of literature, which off ered insight into New England opinions of English authors. Thus, after the passing of the era of the Gothic novel, it is perhaps not too surprising that Radcliffe is dismissed as a minor precursor to modern authors in an article on "English Novelists of the Nineteenth Century" from 1832: "Miss Edgeworth would scarcely venture into the region of the picturesque and Mrs. Radcliffe is good for nothing out of it, 60 except, indeed, when she is in her hors~rs.~~~German influence appears in a review of Heinrich Heine's Letters on
German Literature. The reviewer recognizes Tieck as "being one of the more distinguished, perhaps the most distinguished, of the Romantic School," and agrees with Heine, who
"acknowledges his unquestionable genius. A review in January, 1844 of Rufus W. Griswold's The Poets and Poetry of America makes an impassioned plea for the future of American literature which, although the reviewer speaks in terms of poetry, also applies to Gothic literature in its distinction from its European origins: "If we have a literature, it should be a national literature; no feeble or sonorous echo of Germany or England, but essentially American in its tone and object." The reviewer warns that "no matter how meritorious a composition may be," it will "be spoken of with contempt, or in a spirit of benevolent patronage," as long as "any foreign nation can say that it has done the same thing better." He also condemns the appeal to English authorities of taste, and notes that if The Quarterlv Review or Blackwood's Masazine "speaks well of an American production, we think that we can praise it ourselves , without incurring the reproach of bad taste. w93 Yet, even with such attempts to rally a distinctive literature, America still paled when compared with Europe in offering imaginative settings to authors. In January, 1820, Sydney Smith had posed an insulting question in The Edinbursh 61 Review: "In the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American book?" Prefiguring Hazlitt's assessment, Smith recognized the Americans as "a brave, industrious, and acute people," but argued that "they have hitherto given no indications of genius, and made no approaches to the heroic, either in their morality or character." Smith dismissed American literary attempts in a condescending fashion: "During the thirty or forty years of their independence, they have done absolutely nothing" for literature as a wh01e.~' James Fenimore Cooper articulated a similar view eight years later, in his Notions of the Americans, written behind the persona of a European count. Cooper argued that "the principal reason of this poverty of original writers, is owing to the circumstance that men are not yet driven to their wits
for bread." In Cooper's opinion, America is the first nation ever to be "dependent on a foreign people for its literature, " but has grown less "disposed to receive the opinions and to adopt the prejudices of their relatives." Cooper saw two great obstacles in the path of American literature: the inexpensive reprinting of English authors being preferred to publishing American authors and "the poverty of materials" with which native writers are forced to compose. The "orev
which "contributes to the wealth of the author" is not as rich as that in Europe, since there is no convenient locale for the writer of romance, as well as no annals for the historian, follies for the satirist, manners for the dramatist, nor offences against decorum for the rnorali~t.~~
In his preface to The Marble Faun (1860), Plathaniel Hawthorne echoes Cooper's sentiments when he relates why he believed Italy was preferable to America in terms of romance, because it afforded "a sort of poetic or fairy precinct, where actualities would not be so terribly insisted upon, as they are, and must needs be, in America." He notes that no author
"can conceive of the difficulty" of writing a romance,
"without a trial," about "a country where there is no shadow, no antiquity, no mystery, no picturesque and gloomy wrong, nor anything but a common-place prosperity, in broad and simple daylight, as is happily the case with my dear native land." He predicts that "It will be very long ...before romance- writers may find congenial and easily handled themes," either in American history or biography, as "Romance and poetry, like ivy, lichens, and wall-flowers, need Ruin to make them grow. "96 As late as 1879, in his essay on Hawthorne, Henry James continues this theme of disappointment with the lack of Gothic paraphernalia in the United States. James argues that "one might enumerate the items of high civilisation, as it exists in other countries, which are absent from the texture of American life, until it should become a wonder to know what was left." James cites a negative list of what a European would find lacking in this New World: No State, in the European sense of the word, and indeed barely a specific national name. No sovereign, no court, no persona1 loyalty, no aristocracy, no church, no clergy, no army, no diplornatic service, no country gentlemen, no palaces, no castles, nor manors, nor old countryhouses, nor parsonages, nor thatched cottages, nor ivied ruins; no cathedrals, nor abbeys, nor little Norman churches; no great Universities nor public schools - no Oxford, nor Eton, nor Harrow; no literature, no novels, no rnuseums, no pictures, no political society, no sporting class - no Epsom nor Ascot! James admits that "some such list as that might be drawn up of the absent things in American life - especially in the American life of forty years ago. " With such an absence of Old World refinement, the effect "upon an ~nglishor a French imagination, would probably, as a general thing, be appalling." Thus, "the natural remark, in the almost lurid light of such an indictment, would be that if these things are left out, everything is left out. "'' However, in 1850, just after Poe's death, Herman Melville argued an opposite viewpoint in "Hawthorne and Bis Mosses. "
Instead of bemoaning the paucity of romantic or Gothic elernents in America, which had been the theme of both English and American critics, Melville f elt that Americans should make the most of this apparent disadvantage. Instead of taking the view that nature has been "ransacked by Our progenitors, so that no new charms and mysteries remain for this latter generation to find," he contends that "The trillionth part has not yet been said; and al1 that has been said but multiplies the avenues to what remains to be said." Making the case that "It is not so much paucity as superabundance of material that seems to incapacitate modern authors," Melville stresses that "it is better to fail in originality than to succeed in 64 imitation." He states that his country should not look to
England, since even "China has more bonds of real love for us than she," and recommends the cherishing of native authors, even praising American "mediocrity" bef ore foreign
"excellence." He even goes as far as advocating the necessity for a literary chauvinism: "In some sense we must turn bullies, else the day is lost, or superiority so far beyond us, that we can hardly Say it will ever be ours."98 Frank Norris continues Melville's argument in The
Responsibilities of the Novelist, published posthumously in 1903. He argues that there is "as much romance on Michigan
Avenue as there is realism in King Arthur's court," and notes that "contemporaries always imagine that theirs is the prosaic age, and that chivalry and the picturesque died with their forbears." Positing that Merlin "mourned for the old time of romance, " and that Cervantes "held that romance was dead, " Norris finds it instructive that "most of the historical romances of the day are laid in Cervantes's tirne, or even af ter it ." Norris concludes that "romance and realism are constant qualities of every age, day, and hour," and stresses that they existed "in the time of Job," at the present time, and "will continue to exist till the end of tirne, not so much in things as in point of view of the people who see things. In this respect, Cooper, Hawthorne, and James were merely pessimistic in their view of their nation's potential for such literature, while the fiction of Brown and 65 Poe validate the later claims of Melville and Norris that the differences of America from Europe can be turned into advantages , as superf luous Gothic trappings are e jected in favour of internalized psychological depictions.
Even though Hawthorne had argued that America had "no shadow" or "niy~tery,~he uses the Puritan background for several stories , including "Young Goodman Brown, " in which the supernatural is treated ambiguously. Lovecraft relates that the Puritan era was propitious to a belief in the supernatural, due to "the vast and gloomy virgin forests in whose perpetual twilight al1 terrors might well lurk," to Say nothing of the threat of Indians, with the Puritans existing on a battlefield between their Calvinist God and the Devil. Such "morbid introspection developed by an isolated backwoods life devoid of normal amusements and of the recreational mood, " lent itself to "tales of witchcraft and unbelievable secret monstrositiesrw which "lingered long after the dread days of the Salem nightmare. "'O0 The Puritan belief in the supernatural is illustrated by Cotton Mather's The Wonders of the Invisible World. He casts the Puritan settlers as religious immigrants to a diabolic wilderness: "The New- Englanders are a People of God settled in those, which were once the Devil's Territories. " Mather argues that, "The Devil thus Irritated, inmiediately try'd al1 sorts of Methods to overturn this poor Plantation." In respect to the Salem witch trials of 1692, Mather exclaims, "And we have now with Borror 66 seen the Discovery of such a ~itchcraft"lol The writing of literatuse for its own sake did not exist for the Puritans, as writing was considered a means to an end of expressing some truth, usually of a theological nature. Such historians as Perry Miller and Thomas He Johnson note that while the seventeenth-century American Puritans had maintained a concise, simple style throughout their voluminous writings, by as early as 1708, Cotton Mather was writing in the manner of the English essayists, and by 1722, a general change is observable in literary taste, due partly to the decreasing isolation of New ~ng1and.l'~ As the Puritan tradition faded, and superstition diminished under the Revolution's Enlightenment ideals of reason, the supernatural in literature persisted, particularly in local folklore, as popularized by Washington Irving's Headless Horseman or Rip Van Winkle. Such an example of the supernatural occurs in William Austin's short story, "Peter Rugg, the Missing Man," from the New Enqland Galaxv of September 10, 1824. A tale of a man doomed to travel for a century while searching for his Boston home, Austin's story depicts the reaction of a skeptical Yankee narrator who continues to encounter Rugg.
But even when faced with incontrovertible proof of the supernatural, Austin's narrator maintains a guise of skepticisrn, as he tells a toll-gatherer, "1 do not believe in witchcraft or enchantment.. .and if you will relate circuxnstantially what happened last night, 1 will endeavour to 67 account for it by natural means. "'O3 The Gothic novel provided a mode1 for Brown and Poe by which they could create terror fiction. Ronald Curran sees an "anxious form of nostalgiaw informing the English Gothic romance, as Medieval archetypes were extinguished with the end of feudalism, giving way to the Industrial Revolution. More significantly, the Gothic novel was a reaction to the "tyranny of reason" during the Age of ~nlightenment.'~' While some critics took issue with Radcliffe's explanation of the supernatural, J. M. S. Tompkins argues that it suited
Enlightenment sensibilities, as it preserved the notion of probability .los In terms of this influence on American literature, Oral Sumner Coad stresses that "the dominant influence on the whole body of American Gothic literature was Mrs. Radcliffe, " as fiction writers and dramatists f avoured such explanations of the supernat~ral.'~~Regardless of such explanations, however, William B. Cairns considers the effect of Brown's terrors to be "purely horrible, " suggesting that while the reader understands the events to be of a natural origin, he exnpathizes with the characters to "feelw the apparently supernatural character of such phenornena. Cairns suggests that although this treatment may have originated from Geman or English influences, "it was a natural American development from what had preceded," as "a literature of horrors seems to be a necessity." Since Walpole's invocation of the marvellous "could not satisfy the business-like 68
Americanw and Radcliffe 's explanations were considered "flat, " a "psychological treatment" which internalized such terrors
"obviated al1 dif ficulties ."'O7 G. R. Thompson sees the inclination toward "explained Gothic in peychological terms, a mode that preserved some ambiguity as to the real nature of events ."loe Therefore, Brown and Poe transfonned the trappings of their European Gothic materials into "the fantastic-uncanny," explaining the supernatural through pseudo-scientific phenomena, while maintaining an ambiguity which created terror in an American setting. Endnotes
Al1 references to Brown's novels are to the Bicentennial Edition unless othewise noted: Charles Brockden Brown, The
Novels and Related Works of Charles Brockden Brown, Bicentennial Edition (Kent, Ohio: Kent State UP, 6 vols., 1977-87) vol. 1: Wieland; or The Transformation. An American Tale with Memoirs of Carwin the Biloauist, eds. Sydney J. Krause, S. W. Reid, and Alexander Cowie (1977); vol. 2:
Ormond: or The Secret Witness, eds. Sydney J. Krause, S. W.
Reid, and Russel B. Nye (1982); vol. 3: Arthur Mervvn: or Memoirs of the Year 1793. First and Second Parts, eds. Sydney
J. Krause, S. W. Reid, and Norman S. Grabo (1980); vol. 4: Edoar Huntlv: or. Memoirs of a Sleep-Walker, eds. Sydney J. Krause and S. W. Reid (1984) . Al1 references to Poe's stories are to the following edition: Edgar Allan Poe, Collected
Works of Edsar Allan Poe, ed. Thomas Ollive Mabbott (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard UP, 3 vols., 1969-78) vol. 1: Poems (1969); vol. 2: Tales and Sketches. 1831-1842 (1978); vol. 3: Tales and Sketches. 1843-1849 (1978). Page numbers are indicated within parentheses in the text after the abbreviations CBB, for Charles Brockden Brown, or EAP, for Edgar Allan Poe.
l~avidPunter, The Literature of Terror: A Bistory of
Gothic Fictions from 1765 to the present dav (London and New York: Longman, 1980) 1, 18, 404-05. 'chris Baldick, introduction, The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales, ed. Baldick (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1992) xii-xiii.
3~oraceWalpole, preface to the first edition, The Castle of Otranto: A Gothic Storv, ed. W. S. Lewis (1764; Oxford: Oxford UP, 1964) 4.
4~.P. Lovecraft , t5upernatural Horror in Literature ,
Dason and Other Macabre Tales, ed. S. T. Joshi ( 1927; Sauk City, Wisconsin: Arkham Bouse Publishers, Inc., 1987) 375.
obias as Smollett, The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, ed. O M Brack, Jr. (1753; Athens and London: U of
Georgia P, 1988) 5.
ontqu que Summers, The Gothic Quest: A ~istorvof the Gothic Novel (London: Fortune P, nad. [1938]) 158.
7~evendraP. Varma, The Gothic Flame: Beinq a History of the GOTHIC NOVEL in Ensland: Its Oriqins , Ef f iorescence , Disintesration, and Residuarv Influences (London: Arthur Barker, Ltd., 1957) 75.
'clara Reeve, The Old Enqlish Baron. A Gothic Storv, ed.
James Trainer (1778; London: Oxford UP, 1967) 4.
9Ariatotle, Aristotle s Poetics, tram . S. II. Butcher (New York: Hill and Wang, 1961) (24.10): 109-10.
l0while Godwin deals with themes of crime and detection, the genre of detective fiction does not take shape until Poe invents it in 1841 with "The Murders in the Rue Morgue." 71 Godwin's viewpoint is "the reverse of virtually al1 subsequent detective fiction," as the law "is totally evil," which demonstrates the in justice of unequal social and political systems. Chris Steinbrunner and Otto Penzler , "William Godwin," Encvclo~edia of Mvsterv and Detection (New York: McGraw-Bill Book Company, 1976) 172.
''~dith Birkhead, The Tale of Terror: A Studv of the
Gothic Romance (London: Constable & Company Ltd., 1921) 63,
12eonamy Dobrée , introduction, The Mvsteries of Udol~ho,by Ann Radcliffe, ed. Dobrée (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1966) xiii.
145. A. Cuddon, introduction, The Pensuin Book of Horror Stories, ed. Cuddon (London: Bloomsbury Books, 1984) 37.
151eonard Wolf, appendix b : selections from the FANTASMAGORIANA, The Essential Frankenstein, ed. Wolf (New York: Plume, 1993) 302.
17~odorov,The Fantastic: A Structural Amroach to a
Literary Genre, trans. Richard Howard ( Ithaca: Corne11 UP, 1973) 56.
'*varma, The Gothic Flme 166.
lglaldick, introduction, Melmoth the Wanderer , by Charles
Robert Maturin, 1820; ed. Baldick (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1989) X, ix.
**~azlittwas amazed at the oblivion into which Godwin fell after his heyday in the 1790s:
Five-and-twenty years ago he was in the very zenith of a sultry and unwholesome popularity; he blazed as a Sun in the firmament of reputation; no one was more talked of, more looked up to, more sought after, and wherever liberty, truth, justice was the theme, his name was not far off: - now he has sunk below the horizon, and enjoys the serene twilight of a doubtful immortality . ..Sad necessityl Fatal reverse! 1s truth then so variable? 1s it one thing at twenty, and another at forty? 1s it at a burning heat in 1793, and below zero in 18141
William Hazlitt, "William Godwin, " The Spirit of the Ase: orL
Contemporarv Portraits (1825), rpt. in The Spirit of the Ase and Conversations of James Northcote, Esq., R.A., ed. P. P. Howe (London and Toronto: J. M. Dent and Sons, Ltd., 1932) 16-17, vol. 11 of The Complete Works of William Hazlitt (21 vols., 1930-34).
21[~illiam Maginn], "The Man in the Bell," Blackwood's
Edinburah Macrazine 10.57 (November 1821): 374.
22~ennisDuf fy, A Tale of Sad Realitv: John Richardson's Wacousta (Toronto: ECW P, 1993) 35.
23~ichaelHurley, The Borders of Nishtmare: The Fiction of John Richardson (Toronto, Buffalo, and London: U of Toronto
24~.F. Bleiler, introduction, Waqner, the Wehr-Wolf : A
Victorian Gothic Classic of the Su~ernatural, by G. W. M.
Reynolds, ed. Bleiler (1846-47; NewYork: Dover Publications, 73 1975) xiv.
25~eterHaining, ed., The Vampire Omnibus (London: Artus Books, 1995) 28.
26~odorov,The Fantastic. .. 41-42.
27~eller13.
28~illiam Godwin, pref ace, Caleb Williams, ed. David
McCracken (1794; Oxford: Oxford UP, 1970) 1.
29~eter8. Marshall, William Godwin (New Haven and London: Yale UP, 1984) 135-37.
30~odwin1-2.
31~.A. P. Sade, "Reflections on the Novel," The 120 Davs of Sodom and Other Writinss, trans. Ra Seaver and A. Wainhouse (New York: Grove P, 1966) 109.
32~homasGray, "To Horace Walpole, " 30 Dec. 1764, letter in Horace Walpole's Correspondence with Thomas Gray, ed. W. S.
Lewis (London and New Haven: Oxford UP & Yale UP, 1948) 2: 137, vol. 14 of The Yale Edition of Horace Walpole's Corres~ondence (48 vols., 1937-83).
33~ane Ho Adeane, ed., The Earlv Married Lif e of Maria Josepha Lady Stanley (1899), quoted in W. S. Lewis, introduction, The Castle of Otranto vii.
34 alter Scott], introduction, The Castle of Otranto, by Horace Walpole ( Edinburgh: 18 11 ) iii , xxxvi . 35~azlitt, "Lecture VI : On the English Noveliçtç ," Lectures on the Enqlish Comic Writers. ~eliveredat the Surrv Institution (London: 1819), rpt. in Lectures on the Enslish Comic Writers and Lectures on the Aqe of Elizabeth, ed. P. P.
Howe, 127, vol. 6 of The Complete Works of William Hazlitt
37~azlitt,"Lecture VI: On the English Novelists" 6: 127.
38~nonymous,"Vathek.. ., " The Enqlish Review 8 (September 1786) : 180-84.
39~nonpouç, "Art. 41. An Arabian Tale. . . ," The Monthlv Review 76 (May 1787): 450.
40[~cottl,"Art. XV. 'Fleetwood: or the New Man of
Feeling,' by WILLIAM GODWIN...," The Edinbursh Review, or Critical Journal 6.11 (April 1805): 182.
41~oequotes Shakespeare by mernory, and slightly alters Hamlet, 1.5.166-67: There are more things in heaven and earth, Aoratio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
William Shakespeare, The Traaedv of BAMLET, Prince of Denmark, ed. Edward Hubler ( 1623; New York: New American Library, 1963) 64.
**~d~arAllan Poe, "William Godwin, " Essavs and Reviewç ,
Library of America Edition, ed. G. Re Thompson (New York: Viking P, 1984) 259-60. 43~nonymous, "The Mysteries of Udolpho. .. , " The Critical Review; or, Annals of Literature 2nd ser. 11 (August 1794) :
362. In The Critical Response to Ann Radcliffe, ed. Deborah
D. Rogers (Westport, Connecticut and London: Greenwood P, 1994) 17-18, Rogers attributes this review to Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
44~nonymous,"Art. II. The Mysteries of Udolpho. .. , " The British Critic 4 (August 1794) : 121.
45 [William Endfield], "Art. VIII. The Mysteries of Udolpho ...," The Monthly Review 2nd ser. 15 (November 1794):
279-80.
46~.Go Lewis, "To his mother, " 18 May 1794, letter in The* Life and Correspondence of Mo G. Lewis [ed. Mrs. Cornwall (Margaret) Baron-Wilson] vol. 1 (London: 1839) 123-24. 2 vol S.
47~rown,"A Receipt for a Modern Romance, " Literar~Essavq and Reviews, ed. Alfred Weber and Wolfgang Schafer, in collaboration with John Re Holmes (Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Peter Lang, 1992) 8-9.
48~lihuBubbard Smith, "To his sistar, Mary S. Mumford, " 28 June 1796, letter in The Diarv of Elihu Hubbard Smith 11771-
1798), ed. James E. Cronin (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1973) 181-82.
49~rown latar reprinted this essay in an issue of his 76
Literarv Maaazine (June, 1804) with slight revisions. It was attributed to Brown by Charles B. Bennett in 1974. Charles E. Bennett, "The Charles Brockden Brown Canon, " Diss. (Chape1 North Carolina, 1974) 90-91.
"On a Taste for the Picturesque," Literarv Essays and Reviews 90.
l~rown, "Romances," Literarv Essavs and Reviews 143.
"Marvellous Stories," Literarv Essavs and Reviews
"Terrifie Novels," Literarv Essays and Reviews
55~adcliff e, The Mvçteries of Udolpho 662.
56~irkhead5 1.
s7~rown, "Remarks on Mysteries ,* Literarv Essavs and Reviews 176.
58~rown, "On the Cause of the Popularity of Novels," Literarv Essavs and Reviews 181.
s9 [scott], "Prefatory Mernoir to Mrs Ann Radclif f o, " The
Novels of Mrs Ann Radcliffe (London: 1824) xxiv, xxvi, xxvii, vol. 10 of Ballantyne's Novelists Library.
60~obréeviii .
l~non~mous,"The Monk. . ., " The Analytical Review 24 77
(1796): 403, quoted in Sumers, The Gothic Ouest 213.
62 [Samuel Taylor Coleridge], "The Monk.. ., " The Critical Review: or. Annals of Literature 2nd ser. 19 (February 1797): 198.
63 homa mas James Mathias] , The Pursuits of Literature. A Satirical Poem in Four Dialoques with Notes, 5th Edition (London: 1798) 293-94n.
64 [Coleridge], "The Monk.. ., " Critical Review 2nd ser . 19 (February 1797): 197.
65~azlitt,"Lecture VI: On the English Noveliçts" 6 : 127.
66~nonymous, "Horrid Mysteries. . . ," Critical Review (December 1797), quoted in Varma, introduction, Horrid
Mvsteries: A Storv Translated from the German of The Marquis of Grosse bv Peter Will, The Northanger Set of Jane Austen Horrid Novels (London: The Folio P, 1968) xiii.
67~ovecraft382-83.
68~itelTimm, "Carlylefs Translation of Tieck and E. T. A.
Hoffmann in German Romance," Novellas of Ludwiq Tieck and E. Te A. Bof fmann, trans. Thomas Carlyle (Columbia, South
Carolina: Camden Bouse, 199 1 ) viii.
69~homaçCarlyle, "Ludwig Tieck, " Novellas of Ludwis Tieck and E. T. A. Hoffmann, trans. Carlyle (Columbia, South Carolina: Camden Bouse, 1991) 16.
'Opoe, "Nathanid Hawthorne, " Essavs and Reviews 579. 78
"~n 1848, James Russell Lowell called Hawthorne "a John
Bunyan Fouqué, a Puritan Tieck, " in "A Fable for Critics, " The
~oeticalWorks of James Russell Lowell. Vol. III (1848;
Boston and New York: Houghton, Mif f lin and Company, 1890 ) 60, vol. 9 of The Works of James Russell Lowell, Standard Library
Edition (11 vols., 1890-92).
72~oe,"Baron de la Motte Fouque [sic], " Essavs and Reviews
252, 258.
3~oe,"Marginalia, " Essavs and Reviews 14 14.
74~urtonR. Pollin, "Undine in the Works of Poe, " Studies
in Romanticism 14.1 (Winter 1975): 72-73.
7s~ulfKoepke, introduction, Peter Schlemihl, by Adelbert von Chamisso, trans. Sir John Bowring (1861; Columbia, South
Carolina: Camden House, 1993) xvi.
76~non~ous,"A Chapter on Goblins, " Blackwood s Edinburcrh Maqazine 14.83 (December 1823): 641.
ranz Rottensteiner, The Fantasv Book: The Ghostlv. the Gothic. the Macrical. the Unreal (London: Thames and Hudson, 1978) 33.
78~abbott,Collected Works of Edcrar Allan Poe 2: 424x1.
79~igmundFreud, "The 'Uncanny, "* An Infantile Neurosis and Other Works, tram . James Strachey , Anna Freud, Alix Strachey , and Alan Tyson (1919; London: Hogarth P and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1955) 232n, 233, vol. 17 of The Standard 79 Edition of the Complete Psycholosical Works of Simund Freud (24 vols., 1953-74).
*OG. R. Thompson, " 'Proper Evidences of Madness ' : American
Gothic and the Interpretation of 'Ligeiag ,"ESO: A Journal of the American Renaissance 18.66 (1972): 47 n.1.
81~abbott2: 394.
82 [ ~cott] , "Art. II. - On the Supernatural in Fictitious Composition; and particularly on the Works of Ernest Theodore [sic] William Hoffmann," The Foreian Quarterlv Review 1.1
(July 1827) : 92-3, 94, 97. Future references to this article will be incorporated within the text, unless noted.
83~ercyBysshe Shelley, "On 8Frankenstein,"* The Athenaeum (10 November, 1832): 730.
84[~ohn Wilson Croker], "Art. V. Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus. 3 vols. London. 1818," The Quarterly Review 18.36 (January 1818): 382, 385.
*' [scott ] , "Remarks on Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus; a Novel," Blackwood's ~dinburgh Maqazine 2.12
(March 1818): 613, 614.
86[~cottl,'Art. II. - On the Supernatural in Fictitious Composition..." 73.
*' [Scott 1, "Maturin's Fatal Revenge.. ., " The Quarterlv Review 3.6 (May 1810), rpt. in Periodical Criticism. Vol. II (Edinburgh: 1835) 172, 162, vol. 18 of The Miscellaneous 80 Prose Works of Sir Walter Scott, Bart. (28 vols., 1834-36).
88 [~azlitt] , "Art. VI1 . - Sermons and Tracts; including Remarks on the Character and Writings of Milton, and of
Fenelon [sic]; and an Analysis of the Character of Napoleon Bonaparte. By W. E. Channing ...," The Edinburqh Review 50.99 (October 1829): 126-28.
89~non~ous,"Literary Remains of the late WILLIAM
HAZLITT...," The North American Review 43.93 (October 1836): 544
90~oe,"William Hazlitt, " Essavs and Reviews 272.
91~nonymous, "Art. VIII. - English Literature of the Nineteenth Century. ..," The North American Review 35.76 (July 1832): 188.
92~nonymous,"Art. VII. - Letters auxiliary to the Bistory of Modern Polite Literature in Germany. By HEINRICH HEINE...," The North American Review 43.92 (July 1836): 176.
93~nonymous, "Art. 1. - The Poets and Poetry of America; with a Bistorical Introduction. By RUFUS W. GRISWOLD...," The North American Review 58.122 (January 1844): 37.
94[~ydnay Smith], "Art. III. Statistical Annals of the
United States of America. By ADAM SEYBERT. 4to. Philadelphia, 1818," The Edinburqh Review 33.65 (Janua~y
1820) : 79.
ames es Fenimore Cooper, Notions of the Americans: Picked 8 1 UD bv a Traveilina Bachelor vol. 2 (1828; New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1963) 99, 100, 108.
96~athanielHawthorne, The Marble Faun, general editors , William Charvat, Roy Harvey Pearce, and Claude M. Simpson (1860; Columbus: Ohio State UP, 1968) 3, vol. 4 of The Centenarv Edition of the Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne (23 vols., 1962-94).
97~enry Jantes, "Hawthorne, " Theorv of Fiction: Henrv James, ed. James E. Miller, Jr. (1879; Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1972) 49-50.
98~ermanMelville, "Hawthorne and Bis Moçses By a Virginian Spending July in Vermont,'' The ~iazzaTales and Other Prose Pieces 1839-1860, ed. Harrison Hayford (1850; Evanston and
Chicago: Northwestern UP and Newberry Library, 1987 ) 246-48, vol. 9 of The Writinss of Herman Melville, The Northwestern- Newberrv Edition (15 vols., 1968-83).
"~rank Norris, "The Responsibilities of the Novelist, " Criticism and Fiction bv William Dean Howells and The
Res~onsibilities of the Novelist by Frank Norris ( 1903 ; Cambridge, Massachusetts: Walker-de Berry, 1962) 200.
lolcotton Mather, Cotton Mather on Witchcraft: Being The Wonders of the Invisible World (1692; New York: Dorset P, 1991) 14. lo2perry Miller and Thomas H. Johnson, eds ., The Puritans (New York: American Book Company, 1938) 815, 76.
103~illiamAustin, "Peter Rugg, the Missing Man, " American Short Stories of the Nineteenth Centurv, Everyman's Library
No. 840, ed. John Cournos (1824; London and Toronto: J. M.
Dent & Sons Ltd., 1930) 22.
lo4rtanald Curran , introduction, Witches , Wraiths and Warlocks: Supernatural Tales of the American Renaissance, ed.
Curran (New York: Fawcett Premier, 1971) 4.
lo5LM. S. Tompkins, The Pooular Novel in England, 1770-
1800 (1932; Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1961) 291.
'*'0ral Sumner Coad, "The Gothic Element in American Literature Before 1835," The Journal of Enqlish and Germanie
Philoloqv 24 (1925): 92.
107~illiam B. Cairns, "On the Development of American
Literature from 1815 to 1833, with Especial Reference to Periodicals," Bulletin of the U of Wisconsin: Philolocw and Literature Series 1.1 (March 1898): 64-65.
108~hompson, Poe e Fiction: Romantic Ironv in the Gothic
Tales (Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1973) 77. Chapter 2: Charles Brockden Brown
Charles Brockden Brown was the first native of the New World to draw upon the three genres of novels then prevalent:
the Gothic, the sentimental, and the philosophical. He was a pioneer in psychological terror literature, as well as in the portrayal of the American Indian. Brown displays a profound interest in contemporary radical theories and added the feature of the Utopian, proto-Nietzschean schemer to the characterization of his villains. In particular , the influences of William Godwin and the secret society of the Illuminati appear in several of Brown's works. Although much of Brown's canon suffers in construction £rom the rapidity with which the author wrote, his fiction still has an ineffable power to draw the reader into a world of Gothic terrors, which are given a national basis in a North American landscape. As well, Brown enchants his reader with freethinking larger-than-life villains, whose "Great energy employed in the promotion of vicious purposes, constitutes a very useful spectacle. "' Hazlitt notes that Brown wrote hiç fiction in a new nation that lacked European Gothic trappings. In order to create works with similar terrifying episodes, Brown internalizes his fiction to a greater degree than Godwin. Brown creates uncanny effects through the use of pseudo-scientific phenomena, utilizing such unusual devices as ventriloquism and spontaneous combustion to induce terror. In 84 addition, he produces terror through the depiction of unbalanced mental states that are receptive to religious mania and somnambulism, as well as through realistic depictions of the plague and Indian attacks. Brown is most indebted to Godwin's Caleb Williams for the psychological characterization of his villains, but he also owes a smaller debt to
Radcliffe's The Mvsteries of Udolpho for the explanation of the supernatural throughthe substitution of pseudo-scientific for Gothic machinery . As stated previously, Hazlitt contends that Brown carries the inspiration of Godwin "to disgust and outrage, " as Brown's works "are full (to disease) of imagination, - but it is forced, violent, and shocking .' Such a view is consistent with this English critic's perception of the New World, in which such works are "to be expected ...in a country like America, where there is, generally speaking, no natural imagination. " Since the geography of America lacks the antiquated castles and feudal remains of Europe, "The mind must be excited by overstraining, by pulleys and levers."
While this culturally specific view does not apply to al1 later American writers, it does relate to Brown's Godwinian interest in diseased psychology and his Radcliffean method of explaining the supernatural. The main thrust of Hazlitt's argument is that "no ghost.. .was ever seen in North America, " as it lacks the tradition of superstition "which f avours their appearance," since "the genius of America is essentially mechanical and modern. "' However, Hazlitt's view of a "ghost" is based on those encountered in European Gothic novels. Writing almost a century later, in 1923, D. He Lawrence notes that "Every continent has its own great spirit of place. " But he describes a more haunting, omnipresent spectre lurking in the New World: "At the bottom of the American soul was always a dark suspense.. .. " In his discussion of Cooper's novels, Lawrence notes: A curious thing about the Spirit of Place is the fact that no place exerts its full influence upon a newcomer until the old inhabitant is dead or absorbed. So America. While the Red Indian existed in fairly large numbers the new colonials were in a great measure immune £rom the daimon, or demon of America. The moment the last nuclei of Red life break up in America, then the white men will have to reckon with the full, force of the demon of the continent. At present the demon of the place and the unappeased ghosts of the dead Indians act within the unconscious or under-conscious sou1 of the white American, causing the great American grouch, the Orestes-like frenzy of restlessness in the Yankee soul, the inner malaise which amounts almost to madness, sometimes.
Lawrence views the land as haunted by the absence of Indians, which runs counter to Hazlitt's contention that America is free of spirits. In Lawrence's view, Gothic terror arises more from real historical immediacy, as ghostliness will no longer deal with late monarchs, but with the spectres of Indian figures and other dispossessed peoples. This dif f erence of views results from Hazlitt's exclusion of the Indians. To Hazlitt, the Old World is inhabited by ancient
European ghosts. In contrast, the New World necessarily lacks such spectres because of its relatively recent discovery by 86 Europeans. Therefore, Hazlitt feels no reason to suggest new kinds of ghostliness beyond the terms with which he discusses Brown's fiction. Nevertheless, Brown treats the rnatter in Hazlitt's terms, rather than Lawrence's, particularly in his last major novel, Edaar Huntlv. Brown's introductory note to this novel stresses his concern to avoid "Gothic castles and chimeras" in favour of realistic portrayals "of Indian hostility" (CBB 4 : 3). Unlike Lawrence, Brown sees the Indian as spectral only in his existence as a figure in the shadows ready to pounce upon European settlers. A brief discussion of Brown's life and his theory of literature will help elucidate his position as a pioneer of the American novel within the context of his time. Born into a prosperous Quaker family on January 17, 1771 in Philadelphia, then the largest city in the British Empire after London,' the frai1 and bookish Brown "seldom mingled in the sports of ~hildren,"~according to his first biographer, Paul Allen. By the age of sixteen, Brown had planned three epic poerns on the discovery of America and the conquests of Mexico and Peru. In addition, he had helped form the Belles Lettres Club, the purpose of which was to improve the members' ski11 in writing and eloquence.' Instead of entering the nearby University of Pennsylvania, he commenced a legal apprenticeship to Alexander Wilcocks in 1787. But the idealistic student left in 1793,' when he found too great a disparity between legality and morality. He had his first 87 work published in 1789, while he was still studying law. Yet his poem, a tribute to Benjamin Franklin, was printed erroneously as "An Inscription for General Washington's Tomb Stone," making it appear an insult instead of a tribute. Brown's interest in editing, a process by which he could retain more control over his work, probably dates from this eventag Brown's early hero worship of Franklin provided the thente for his novel, Arthur Merwn, a success tale which depicts an ambiguous protagonist who preaches Franklin ' s message of moral improvement, material advancement, and persona1 independence. Brown's admiration was shared by his contemporaries, as the Franklinian message of persona1 ambition, investment, thrift, and utilitarian work had become the prototype of the American citizen by the 1790s.1° Later in the year, his first series of essays, "The Rhap~odist,"'~was published, in which Brown assumes a role similar to Rousseau's promeneur solitaire. The influence of
Rousseau's novel, Julie. ou La Nouvelle Héloïse ( 1761) , prompted Brown's f irst plan for a novel, an epistolary romance called wJulius."12 Yet, when William Godwin produced his blueprint for anarchism, Enauirv Concernino Political Justice
(1793), and his novel, Thinqs As Thev Are: or, The Adventures of Caleb Williams (1794), Brown veered away from what he would cal1 "the voluptuous contagionWl3 of Rousseau to a radical perfectibilitarianism. He was further influenced by his Deist friend, Dr. Elihu Hubbard Smith, who described Brown's 88 transition : "Godwin came & al1 was light."" Rousseau's fiction provided reassurance and understanding to the gloomy, withdrawn youth, then living in what Russel B. Nye terms "a morbid world of oversensibility." In contrast, Godwin offered unequivocal, positive answers to difficult questions and, although Brown never became a thorough Godwinian, he discovered certain moral, political, and social ideas which provided a framework to support hiç own notions.15 In 1794, Smith introduced Brown to the Friendly Club of New York, whose membership included Brown's future biographer, William p un la p." Both men encouraged Brown to write, with Smith publishing the first two parts of the author's first book, Alcuin: A Dialoque, a discussion of the rights of women, in 1798. The last two parts, which raised radical questions as to the institution of marriage, were suppressed by Smith and not published until 1815, after Brown's death.17 During 1798, Brown contributed articles to James Watters ' Philadelphia periodical, The Weekly Maqazine, including "The Man At Home," a series of thirteen essays concerning a debtor hiding from his creditors, a section of which Brown cannibalized for the seventh chapter of Ormond; and an extract from his first novel, Skv-Walk: or, The Man Unknown to
Himself. This was printed, but al1 copies were destroyed with Watters' possessions when he succumbed to the yellow fever; the fever also killed Smith the same year and Brown narrowly escaped with his life. During a prolific period between 1798 89 and 1801, Brown had six novels published;18 the first four of these works fom the bulk of his literary fame. Wieland was his first published novel,lg and although he composed two unfinished works shortly after this, "Memoirs of Cawin, the Biloquistw and "Memoirs of Stephen Calvert," they did not appear in book form until 1822 and 1815 respectively. In
1799, Ormond, the first part of Arthur Merwn, and Edcrar Huntly appeared; in 1800, the second part of Mervyn was published; and in 1801, Brown's last novels, Clara Howard and Jane Talbot, were publi~hed.'~ In the "Advertisement" to hîs first novel, Wieland: or
The Transformation. An American Taie, Brown declares that his "purpose is neither selfish nor temporary, but aims at the illustration of some important branches of the moral constitution of manN (CBB 1: 3) Such a declaration was required in an era when novels were frowned upon as being "the last books which should be read,"" and when no less an authority than Thomas Jefferson argued that the reading of novels was a "poison" which "infects the mind ...destroys its tone and revolts it against wholesome reading,"" at least in regard to educational reading matter for young women. Cathy N. Davidson notes that while the novel was widely censured in Europe, "the criticism in America may well have reached its particular level of vehemence" due to its establishment in the wake of the Revolution. The possibility existed that the novel might persuade the socially underprivileged that they could assume an active voice in their society. This possibility "provided a locusw for the fears of many of the "best educated and most illustrious citizens" that mobocracy
was imminent "on both the cultural and political level. w23 Christopher Looby sees Brown's "Advertisement" as an intention to represent something essential about man's social being and about the specific conditions of American social existence. He views Wieland as an allegory of political and moral
experience, operating not in tems of direct correspondences to contemporary events, but in tems of a deep correspondence between the conceptual grammar of its plot and the leading representations of politics and history in postrevolutionary American c~lture.'~ Countering Jane Tompkins' assertion that
Wieland was designed "as a political tract, "25 Looby argues that such a simplification deters from Brown's artistic achievement, "a discouraged reflection on the tenability of the clah that a viable political order could be guaranteed by discursive reason without the aid of the unspoken loyalty and reverence that supported the legitimacy of previous
states. t'26 Brown's theory of literature is most succinctly articulated in "Walstein's School of History From the Gernan of Krants of Gotha," an essay from 1799. He argues that the aims of al1 branches of literature should be .. .ta exhibit the influence of some moral or physical cause, to enforce some useful maxim, or illustrate some momentous truth....Actions and motives cannot be truly dewribed. We can only make approaches to the truth. The more attentively we observe mankind...the greater will this uncertainty appear, and the farther shall we find ourselves from truth....To illuminate the understanding, to charmcuriosity, and swaythe passions, required that events should be copiously displayed and artfully linked, that motives should be vividly depicted, and scenes made to pass before the eye."
As Barry Ra Warfel notes, Brown appears to be asserting that he now wears the Gothic laure1 of fi~tion,~'as he ascribes the article to a fictitious German author. In addition, Pamela Clemit argues that Brown's essay expresses his "deep dissatisfaction" with the "original radical tendencym of
Godwin's ideas, such as his distrust of Godwin's belief in the sanctity of private judgment. Brown's critique of first- person narration demonstrates his growing doubts "about the ethics of personal testimony," which Godwin had held to be his note the Public, " Edqar Huntlv, Brown states his manifesto to use his own country as a setting for a nascent national literature, and advocates the superiority of natural horrors over the artificial ones of the Gothic school: One merit the writer may at least claim; that of calling forth the passions and engaging the sympathy of the reader, by means hitherto unemployed by preceding authors. Puerile superstition and exploded manners; Gothic castles and chimeras, are the materials usually employed for this end. The incidents of Indian hostility, and the perils of the western wilderness, are far more suitable; and, for a native of America to overlook these, would adnit of no apology (CBB 4: 3). Edaar Huntlv was the nearest approximation to the fulfillment of Brown's threefold purpose in writing fiction. While it enchains the attention more than any of his novels, 92 it instructs the mind by illustrating a moral, and it portrays distinctively American scenes .'O When Brown's brother, James, objected to "the gloominess and out-of-nature incidentsw of Huntlv, Brown felt his remarks to be "not just in their full extent," but he knew that most readers were likely to agree. To Brown, that alone was "a sufficient reason for dropping the doleful tone and assuming a cheerful one, or, at least substituting moral causes and daily incidents in place of the prodigious or the singular. " He affirmed, "1 shall not fa11 hereafter into that train."^' Brown's decision was purely a practical one, but it has been lamented and deplored by critics and readers alike. After four novels of Gothic terror, Brown wrote his last two novels in the sentimental, epistolary mode. Brown retired from writing novels to edit several periodicals. Bis later years were characterized by a rejection of radicalism and a turn to a more conservative stance. Jared Gardner notes that Brown finally gained more notoriety from his first political pamphlet, An Address to the Goverment on the Cession of Louisiana to the French (1803), than £rom his literary career .32 To al1 intents and purposes, he became a Federalist, although his magazines adhered to a neutral p~sition.'~ In hie last decade, he wrote four political pamphlets, translated a geographical work about America's soi1 and climate, and planned A Svstem of General Geocrra~hv,which he did not live to finish. He married in 1804, had four 93 children, but died on February 21, 1810 £rom tuberculosis.'" Placed within this historical framework, Brown's primary motive for writing fiction appears in his emphasis upon "calling forth the passions and engaging the sympathy of the reader, by means hitherto unemployed by preceding authors" (CBB 4: 3). Brown uses pseudo-scientific phenomena to create uncanny effects, a technique given a rationale in his dictum that "Actions and motives cannot be truly described," since "We can only make approaches to the truth. "'' The unusual devices Brown employs to explain the supernatural, spontaneous combustion and ventriloquisrn, are given verisimilitude by Brown's references to scientific descriptions of the phenomenon. Wieland begins with an account of the mysterious death of the elder Wieland by spontaneous combustion. Bis children, Clara and Theodore, are sheltered in a comf ortable, intellectual existence until their lives are interrupted by mysterious voices. Theodore, obeying what he interprets as a divine command, murders his wife and five children. Yet, the voices are revealed to have emanated from Carwin, a mischievous ventriloquist. Realizing his error, Theodore kills hhself . Although Brown does not refer to the term wspontaneous combustion" as such, he lends the device an apparently unquestionable degree of authority by a footnote, albeit one with an ironic conclusion:
A case, in its symptoma exactly parallel to this, is published in one of the Journals of Florence. See, likewise, similar cases reported by Mssrs. Merilie and Muraire, in the "Journal de Medicine," for February and May, 1783. The researches of Maffei and Fontana have thrown some light upon this subject (CBB 1: 19n).
It may be argued that Theodore is struck by the enlightenment of the elder Wieland in a similar manner to Brown's encounter with the Enlightenment writings of Rousseau. Brown's addition of an apparently reliable footnote to Clara's first-person narrative strengthens the credibility of her account, as she is a somewhat unreliable narrator. After carefully studying the subject, undoubtedly discussing it with his friend, Dr. Smith, Brown used the Continental journals as his authorities; he drew his mode1 for the scene probably from an article in the Arnerican Museum f rom April, 17 92. Yet this device remains a great challenge to credulity, since almost al1 discussions of its possibility remain ultimately non-committal, it being easier to accept the combustion than the spontaneous nature of its origin. '' However, the violent explosions and the mysterious, flitting lights attending the elder Wieland's combustion are entirely details of Brown's own invention. As Fred Lewis Pattee notes, Brown does not indicate that the elder Wieland was corpulent or addicted to alcohol, traits which are common to many recorded incidents of spontaneous comb~stion.~~ Brown describes the sudden illumination at the edifice on the rock where the elder Wieland worshipped, but depicts the combustion indirectly, as Clara narrates what her mother saw as she gazed from her window, some three hundred yards from the scene: A light proceeding from the edifice, made every part of the scene visible. A gleam diffused itself over the intermediate space, and instantly a loud report, like the explosion of a mine, followed. She uttered an involuntary shriek, but the new sounds that greeted her ear, quickly conquered her surprise. They were piercing shrieks, and uttered without intermission. The gleams which had diffused themselves far and wide were in a moment withdrawn, but the interior of the edifice was filled with rays (CBB 1: 16). When Clara's mother and uncle reach the area, the residue of the combustion is still apparent: Within the columns he beheld what he could no better describe, than by saying that it resembled a cloud impregnated with light. It had the brightness of flame, but was without its upward motion. It did not occupy the whole area, and rose but a few feet above the floor. No part of the building was on fire. This appearance was astonishing. He approached the temple. As he went foward the light retired, and, when he put his feet within the apartment, utterly vanished. The suddenness of this transition increased the darkness that succeeded in a tenfold degree (CBB 1: 17). Remarkably, the elder Wieland is still alive and not reduced to ashes as in some other instances of this phenornenon. Nevertheless, his wounds prove terminal. Clara recalls that when her father left the house, "besides a loose upper vest
and slippers," he also was wearing "a shirt and drawers," but "now he was naked; his skin throughout the greater part of his body was scorched and bruised." While Wieland's "right am exhibited marks as of having been struck by some heavy body," his clothes "had been removed, and it was not imnediately perceived that they were reduced to ashes. His slippers and
his hair were untouchedw (CBB 1: 18). As Steven Watts notes,
this scene is perhaps the most striking one in the novel. It provides "an arresting example of a character literally exploding from interna1 pressure, " a first instance of the "motif of individual disintegration" which pervades the narrative. je
The elder Wieland survives long enough to relate what happened to him: By his imperfect account, it appeared, that while engaged in silent orisons, with thoughts full of confusion and anxiety, a faint gleam suddenly shot athwart the apartment. Ais fancy immediately pictured to itself, a persan bearing a lamp. It seemed to come from behind. Be was in the act of turning to examine the visitant, when his right amreceived a blow from a heavy club. At the same instant, a very bright spark was seen to light upon his clothes. In a moment, the whole was reduced to ashes, This was the sum of the information which he chose to give. There was somewhat in his manner that indicated an imperfect tale. My uncle was inclined to believe that half the truth had been suppressed. While the "blow" on his right am suggests the possibility of homicide by a pyromaniac, Brown never clarifies this suspicion of t'suppressedm truth, which adds an additional layer of mystery to the scene. Clara relates the "more terrible symptomsw which were "betrayed" by "the disease thus wonderfully generated": "Fever and delirium terminated in lethargic slumber, which, in the course of two hours, gave place to deathmW However, Brown does not resist closing the scene with an injection of repulsive horror: "Yet not till insupportable exhalations and crawling putrefaction had driven from his chamber and the house every one whom their duty did not detaintg (CBB 1: 18). While such an unusual method for a character's demise would appear to have little chance of favour with the public, the device of spontaneous combustion proved to be a somewhat popular one and several later writers employed it. Washington Irving used the device to satiric effect in A Historv of New York from the Becrinnins of the World to the End of the Dutch
Dynastv ( 1809), while Captain Frederick Marryat utilized it for tragic atmosphere in Jacob Faithful ( 1834 ) . Other novelists who depicted the phenomenon include Herman Melville, in Redburn: His First Vovase (1849), Charles Dickens, in
Bleak Aouse (1852-1853), and Émile Zola, in Le Docteur Pascal
( 1893 ) . Other novelists, such as Nikolai Gogol, in Dead Souls (1842), and Honoré de Balzac, in Le Cousin Pons (1847), mention the phenomenon in passing. Curiously, almost al1 these authors, including Brown, describe the event of combustion from the perspective of children. Larry E. Arnold posits that such an "impossible" event could "be safely expressed through the naive eyes of young inno~ence."~~Even Thomas DeQuincey discussed its possibility, arguing in 1856 that fear of it was his excuse for returning to the use of opium.'* Arnold notes that Brown describes two conditions for spontaneous combustion which were not identified by eighteenth-century medicine: "a potentially explosive nature" as well as "a trance-like consciousness." These descriptive factors were not emphasized again until the twentieth century. Arnold ascribes Brown's inclusion of these traits to either "writer's luckw or a persona1 knowledge of an episode of spontaneous combustion in colonial Philadelphia which is "now lost to history. ""
Another sather unusual device that Brown uses to grasp the reader's imagination is ventriloquism. Also known as biloquism or ventrilocution, this pseudo-science was little understood but was f ar f rom an unknown practice in 17 98, being the subject of two articles in The Weeklv ~asazine that year." It is reasonably certain that Brown consulted the Encyclopedia: or, a Dictionan of the Arts, Sciences and Miscellaneous Literature , published the same year, which he later favourably reviewed. This work contained an account of Louis Brabant, a roguish ventriloquist from the sixteenth century, and one of more recent times. The Encvclo~edia's comments on the propriety of such proceedings may have suggested to Brown the f ictional possibilities of this arcane, esoteric art:
Though it is proper to make the existence of such an art universally known, it will readily occur to evesy reflecting mind, that the attainment of it should not be rendered easy to those who, like Louis Brabant, might make it subservient to the purposes of knavery and deception ." Christopher Looby notes that one of the uncanny effects which especially fascinates Brown occurs when seeing and hearing are misaligned in one of his characters' experience, as when a voice is heard but it appears to have no visible source.44 In his "Advertisement," Brown declares that while "the power which the principal person is said to possess can scarcely be denied to be real," he offers the following restriction: "It must be acknowledged to be extremely rare; but no fact, 99 equally uncommon, is supported by the same strength of historical evidence" (CBB 1: 3). In a footnote on "Biloquium, or ventrilocution," Brown states "This power is difficult to explain, but the fact is undeniable" (CBB 1: 198). Brown's interest in phenornena that seem to mark the point at which the actual and the fantastic meet is a consequence of his desire to cal1 forth "the passionsw and engage "the sympathy of the reader, by means hitherto unemployed by preceding authors"
(CBB 4:3). Previous authors had written natural or supernatural fiction; Brown's use of such pseudo-scientif ic devices as spontaneous combustion and ventriloquism, Todorov's "fantastic-uncanny," was a consequence of his desire for novelty . Written during the zenith of the Gothic novel, Wieland produces Gothic effects in a land barren of castles and devoid of ghosts . As previously noted, Hazlitt's observation that "no ghost, we will venture to Say, was ever seen in North America, "" demonstrates the depth of Brown's problem. Given such circumstances, materials were required which were startlingly unusual, but at the same tirne, not impossible occurrences. Not just a form of realism, these materials contributed to the uncanny ef fect Brown wished to create.
Brown admitted, "The incidents related are extraordinary and rare. Some of them, perhaps, approach as nearly to the nature of miracles as can be done by that which is not truly miraculous." Still, he hoped "that intelligent readers will 100 not disapprove of the manner in which appearances are solved," while stressing that *the solution will be found to correspond with the known principles of human nature" (CBB 1: 3). Brown's use of the "fantastic-uncanny" is evident in the concluding explanation which assigns the cause of the terror to natural devices, what Montague Summers terms the "Explained Supernatural. As Steven Watts notes, the device of ventriloquism symbolizes Carwin's fragmented self and its capacity for deceptiona4' In addition, Brown uses it to reveal the self's capacity for self-deception, as Carwin deceives himself with
his denial of responsibility: "1 am not this villain; 1 have slain no one; I have prompted none to slay ..." (CBB 1: 198). Bowever, as Les Daniels notes, Brown introduces a significant variation on Radcliffe, in portraying Canvin as mischievous and even malicious, but not as a murderous character, even
though he is described in a similar manner, especially in his piercing eyes, to the villainous Schedoni of Radcliffe 's novel, The Italian (1797).'* Cawin had warned the family away from the temple because he had been using it as a lovers' rendezvous and had interfered with Clara8s romance because of his infatuation for her, but he denies ever ordering the killings. He had inadvertently driven Theodore into a form of madness in which the divine orders came from his own troubled mind. When he is discovered in Clara's closet, Camin betrays his sense of inner fragmentation when ha tries to convince her 101 that an external power prevented him from accomplishing his designs upon her: "Be is my eternal foe; the baffler of my best cancerted schemes. Twice have you been saved by his accursed interposition. But for him 1 should long ere now have borne away the spoils of your honor" (CBB 1: 90). Pamela Clemit sees Carnin as an example of Brown's dramatization of the fear that "advances in knowledge have outstripped man's moral development," through Carwin's ventriloquial powermPg
Jay Fliegelman views Carwin's declaration, "Nothing less was intended, than to injure you" (CBB 1: 204), as "a quintessentially dialectic rernark." The implication is that one should not confuse the consequences of his actions with those of his intentions, but it is "neither a poorly phrased defense nor an ironically unintended confession." Instead, "it is a linguistic representation of the intractably conflicted view of accountability at the heart of a newly emerging humanitarian liberalism." Ultimately, Brown offers an analysis of "socially determined thought" that appears to be self-determined, because of "the invisible dynamics of its transmission. Louis S. Gross f inds Carwinfs behaviour to be "cruelly childish but nothing more.' His shifting persona and ventriloquial ability "mark him as a transforming personality , unscrupulous but not evil . Carwin8s ability to assume identities confuses both Clara and the reader. Brown does not reveal until later in the novel that Carwin had thrown the voice that had warned Clara not to open the closet 102 - the voice that cried, "Holdl Boldlt' (CBB 1: 85). Thus, it is instructive that Carwin appears to be in mortal awe of his ventriloquial power, even though he uses it mischievously.
When Cawin tells Clara, "1 cannot lift a finger to hurt you. Easier it would be to stop the rnoon in her course than to injure you," it appears as if he is merely smitten by her presence. But when he tells her, "The power that protects you would crumble my sinews, and reduce me to a heap of ashes in a moment, if it were to harbour a thought hostile to your safety" (CBB 1: 91), it seems less a rhetorical flourish than a sign of a bifurcated personality. Steven Watts argues that this scene demonstrates such a bifurcation in Carwin, whose survival as a type of psychological "confidence mant' was aided by his ability to assume identities and voices. This social chameleon embodies the "serial selfw of a liberalizing culture. With "no hard sense of self," Carwin exhibits what Watts terns "the identity diffusion of the personae." Yet, even though his individuality remains fragmented, Cawin remains the lone survivor in the psychological and social devastation of Clara's fa11 into "a long-suffering fatalisrn," and Theodore's madness and suicide. Watts concludes that Brown presents a terrifying portrait of a crumbling society, "from the collapsing supports of religion and the patriarchal family, of human agency choosing disastrously under the burden of social deceit, of liberated individuals whirling apart under the pressures of sensory delu~ion.~~~ 103 Looby notes that Brown himself acts as a ventriloquist by
creating the illusion of his characters' voices. He "imitates the voices of others and projects those voices in another place (the text) and in another medium (writing)." As well, Brown is "a speaker of an archaic, stilted, highly formal literary English" during a period of growing linguistic modernization and nationalism in Arnerica. Brown literalizes a projected voice, throwing his own voice into the text, and mimics an audible phenomenon through graphic technology. In ef f ect , the reader reverses this process by conceiving the voices of Brown's characters. In addition, the confusion of voices which Carwin creates is not too distant from the blending of voices in a community, represented figurally as a fusing together of separate voices. This ventriloquial theme may be extended to the legal system, in which lawyers spoke on behalf of their clients, and to the political system of the early American republic, in which legislative representatives, that is, designated voices, spoke for their constituents. Looby sees Carwin's destruction of communal felicity as Brown's method of illustrating the dangers intrinsic to the forms of political association in the early rep~blic.'~ Jay Fliegelman sees Brown's use of ventriloquism and fanaticism as questioning "al1 possible faith in the republican formula vox populi, vox Dei - the voice of the people is the voice of God. " In addressing "larger fears about the Jacobinization of the impressionable American mind, " Brown 's novel "of authority 104 misrepresented and authority imagined" ultimately depicts the fallibility of "democracy itselLW5' Brown declares that his purpose "is neither selfish nor temporary, but aims at the illustration of some important branches of the moral constitution of man" (CBB 1: 3). Jane Tompkins argues that this signals his intention "to enter a dialogue1' over "the proper forms of civic representation, and the right of citizens to overthrow their goverment." The plot of Wieland provides "a direct refutation" of the Jeffersonian faith in the capacity for self-governmentwithout the constraints of an ordered social establishment. Similarly, the disintegration of Wieland's social circle reflects Federalist doubts about the efficacy of education and religion in preparing citizens for self-government. Tompkins sees Wieland as "a patriotic n~vel,~as it attempts to reveal the dangers of mobocracy, "the Federalist nightmare," in the wake of the excesses of the Reign of Terror. Even the subtitle of the novel, An American Tale, underlines Brown's intent " .. . to make the picture of a single f amily a mode1 from which ta sketch the condition of a nation..." (CBB 1: 30).55 Brown recalls the fate of the elder Wieland with Carwin's allusion to the "heap of ashesw (CBB 1: 91), and the author maintains the uncanny quality of this protective " power" by his hesitation in revealing its ventiloquial nature. Carwin seems to hint that the mysterious voice, which protects Clara but appears to instigate her brother to murder, also may be 105 the cause of the spontaneous combustion. Brown's handling of his pseudo-scientific devices illustrates their uncanny nature, in spite of the diffusion of terror caused by his rational explanation of such phenomena. The question Mr. Falconer raises in Thomas Love Peacock's last novel, Grvll Granae (18601, demonstrates Brown's technique: "What can be more appalling than his Wieland? " As Brown' s novel carries "the principle of terror to its utmost limits," it remains "one of the few tales in which the final explanation of the apparently supernatural does not destroy or diminish the original ef fect. "'' While there is no specificity of detail to such assertions of "ef fect, Alexander Cowie admits that the novel exudes a pervasive sense of doom in which "the moral and the action are really identical with each other: no interpretation is needful." With no easy reconciliation, redemption, salvation, or compensation, it "is not a pitiless book, but it is a comfortless one," with a tone similar to
Hawthorne ' s The Scarlet Letter, although the latter ' a narrative perspective offers a greater element of hope.
Brown cornes close to pessimism with the "quiet but devastating ironym of Clara's opening remark, "No doubt it squares with the maxims of eternal equityt' (CBB 1 : 5 ) . Although Clara opens her narrative with a detached realization that neither reason nor religion can reconcile certain actions, Brown was not a nihilist, and he conveys the stoic suggestion "that one must accept, one must endure. " Cowie views Wieland's philosophical and religious rationale as being
essentially deistic, but modified by "fate. w57 In what amounts to a commentary on the early American republic, Brown offers a sober stoicism to the rational deism of Jefferson and Paine tinged with Calvinist fatalism. Although Brown constructs Wieland around motifs of terror, with the apparent
supernatural always in the f oreground, Pattee argues that this novel was still intended as a veiled sermonmS8 Brown's first novel remains the work upon which his reptation rests, both as a pioneering American novelist and as a Gothic writer. In a manner similar to the tone of Todorov's "fantastic- uncanny," Brown presents an unreliable narrator in Clara Wieland, whose rational education has not freed her from the grip of credulity and superstition: Where is the proof, said 1, that daemons may not be subjected to the controul of men? This truth may be distorted and debased in the minds of the ignorant. The dogmas of the vulgar, with regard to this subject, are glaringly absurd; but though these may justly be neglected by the wise, we are scarcely justified in totally rejecting the possibility that men may obtain supernatural aid (CBB 1: 180). Clara is not a reliable authority and remains susceptible to fears she can barely articulate. Pamela Clemit notes that a crucial element of Brown's "forma1 contribution to the Godwinian novel is his sophisticated development of the first- person narrative." Clara's "limited perspectivew involves the reader "in a chaotic and unexpectedly violent sequence of events, in which characters constantly mistake one anotherrs identity and intentions." Clemit argues that while Godwin's 107 Caleb Williams wstimulates the reader into active participation," Brown similarly "invites the reader to piece together contradictory bits of information. " But while
Godwin's rational ah is to challenge his reader as an "impartial enquirer," Brown "turns the provisional quality of the narrative to a radically dif ferent end, aiming to shock the reader by successive revelations of the limits of rational knowledge, " as the benign Wieland transforms into a raving rnadman and Carwin, "the conventional villain, " in Clemit ' s opinion, "proves to be relatively harmless." Clemit argues that Brown develops the Godwinian novel for
"conservative purposes " by using an unreliable narrator " to capture and baffle the reader's curiosity." Brown moves beyond Godwin "in emphasizing Clara's limited point of view, which reinforces his thematic interest in subjective delusion at a forma1 level. "59 Cathy N. Davidson notes that although Clara's "obsessed narrative" is told in retrospect, "for the narrator and the reader, the events are now, here." Just as the "retelling itself is a monument to compelling Gothic experiencesw which are "over but by no means finished," Davidson sees Clara's situation as a result of "the uncannyfs intrusion into the natural processes of life, " f rom which "things have been diverted and to which they should more or less return." However, for someone who must be on his guard, "in even the most mundane circumstances," such a proposition is hardly teassuring. Davidson argues that "once reader and character have experienced the Gothic's unpredictable disorder," any order which is re-established is one which "is no longer certain." Noting the Radcliffean "compulsion to explainw in American Gothic literature, Davidson concludes that even this "explanatory mode" only transfers "mystery ...from the external world to the internal," rather than offering a solution for its caused0 Although Clara quickly dismisses a supernatural connection with Carwin, she maintains the possibility that the supernatural may exist: The dreams of superstition are worthy of contempt. Witchcraft, its instruments and miracles, the compact ratified by a bloody signature, the apparatus of sulpherous smells and thundering explosions, are monstrous and chimerical. These have no part in the scene over which the genius of Cawin presides. That conscious beings, dissimilar from human, but moral and voluntary agents as we are, some where exist, can scarcely be denied. That their aid may be employed to benign or malignant purposes, cannot be disproved (CBB 1: 180-81). Such considerations add to the mystery of Brown's novel, as Clara never breaks free from the realm of the fantastic, as she remains unable to accept the natural explanations which the reader finds reasonablee6' At the beginning of her narrative, Clara claims, "Futurity has no power over my thoughts," arguing, "Henceforth, I am callous to misfortunew
(CBB 1: 5). In addition to explaining the supernatural through such pseudo-scientific devices as spontaneous combustion and ventriloquism, Brown creates non-supernatural terror in his depiction of religious mania in Wieland. Brown followed the lead of his contemporaries, arguing that his tale was based on actual occurrences, a claim which was not completely false in the case of Wieland. The issues of the Philadel~hiaMinerva for August 20 and 27, 1796 probably served as Brown's source for the murders. They related the story of James Yates, a gentle, noble, and pious farmer near Tomhannock, New York, who, on a Sunday afternoon in 178 1, suddenly became insane and killed his wife and four children. Like Wieland, Yates did not evince the least remorse, had unsuccessfully attacked his sister, and had escaped from confinement, been retaken, and tried/' Brown not only elicits stark, repulsive horror when the results of Wieland's fanaticism are revealed, but Jay
Fliegelman notes that Brown punctures the complacent faith of his reader in the rationality of his own naturd3 Shirley Samuels notes that the Wieland family is representative of the nation. While the threat to the family by the outside world, embodied by Carwin, encourages and promotes "a conservative, closed mode1 of the family," such a "closed circle of incestuous violence" reveals that the real threat to the Wielands is an interna1 one? In the scene in which Clara inquires as to the safety of her brotherfs children, the response she receives from Mr. Hallet echoes that of Ross in Macbeth/' when Macduff inquires as to the welfare of his wife and children: New ideas now rushed into my mind. 1 fixed my eyes stedfastly on Mr. Ballet, "Are they well?" said 1. 1s Louisa well? Are Benjamin, and William, and Constantine, and Little Clara, are they safe? Tell me truly, I beseech youl" "They are well, he replied; "they are perfectly safemw "Fear no effeminate weakness in me: 1 can bear to hear the truth. Tell me truly, are they weî.17" Be again assured me that they were well (CBB 1: 156). After being disabused of any hopes as to their safety, the scene darkens when Clara becomes anxious to see Louisa, her slain adopted niece, one final the: They led the way into a darkened hall. A lamp pendant £rom the ceiling was uncovered, and they pointed to a table. The assassin had defrauded me of my last and miserable consolation....I hoped for liberty to print a last kiss upon her lips. This was denied me; for such had been the merciless blow that destroyed her, that not a linernent remainedl (CBB 1: 157).
Believing his father's death was caused by a divine agency in punishment for failing to obey a heavenly decree, Theodore determines not to procrastinate and possibly incur the same fate. Theodore's insanity is inherited from his father, who created a strict religious code for himself. Wieland's religious mania is hi3 ruling passion and is emphasized by the subtitle of the novel. The transformation of his xenophobic Calvinism into a destructive, soaring fanaticism mirrors the transformation from a loving husband into a heartlesa murderer, and gives the work a tragic quality, which Pattee describes as "Grecian" in its unities and intensities of terror. The voices Wieland hears are produced by an imagination deluded by years of brooding on his father's fate. Brown presents the story in a Greek manner: a man of happiness is transformed into a man of sorrows through no apparent fault of his own. Both Clara and Carwin are innocent of intended crime, yet both are caught in the grip of hideous forces. Pattee describes the work as pure tragedy: "Into the opening chapter the reader plunges as into an infernal gloom and not once does he emerge into the sunlight until the victim of divine wrath has been destroyed. "
Pattee argues that the novel is "a study in dementia," which touches Clara, Theodore, and Carwin to different degrees. In this psychological approach, Brown produces al1 the materials for a clinical analy~is,~~as he depicts the morbid influence of the father's fanaticism on his son, whose reasons for his insane murder spree are rooted in religious insanity.
In his essay, "Fanaticism" (1848), John Greenleaf Whittier praises Brown as "a writer whose merits have not yet been sufficiently acknowledged." While he describes Wieland as "the victim of a deep, and tranquil because deep, fanaticism," he brands Carwin as "a demon in human form." Whittier condemns the proponents of revealed religion who put their trust in faith over reason:
Alas for man when he turns from the light of reason and from the simple and clearly defined duties of the present life, and undertakes to pry into the mysteries of the future, benildering himself with uncertain and vague prophecies, Oriental imagery, and obscure Bebrew textsl Whittier argues that "in the entire range of English literature there is no more thrilling passage than that which describes the execution of this baleful suggestion," and acknowledges that "the masters of the old Greek tragedy have 112 scarcely exceeded the sublime horror of this scene from the American novelist." Whittier concludes by admonishing that
Wieland's "...perusal by the sectarian zealots of al1 classes would perhaps be quite as profitable as much of their present studies. "='In Whittier's view, Brown's depiction of madness was far more terrifying than his use of pseudo-scientif ic devices, as the potential for unbalanced mental states outweighs the terrors implicit in such rare phenomena as spontaneous combustion. Insanity of a different type appears in Brown's last major novel, Edqar Huntlv: or, Memoirs of a Sleeo-Walker, which is believed to be a revision of his first, lost novel, Skv-Walk. Writing at the zenith of his career as a published novelist, Brown returns to the subject of disturbed mental states which he had explored less than a year earlier in
Wieland. Jared Gardner notes that Huntlv is "a detective story," but one "that is deflected into a series of explorationsn that lead Huntly "seemingly f ar f rom his original purpose. Brief ly, the novel relates the adventutes of Edgar Huntly, a man whose friend, Waldegrave, has been mysteriously murdered. He discovers a sleepwalker, Clithero Edny, digging under the elm where Waldegrave's corpse was found. After some thrilling adventures, Huntly confronts Edny, who protests his innocence in Waldegrave's murder, but relates his own unfortunate history. Edny had fled from Ireland with an exaggerated feeling of guilt after a series of 113 bizarre incidents. Convinced of his innocence, Huntly detemines to help Edny overcome his traumatic experiences. While sleepwalking, Huntly follows Edny into a cave without knowledge of how he arrived there. The last half of the novel recounts his Herculean labours to return home, as he defends himself against a panther and a band of Indians. Finally,
Buntly meets his old tutor, Sarsef ield, who tells him that Edny did not kill his benefactress as he believed. Edny goes insane after Huntly tells him this news and, faced with imprisonment, he drowns himself. Waldegrave is revealed to have been killed in an Indian raid.
If Huntly had just left Edny alone, if Huntly was not driven to alleviate a conscience which feels more guilt than Godwin's Falkland in Caleb Williams, Edny would have lived out his days in relative tranquility, and Sarsefieldfs wife, Mrs. Lorimer, would not have lost their child through a miscarriage. While Richard Slotkin argues that impulsiveness "is HuntlyOs besetting sin,"69 Elizabeth Jane Wall Hinds notes that Huntly resembles Carwin in his "motiveless curiosity," the real reason behind the "sheer benevolence" of his pursuit of Edny." Edny also resembles Carwin, as they both hail from Ireland and were raised to a secretarial station by a wealthy benefactor. Unlike the insanity of Wieland, Ednyfs madness does not stem from his brooding over matters of religion. Rather, Edny 's problem contrasts Wieland's relationship to his deity. While Wieland finds no 114 difficulty in acting under what he believes to be divine directions, Edny finds difficulty in dealing with what he believes to be an excessive degree of beneficence from his patroness. Ormond Courtney, the character corresponding to
Edny in Skv-Walk, suffers the same dilemma. Courtney cites a sirnilar motive in not asking his patroness to aid his friend: "1 was besides unwilling to augment the burthen of obligation, which already exceeded my strength . Af ter Huntly tells Edny that Euphemia Lorimer lives, Edny exclaims: "Rash and infatuated youth. Thou hast ratified, beyond appeal or forgiveness, thy own doommW This is an overpowering shock to Buntly's trust in the salutary powers of reason, and in the entire Enlightenment structure of the moral contagion of sensibility," since Huntly's logical appeal is met with the madness of Edny's illogical reaction. While Huntiy had tried to cure this delusion, he merely transforms Edny's passive madness to active homicidal insanity. Edny raves: "If she be alive then am 1 reserved for the performance of a new crime....If she be dead, I shall make thee expatiate" (CBB 4: 289). With his "impulse of misguided ...but powerful benevolence" (CBB 4: 290), the incessantly well-meaning Huntly has created nothing but intolerable grief. The novel appears to be Brown's indictment of officious busybodies, as the well-meaning Huntly interferes in Edny8s life to a greater extent than Arthur
Mervyn ever does with his associates; Huntly is an obtrusive 115 blunderer who is senselessly codtted to human caring, without understanding the consequences of his good intentions. Sydney Je Krause also notes that, to a certain extent, "the apparent inversion of good and evil' in this novel invokes Burke's contemporary notion of sublime terror, by which abhorrence becomes a property of exaltation and repulsion
attracts. Yet out of this cornes the inescapably destructive corollary that, with Huntly's fall, down corne the prime suppositions of Enlightenment meliorism or Shaftebury's curative moral of the spontaneous virtues of the hea~t.'~ Another unbalanced state which Brown uses to gothicize
the human mind is somnambulism. Although he employs it in a brief episode near the end of Arthur Memn and wrote a story entitled "Somnambulism: A Fragment," which was published anonymously in 1805 ," Brown uses the device in Buntlv as a manifestation of the double motif, as both Huntly and Edny are sleepwalkers Buntly argues that sleepwalking "denotes a mind sorely wounded, " when he first sees Edny sleepwalking; he notes that "thoughts, which considerations of safety enables them to suppress or disguise during wakefulness, operate without impediment , and exhibit their genuine ef f ects , when the notices of sense are partly excludedmW Such thoughts "are shut out from a knowledge of their intire [sic] condition" (CBB 4 : 13) . Huntly reveals that he is more perceptive of the actions of others than of himself, as he later also succumbs to somnambulism. The obsession with which Huntly tries to 116 ease Edny's burden leads Bill Christopherson to argue that the central dilemma of Huntlv is whether or not we should "accost our night-walking selves." This dilemma seems far more
inscrutable at the end of the novel, as the secrets that Huntly and Edny conceal by day cause them to walk at night, the opening of their chests being akin to opening Pandora's
box. Once Huntly recognizes his brutal nature in the wilderness, the only manner in which he can return to
civilized society is to close his eyes to the truths he has discovered. This symbolic, willful action allows him to finally sleep, after having wandered through the wilderness. Christopherson notes that "the sleep of evasion" is required
to assuage the universal guilt in Huntlyts civilized society, one characterized by "literal sleepers and figurative
sleepwalkers. n76 Carroll Smith-Rosenberg asks whether
Huntly 's somnambulism metaphorically represents "Euro- Americans' mystification of their colonizing origins," since Brown suggests that Euro-Americans "can never completely abandon their connection with the colonized, for to do so would be to refuse their identity as Euro-Americans." This leads to the conclusion that "the Euro-American is always a divided self. "" Leslie A. Fiedler affirms that the most terrifying thing about somnambulism is its apparent universal potential; any man might awaken to find himself at the bottom of a pit, since "We are al1 sleepwalkers. "" David Lee Clark offers the opinion that, in his depiction of somnambulism, Brown never so well displayed such "keen insight into the springs of human actions, that subtle analysis of morbid conditions of mind," and "that almost ghoulish force in calling forth terror £rom the common facts of life."79
The non-supernatural element of terror found in Ormond; or The Secret Witness corresponds that Arthur Mervyn : namely, the devastation of the plague. Besides the fearsome terror of the situation, Brown arouses sentiments of repulsive horror in the reader, as he dwells upon the loathsome putrescences left in the wake of the yellow fever. In describing the fate of a victirn, he notes, "Every thing about her was in a condition noisome and detestable." Brown details the victim's "yellowish and haggard visage, consgicuous by a feeble light," amid "an atmosphere freighted with rnalignant vapours" (CBB 2 : 52 ) . One passage exhibits an instance of morbid justice. Whiston, a Cooper who deserts his sister when she contracts the fever, flees to the protection of the country : After travelling some hours, being exhausted by want of food, by fatigue, and by mental as well as bodily anguish, he laid hirnself down...in a vacant field. Here he was discovered in the morning by the inhabitants of a neighbouring farm house. These people had too much regard for their own safety to accomodate him under their roof, or even to approach within fifty paces of his person (CBB 2: 48).
After a stranger carries Whiston to a barn, he meets a bitter
Whiston, deserted by every human creature, burning with fever, tormented into madness by thirst, spent three miserable days in agony. When dead, no one would cover his body with earth, but he was suffered to decay by piecemeal. Such a gruesome fate is also dealt to those who deserted this deserter in his hour of need: The dwelling, being at no great distance £rom the barn, could not be wholly screened from the malignant vapour which a corpse, thus neqlected, could not fail to produce.. ..the master of the family became sick. He was, in a short tirne, followed to the grave by his mother, his wife and four children....The life of Whiston and their own lives might have been saved by affording the wanderer . .. treatment, or at least, their own deaths might have been avoided by interring his remains (CBB 2: 48-49). Brown comments ironically here on the actual state of affairs among the f earf ul people encountering the pestilence; he condemns the cowardly and praises those such as Constantia, who selflessly nurses the stricken Mary, Whiston's sister. The plaque figures even more prominently in Brown's third novel, Arthur Merwn: or. Memoirs of the Year 1793, published in two parts in 1799 and 1800. For his plot, Brown returned to the yellow fevet episode in Ormond and expanded it to encompass the First Part of Merwn. For this reason, the Second Part has not been esteemed as highly by critics, who also deplore its lack of structure. But, while Norman S.
Grabo aees the Second Part as an artistic afterth~ught,'~ Michael Warner sees the most interesting element of the novel is "the way its interna1 shifts reproduce the contradictions between republican print discourse and a liberal-national imaginary." Warner argues that Merwn may be read "as a conscious thematization of novelistic fictionality," since "it derives from the same anxieties about personality structure 119 and social order that made fiction so suspect in republican
America. "a' Brown's narrative is extremely complex, with convolutions and narratives within narratives reminiscent of the Gothic novel, yet a concise outline of the main plot may
be given. The tale of Arthur Mervyn is that of a country lad who finds his fortune in the city. Evicted from his fatherfs farm, he reaches Philadelphia penniless and is taken in by Thomas Welbeck as a secretary. Mervyn imagines a romantic past for his patron and, following in Caleb Williamsf path,
hounds his master for the story of his life. Welbeck confesses to forgery, to murder, and to being a spendthrift who has incurred large debts. Welbeck unsuccessfully tries to drown hinself in the river at night and returns for twenty thousand dollars he has hidden. When he finds the money in Mervynfs possession, he pretends that it is forged; when Arthur burns the money, Welbeck turns apoplectic with rage. Welbeck leaves after heaping curses on the feverish boy. After regaining his health, Mervyn meets Welbeck by chance in
a debtor's prison. Welbeck makes some atonement for his past misdeeds before he dies and Arthur marries wealthily. In thie novel, Brown gives his closest description of an
urban centre." Norman S. Grabo argues that the city of Philadelphia itself assumes almost "the aspect of a character whose conditions generate the actions of most of the other characters, and whose contagions infect all. "" The City of Brotherly Love quickly transforms itself into one of fratricidal fear, as the pestilence wreaks havoc with the lives of its inhabitants. Brown's gruesome description of the city in the midst of the plaque is worthy of a painting by Bosch: The usual occupations and amusements of life were at an end. Terror had exterminated al1 the sentiments of nature. Wives were deserted by husbands, and children by parents. Some had shut themselves in their houses, and debarred themselves from al1 communication with the rest of mankind. The consternation of others had destroyed their understanding, and their misguided ateps hurried them into the midst of the danger which they had previously laboured to shun. Men were seized by this disease in the streets; passengers fled from them; entrance into their own dwellings was denied to them; they perished in the public ways. The gruesomeness of the plague multiplies its terror exponentially : The chambers of disease were deserted, and the sick left to die of negligence. None could be found to remove the lifeless bodies. Their remains, suffered to decay by piecemeal, filled the air with deadly exhalations, and added tenfold to the devastation (CBB 3: 129). In his descriptions of the plaque scenes, Brown has been favourably compared with Daniel Defoe. Les Daniels argues he surpasses Defoe ' s work, Journal of the Plaque Year ( 1722 ) , because Brown achieves an intimacy through hie own experience which Defoe could not have attained through historical recordd4 Furthemore, Shirley Samuels suggests that Mervvn addresses the "conjunction between contagion and politics" in
1793. As French refugees from the Reign of Terror f looded Philadelphia, consematives feared that they harboured the dangerous potential of infecting American democracy with the seeds of Jacobinism. Brown intensifies the effectiveness of his plague descriptions by allowing Mervyn to almost succumb to the pestilential fever. Writing about the devastating visitation of the plague, Brown produces a strong taphephobia in the reader, with such scenes as the one in which Menryn encounters a premature burial:
Death seemed to hover over this scene, and 1 dreaded that the floating pestilence had already lighted on my frame. 1 had acarcely overcome these tremors, when 1 approached an house, the door of which was open, and bef ore which stood a vehicle, which 1 presently recognized to be an hearse. .. . Presently a cof f in, borne by two men, issued from the house.. . .Their features were marked by ferocious indifierence to danger or pity. One of them as he assisted in thrusting the coffin into the cavity provided for it, said...It wasn't the fever that ailed him, but the sight of the girl and her mother on the f loor. I wonder how they al1 got into that room. What carried them there? The brie£ dialogue encapsulates the struggle of sympathy with pragmatism: The other surlily muttered, Their legs to be sure. But what should they hug together in one room for? To Save us trouble to be sure. And 1 thank them with al1 my heart.... This sympathetic undertaker continues to express his doubts: "it wasntt right to put him in his coffin before the breath was fairly gone. 1 thought the last look he gave me, told me to stay a few minutes." However, the cruel pragmatism of his gruff counterpart expresses how valuable life has become in such circumstances: "Pshawi He could not live. The sooner dead the better for him; as well as for usw (CBB 3 : 140) . Mervyn almost falls prey to the same fate when he is knocked unconscious and mistaken by the same undertakers for a corpse. Mervyn is left shuddering "to reflect, by what hair-breadth means 1 had escaped being buried alive" (CBB 3: 149). Yet perhaps the most terrifying incident which Brown relates occurs in the hospital, where those still alive are just left to die and even the journey there is excruciating. Wallace tells Mervyn, In a state like mine, the slightest motion could not be indured without agony. What then must 1 have felt, scorched and dazled [sic] by the Sun, sustained by hard boards, and borne for miles over a rugged pavement? 1 cannot make you comprehend the anguish of my feelings. To be disjointed and tom piece-meal by the rack, was a tonnent inexpressibly inferior to this. Nothing excites my wonder, but that 1 did not expire before the cart had moved three paces (CBB 3: 172-73). Shirley Samuels notes that instead of providing "a mode1 for private emulation, the public institution of the hospital represented a threat," as it "created the impression that private spaces, the home, the room, had to be protected against public violation. "86 The atmosphere of the hospital can charitably be described as ghastly:
1 lay upon a mattress, whose condition proved that an half-decayed corpse had recently been dragged f rom it . The room was large, but it was covered with beds like my own....The atmosphere was loaded by mortal stenches. A vapour, suf focating and malignant , scarcely allowed me to breathe. No suitable receptacle was provided for the evacuations produced by medicine or disease. My nearest neighbour was struggling with death, and my bed, casually extended, was moist with the detestable matter which had flowed £rom his stomach. You will scarcely believe that, in this scene of horrors, the sound of laughter should be overheard. While the upper rooms of this building, are filled with the sick and the dying, the lower apartments are the scene of carrousals and mirth. The wretches who are hired, at enonnous wages, to tend the sick and convey away the dead, neglect their duty and consume the cordials, which are provided for the patients, in debauchery and riot. A female visage, bloated with malignity and drunkenness, occasionally looked in. Dying eyes were cast upon her, invoking the boon, perhaps, of a drop of cold water, or her assistance to change a posture which compelled him to behold the ghastly writhings or deathful smile of his neighbour. The visitant had le£t the banquet for a moment, only to see who was dead.. ..a coffin was deposited at the door, the wretch, whose heart still quivered, was seized by rude hands, and dragged along the floor into the passage (CBB 3: 173-74).
As David Lee Clark notes, such scenes were not exaggerations of a romancer's idle mind, but vivid representations of the facts; Brown was a realist, and such descriptions were "the spirit of realism then finding its way into fiction. w87 Mathew Carey, a member of the Cornmittee of Health who witnessed the plague, wrote in a later edition of his conunittee report: "Arthur Merwn gives a vivid and terrifying picture.. .of the horrors of that period.
Donald A. Ringe notes that by describing real situations, such as the condition of the hospital, Brown "was able to use these Gothic materials for a serious social purpo~e."~~ But Brown's terrifying descriptions are not confined to the plague. In the course of the novel, Mervyn is placed in such macabre circumstances as attending the secret burial of the murdered Watson in the cellar of Welbeck's house and precipitating the death of Susan Hadwin with fatal news, later burying her himself. Wallace almost succumbs to the same fate as that of Whiston in Ormond (CBB 3: 109-13, 274-75, 281, 268-
In addition to the non-supernatural terrors of the 124 plague, Brown exploits the potential for terror implicit in
Indian attacks in Edqar Huntlv, one of the first novels to include Indian characters . Just as the plaque decimates the urban centre, the Indians menace Huntly in the rural landscape. While Brown f oreshadows Fenimore Cooper ' s description of the "toils and dangers of the wilderne~s"~' with his account of Huntly's escape to civilization, Brown's Indians are malevolent creatures of the night. Presented as obstacles to be overcome in a dangerous landscape, they lack the individual specificity of Cooper's most mernorable noble savages , Chingachgook and Uncas. Together with the panthers, they represent the horrors of border life, in which Old World civilization is under constant assault by New World primitivism. In contrast, somnambulism and Edny's insanity delineate the psychological wanderings of the human mind, conditions which indicate that the veneer of rational civilization will not entirely expunge the irrational primitive lurking beneath the surface. Indeed, this might be said to be Brown's first novel to situate itself entirely within the confines of the New World, since, at the conclusions of his earlier novels, the survivors of Wieland go to Europe, and those in both Ormond and Mervvn plan a trip to Europe in the immediate future. Brown preferred to Gothicize nature, rather than utilize the trappings of European Gothicism in an American setting. Be writes of nocturnal journeys through a tortuous landscape of labyrinthine pathways, craggy eminences, caverns, and cavities within the caverns. Sydney J. Krause notes that such "mazy pursuits are recapitulated with the pursuer himself pursued, twice rising from the dead,"" and involuntarily compelled to kill, though abashed at "the deeds which perverse nature compels...rational beings to perform and to witnessl" (CBB 4: 202). Krause argues that the Indian section lies in "the rather substantial subgenre of the captivity narrative," with Buntly resembling an escaped hostage. The captivity narratives owed their popularity not only to their explicit gore, depicting as they did the delight of Indians meting out torture; they also catered to contemporary readers' delight in taking such stories at face value; the public would devour such gruesome tales with the understanding that these were factual terrors people like themselves had survived. In addition, such works provided the admonishing lesson of not straying unwarily into such situations. But, given the unabated "horror-mongering" standards of the genre, Brown appears comparatively restrained." The descriptions of Buntly battling the Indians are exciting, being well calculated to keep the reader in suspense. An example is the scene in which Huntly rescues the girl from the old hut and finds himself to be a target: He that was still posted in the hovel would mark me through the seams of the wall, and render my destruction sure.. ..The bullet grazed my cheek, and produced a benumbing sensation that made me instantly fa11 to the earth....I loosened not my grasp of the gun, and the posture into which 1 accidentally fell enabled me to keep an eye upon the house and an hand upon the trigger. Perceiving my condition, the savage rushed from his covert in order to complete his work; but at three steps from the threshold, he received my bullet in his breast. The uplifted tom-hawk fell from his hand, and, uttering a loud shriek, he fell upon the body of his cornpanion (CBB 4: 192-93). Brown's Indians are £rom the Delaware tribe, and they are given a phantom-like quality that intensifies the terror they produce. Fiedler notes that these "aboriginal shadows do not even speak. They merely threaten by their very presence."g4 Grabo denotes the muteness of the Indians as being their real savageness, which makes them so terrible, but also so easily destroyed, as if "£rom some nightmare without word~."~~This terrifying silence distances the reader £rom identifying with them as individual characters, while it helps to keep Huntly as the focus of attention. Krause argues that "Brown's style of hostile Indian promotes a fuller awareness" of the context of pure terror and unreason "which awaits man in a state of nature. "96 Brown's use of Indians grounds his tale in reality, as does his use of land ownership as a primary theme. Huntly does not own land, and al1 the major events of the novel take place in disputed land. Elizabeth Jane Wall Binds notes that Huntly resembles Edny in becoming "increasingly disinherited" after havinq comenced adult life as an orphan. Huntly's hopes for financial security through rnarriage to Waldegrave's sister evaporate when Weymouth daims the fortune of his late friend. After the Indians kill his uncle, upon whom he is dependent for subsistence, the patrimony f alls to a cousin. Buntly's problem of disinheritance has long been faced by the Delaware who feel dispossessed from their land, as their inheritance was seized by the European colonists and their descendants. Both disinheritances lead to acts of revenge, as the Indians ' murder of Waldegrave spurs Huntly to his killing spree of five warriors. Hinds notes that this revenge £ails, since the inmiediate source of Huntly's financial di£ficulties remains unaltered. Weymouth and Sarsefield, the novel's capitalist entrepreneurs, each hold keys to Buntly's future, but each removes "the only real economic opportunity he is seen to have," and leaves him to bemoan his lack of "family- and land-basedN support. Hinds traces Buntly's "inability to adjust to an economy of public regulation" to the expanding capitalism of the period, as Brown describes both "the public and private disturbances" of the new, market economy which
"had invaded the ego-security as well as the fiscal consciousness" of the American citizenryeg7 In addition to the problems of land ownership, Huntly confronts the perils of the wilderness. After enduring the hazards of escaping from a cave, Huntly finds that he has leaped from the proverbial frying pan into the fire: The darkness was no less intense than in the pit below, and yet two objecte were distinctly seen. They resenbled a f ixed and obscure f lame. They were motionless. Though lustrous themselves they created no illumination around them. This circumstance, added to others, which reminded me of similar objects, noted on former occasions, inunediately explained the nature of what 1 beheld. These were the eyes of a panther (CBB 4: 166). Carroll Smith-Rosenberg notes that he must kill not only "the savage American Indian," but also "its alter ego," the "panther," who is also "savageN and "native American." After he slays the beast "Indian style,"g8 with his tomahawk, Huntly needs to satiate his hunger, yet Brown is tasteful in his description without losing the inferential impact of Huntly's act: My hunger had arrived at that pitch where al1 fastidiousness and scruples are at an end. 1 crept to the spot.. ..I will not shock you by relating the extremes to which dire necessity had driven me. 1 review this scene with loathing and horror. Now that it is past 1 look back upon it as on some hideous dream. The whole appears to be some freak of insanity. No alternative was offered, and hunger was capable to be appeased, even by a banquet so detestable (CBB 4: 167). The repulsive horror Huntly feels in reverting to an animal state foreshadows the ambiguous terrors of the wilderness that Hawthorne would explore decades later. Such portrayals of New World dangers, together with Brown's use of pseudo-scientific devices and his depictions of madness and plague, contributed to his translation of Gothic terrors from a European to an American setting. In generai outlook, as well as in his dismissal of traditional Gothic machinery , the one European Gothic writer who exercised the most influence on Brown was William Godwin. The influence of Godwin permeates Brown's fiction and offered him a mode1 by which he could create a terrifying situation of persecution, one which allowed him to explore the interna1 psychology of his characters , while avoiding the trappings of the 129 supernatural. Godwin's influence first appears in the fragment entitled "Mernoirs of Carwin the Biloquist," which was probably written after Wieland, but did not appear in print until it was serialized in Brown's The Literaw Maqazine from 1803 to 1805. The last three installments appeared at irregular intervals, which leads one to infer that Brown had exhausted his old material and found it difficult to continue the various plot threads. It is tempting to regard this unfinished novel as being related to Wieland in the same fashion that Bram Stoker's "Dracula's Guest" is related to Dracula, that is, as a self-contained story. But Brown's
sequel, or rather, prequel, is itself in need of a sequel, as
Cowie notes.gg The story recounts the life of Francis, or Frank, Cawin before his encounter with the Wielands, frorn his early days as a rustic lad endowed with ventriloquial powers to his coming to the attention of Ludloe, an enlightened,
mysterious European who induces Carwin to travel with him to Ireland. Ludloe opens his house to Cawin and, after a period of tutelage, sends him to Spain to obtain a first-hand view of life under the Inquisition. Upon his return, Ludloe of fers him entry into a vast secret society, but requires Cawin to
give a full confession of his life. Calwin tells all, with the exception that he fails to inform his patron of his powers as a ventriloquist, as he has resolved to keep this power a secret. Yet Ludloe, who possesses remarkable insight into Cawin's past, is not satisfied, and promises to give him 130 another chance; here the work ends. "Cawin" is basically Brown's version of Godwin's Caleb Williams; in fact, certain elements of Williams appear in al1 of Brown's major novels, but the similarity of Godwin's plot remains closest to "Carwin" and Arthur Mervvn. Caleb Williams focuses on the relationship between an enlightened gentleman, Ferdinand0 Falkland, and his servant, Williams. Falkland's obsession with chivalric notions of honour, combined with a guilty conscience, bring him to regard Williams' intrusion into his privacy as an unpardonable act. Williams cornes to believe that Falkland's melancholy is induced by guilt from a murder of which he was acquitted. Plagued by an unquenchable curiosity, Williams is caught in the act of opening a mysterious chest by Falkland. The latter admits his guilt and his determination to hide it at any cost. Williams retains his love and admiration for his master, but Falkland drives him to an attempted flight from which he is captured and imprisoned on a sputious charge of theft. Williams escapes, but lives the life of a hunted creature, and is driven to use disguise to elude Falkland's spies. Williams f inally denounces his ex-master, but only ruins his own reptation further and gains Falkland's eternal enmity. After much suffering, Williams returns to make a solemn accusation against Falkland. Upon meeting the dying Falkland, Williams is overcome by grief, while Falkland realizes his error, praises Williams ' patience, and dies. But in Godwin's 131 original version, still extant in manuscript form, the novel concludes far more darkly, with Falkland dying without a reconciliation with Williams, who deteriorates into insanity in prison. 'O0 In 1832, Godwin recalled his composition of Caleb Williams and stressed the magnitude of his intention: "1 said to myself a thousand times, '1 will write a tale, that shall constitute an epoch in the mind of the reader, that no one, after he has read it, shall ever be exactly the same man that he was bef ore. ' "'O1 That such an eff ect was produced upon Brown is not to be doubted.lo2 Brown acknowledged Godwin as his master, finding transcendent merit in his work. The resemblances to Brown's work are evident: the curiosity motif; the relation of an older man of powerful mind and will to his youthful protege, who provokes him to persecution by either curiosity or a desire to withhold a secret; a fugitive wanted by the law for crimes falsely charged by his ex-master; and a mysterious chest containing documents or letters which the owner is anxious to keep hidden. This latter motif corresponds to Brown's use of boxes in three works: Craig's strongbox in Ormond, Clithero's in Edaar Huntlv, and a third in "The Man At Home."103 As well, the cornmon Gothic theme of being under surveillance, "the thematization of paranoia," reaches its peak under Godwin. James Thompson argues that "the eeriness found in a Walpole, Reeve, Radcliffe, Lewis, or Maturin novel is nothing like the anquish of isolation which Caleb experiences in his world in prison."104 Brown would explore such paranoid themes in greater detail, both externally, in the fonn of conspiracies, and internally, in
the form of unbalanced mental states. Brown makes the parallel to Godwin explicit in Wieland
when Carwin confesses: "1 cannot justify my conduct, yet my
only crime was curiosity" (CBB 1: 205-06). Brown refers to Carwin as "the principal personv (CBB 1: 3) in his "Advertisementw to Wieland, and, indeed, his presence pervades the atmosphere of the novel much more than either of the Wielands. Cawin's early history demonstrates the Godwinian doctrine of how one who is threatened early in life and forced to lie will not relinquish the habit. Godwin details the dangers unsavoury environment Political Justice: Men who grow up in unpolished ignorance and barbarism, and are chilled with the icy touch of poverty, must necessarily be exposed to a thousand sources of corruption, and cannot have that delicate sense of rectitude and honour which literature and manly ref inement are found to bestow. lo5 In his actions, Cawin demonstrates that criminality is not hereditary but a product of environment. Brown agrees with Godwin on this point, as he depicts Cawin8s early intention to use ventriloquism to convince his greedy father to allow him to live with his aunt. He is halted by a "burst of thundern which causes him to believe that his "scheme was criminal" (CBB 256-57). The secrecy with which Carwin maintains his ventsiloquial ability becomes his "lie." He confesses, "1 felt the utmost reluctance to be guilty of a 133 falsehood, but by falsehood only could I escape detectiont'
(CBB 257). Bis secrecy leads to the rupture of his connection with Ludloe, which occurs along the same lines as that of Caleb Williams and Falkland. The influence of Godwin through internalized, psychological character studies permeates Brown's second published novel, Ormond: or The Secret Witness, in which Brown traces the machinations of a powerful Nietzschean anti-hero.
As insidious a character as Ludloe, Ormond dernonstrates
Brown's Faustian thesis, "The world is governed, not by the simpleton, but by the man of soaring passions and intellectual energy ."'O6 The plot revolves around Constantia Dudley, a virtuous girl who, along with her father, is reduced to poverty when cheated by Craig, an apprentice who embezzles their fortune. They survive the yellow fever plaque of 1793 in Philadelphia, and she comes to the attention of the wealthy Omond. Onnond rescues the Dudleys from indigence for selfish reasons; his aim to possess Constantia results in his rejection of his mistress, Helena, who commits suicide. Constantia's f riend, Sophia, distrusts Ormond's motives and advises Constantia not to see him again. When Ormond encounters Constantia in a secluded farmhouse, he confesses that he ordered Craig to kill her father, who had objected to their union. In addition, he reveals that he has just killed
Craig. Omond is about to assault her when Constantia stabs him in the heart. 134 Since its publication, Ormond has lived in the shadow of
Wieland, next to which it appears a lesser novel. In 1834, William 8. Prescott deplored that this second novel "presents few of the deeply agitating scenes, and powerful bursts of passion, which distinguish the fir~t."'~~Even as late as
1991, Donald A. Ringe found Ormond "not so successful as Wieland," with its virtues being "relatively rnin~r."~~~A more moderate view was put f orward by Martin Samuel Vilas, who wrote in 1904: "...on the whole, [it] stands considerably above others of Brown, though destitute of the power of Wieland. " Vilas declares, "In the portrayal of [Ormond], 1 detect more art than anywhere else in Brown's work~."'~~ David Lee Clark argues that Ormond is a tragedy, not of a weak mind such as Wieland' s, but of a powerf ul and enlightened mind wrecked by a master passion over which he has no control. Ormond is not moved, as Carwin was, by a juvenile fascination with evil, but by a consuming desire to conques and possess whatever the heart craves. '1° The character of Ormond is that of an ideal Godwinian hero, a perfectibilian who finds al1 forms and degrees of control to be intolerable, but he is corrupted by his own selfish interest. For example, Godwin states, "Sincerity and plain dealing are eminently conducive to the interest of mankind at large."'ll Although Carwin uses his ventriloquial powers for duplicitous purposes, Ormond is duplicity personified. Russel B. Nye argues that disguise, "the depth 135 of insincerity,' becornes a way of life for him: his guiding principle is to reveal as little as possible, while "he aff ected to conceal nothing ." Bis prof essed "aversion to duplicity" is itself duplicitous. Ormond is the perfect actor , the consumate deceiver; "his career, in the theatrical profession" would have proved "illustrious, had not his condition raised him above it." In his roles, "his dramas were not fictitious but real," his dissembling not mere play- acting but actuality. Sophia understands that the real Onnond is impenetrable, for the one we see is perpetually playing a game of "stratagems and artificesw (CBB 2: 114-16). Ormond's gift for impersonation symbolizes the ultimate of concealment of self, which is the loss of self. While the Enlightenment believed in the virtues of benevolence as opposed to self- interest, Brown explores the limits of optimistic enlightenment, as Ormond inverts the values of benevolence. As Nye notes, Ormond's degree of selfishness is as extreme as is Constantiats degree of self lessness. Il2 Having no illusions about human nature, he distinguishes "between men, in the abstract, and men as they are" (CBB 2: 112). Although Ormond seems to be a Godwinian, he inverts Godwin's theories to his own self-interest. The best example of this appears in Godwin's view of necessity in Political Justice:
Freedom of the will is absurdly represented as necessary to render the mind susceptible of moral principles: but in reality, so far as we act with liberty, so far as we are independent of motives, our conduct is as independent of morality as it is of reason, nor is it possible that we should deserve either praise or blame for a proceeding thus capricious and indisciplinable. 11' Godwin explains in a later chapter, If self-love be the only principle of action, there can be no such thing as virtue....Virtue requires a certain disposition and view of the mind, and does not belong to the good which may accidentally and unintentionally result f rom our proceeding .Il4 In contrast, Brown is very interested in unintentional consequences and operates on a contrary principle to what
Steven Watts tems Godwin's blending of ethical individualism with unrelenting utilitarianism. Ormond 's cynical philosophy denies the beneficial influence he could exert: Whether he went forward, or stood still, whether his motives were malignant, or kind, or indif f erent , the mass of evil was equally and necessarily augmented. It did not follow £rom these preliminaries that virtue and duty were tems without a meaning, but they require us to promote our own happiness and not the happiness of others. Not because...the happiness of others is unworthy of primary consideration, but because it is not to be attained. Our power in the present state of things is subjected to certain limits. A man may reasonably hope to accomplish his end, when he proposes nothing but his own good: Any other point is inaccessible (CBB 2: 112-13). Krause demonstrates that, on the one hand, Brown insists on seeing necessitarianism through to its logical end (whatever one's motives, "evil was equally and necessarily augmented"), and, on the other hand, veers toward Helvetius and d'Holbach and their doctrine of self-interest as the mainspring of human conduct ( "virtue and duty .. . require us to promote our own happiness"). The latter was arrant egotism to Godwin, who found it possible to reconcile what seemed an 137 inherent contradiction, an underlying necessitarianism
( denying free will), with the validity of duty and persona1 virtue as capacities nonetheless dependent on an assessrnent of moral motivation. "6 Brown tries to strike the compromise that while benevolence is a worthy desire, one can not ignore the fact that it is frequently "reversed in the real state of mankind. " Brown recapitulates his stand on Godwinian morality :
A wise man will relinquish the pursuit of general benefit, but not the desire of that benefit, or the perception of that in which this benef it consists , because these are among the ingredients of virtue and the sources of his happiness (CBB 2: 113). Brown continued to explore Godwinian themes in his next novel, Arthur Merwn, which again utilizes the formula of
Caleb Williams. The Mervyn-Welbeck relationship is a variation on that between Carwin and Ludloe, which was, in turn, a variation of that between Caleb Williams and Falkland. Welbeck and Falkland differ in the circumstances leading to their villainy; Welbeck's boundless passion for wealth is contrasted with Falkland's obsessive desire for reptation. They are driven to confess their crimes by the ceaseless curiosity of their respective secretaries. While Falkland's motives are not as mean and sordid as Welbeck's, Mervyn is more admirable than Williams, at least according to David Lee
Clark. Il7 Norman S. Grabo initially anathematizes Mervyn 's character in bombastic tems: What is Arthur Mervyn? Be tells us himself, near the end of this book: "childishly unlearned and raw; a barn-door simpleton; a plow-tail, kitchen-hearth, turnip-hoeing novice. " Good enough, for a start. But many a reader will gladly take the hint and fil1 out the picture - a double-dealing, smug, lying, self-serving, smiling villain. A sanctimonious sly manipulator; a cunning and shrewd con man, sadistic torturer, arrogant voyeur! A sponging, main-chance-minding, boorish louti But Grabo illustrates how this view is fostered by Mervyn's never-ending naivete,"' which somehow always places hirn in the most advantageous position, and gives hirn the appearance of an opportunist . Larzer Ziff sees Mervyn as a benevolent figure, and since he "cuts through al1 doubts about the reliability of appearance by asserting his ability to shape the world to the image in his mind, " it should not be surprising that this image "is a virtuous one." However, Ziff acknowledges that the doctrine that "informs" his behaviour "is one that may as readily endorse deception."12' Michael Warner argues that MervynOs character should not be interpreted ironically, but in a more complex manner. Mervyn's intrusiveness into the affairs of others is not only "the source of his virtue," it is "an inquisitiveness seeking to escape the state of ignorance." Mervyn's "acquisition of knowledge has the dramatic function of virtuous action," yet
Brown keeps him "in a condition of ignorant dependence which is the antithesis of virtue. "12' Another favourable view of Mervyn's character has been put foward by Re W. B. Lewis, who maintains that this "foolish young innocentw is the first mode1 of an "American
Adam," an archetypal Franklinian ~aierican.'~~ In terms of 139 Mervyn's competence to deal with evil, as Welbeck remarks in
a telling understatement about one of his own female conquests, "less can be said in praise of [his] understanding, than of [his] sensibilitiesw (CBB 3: 95) . In this respect, as an anonymous British reviewer noted in 1820, in "the language and conduct of Edgar Huntly and Arthur Mervyn there is a certain Colonial cast of frankness, frugality, and intelligent simplicity ...betokening the American notions of the qualities best befitting the youth of their republic. In terms of villainy, Ormond might be said to surpass both Welbeck and Cawin in the sense that he does not repent his crimes at the end. As Ernest Marchand notes, "Carwin and Welbeck in the end apparently accent the validity of ordinary moral values, and seem to know remorse. Ormond is guilty of no such feeble apostasy. wH4 Neither has Welbeck the ambition of a Utopian scheme, as does Ludloe, or the possession of a ventriloquial power, as does Cawin. Ultimately, what prevents Welbeck from being dismissed as a threatening figure is his persistence in crime, which continues long after he would have been expected to see the error of his ways. Godwin's influence on Brown also appears in the latter's fourth novel, as Edgar Huntly is yet another reincarnation of Caleb williams. It is Huntly's insatiable curiosity which leads him to open Edny8s strongbox: "1 intended not a theft. 1 intended to benefit myself without inflicting injury on others" (CBB 4: 115). At other thes, he readily admits, "1 was principally stimulated by an ungovernable curiosity" (CBB 4: 29). Elements of Godwin's influence on Brown continued to the end of his career as a novelist. Brown's last two novels have been rightly criticized as lesser works. Harry Ra Warfel's comment is typical: In Clara Howard, Brown tossed aside his most distinctive and his most attractive substancea...Horror and terror, not love and romance, were Brown's proper precinct. By withdrawing from the areas of terror, ha became merely another purveyor of romantic narrative, Warf el f inds that Jane Talbot " has its moments, " but "lacks high passions and monsterlike characters. In fact, the only element of terror in these novels is a brief reference to the Philadelphia yellow fever plague of 1798 in Jane Talbot. Clara Howard; In a Series of Letters centres upon Edward Hartley, a poor country lad who loves a rich girl, Clara Howard; but his previous lover, Mary Wilmot, still loves him. Mary vanishes and Clara sends Edward to find and propose to her. But Mary becomes happily married to a man named Sedley, allowing Clara and Edward to live happily ever after as well. Jane Talbot. A Novel focuses upon a love affair between Henry Colden, a Godwinian radical, and Jane Talbot, a young widow.
Their romance is interrupted by Jane's adopted mother, Mrs. Fielder, who refuses to give her consent to their marriage because of Colden's views. In addition, a letter has been forged by another jealous woman to implicate the young lovers in a scandale Eventually, Mrs. Fielder realizes her error, 14 1 gives her consent, and dies, leaving the two lovers free to marry . However, Brown's last two novels have more recently been analyzed for their philosophical content, as Krause f inds that
Brown was putting Godwin's moral and social ideas "on trial," and that he found Godwin's ideas ta be wanting. The experience of such characters as Clara Howard and Henry Colden with Godwin implies that his moral philosophy was as easy to believe as it was impossible to live by, which, considering the many irrelevant criticisms of Godwin in his day, "at least has the virtue of meeting him on his own gr~unds."~'~ Nevertheless, Godwin's daughter, Mary Shelley, found Howard
"very stupid," in her journal for November 30, 1814. A fortnight later, in her entry for December 15, she called Talbot a "very stupid book - some letters so so - but the old woman in it is so abominable - the young woman so weak - & the young man the only sensible one in the whole the authour of course contrives to bring to idiocy at the end.""'
While Radcliffe and Godwin had the greatest influence on Brown, in terms of explaining and avoiding the supernatural, another Gothic novelist, Karl Grosse, showed Brown the fictional potential for terror through the depiction of a secret society . Grosse's German novel, Der Genius ( 1796 ) , was translated as Horrid Mvsteries later the same year. Although it is probably most famous as one of the "horrid" novels mentioned in Jane Austen's Northanqer Abbev, this novel also 142 gained notoriety for its depiction of a secret society based on the Illuminati. The Society of the Illuminati was bent upon the destruction of an outmoded system, as was Godwin. But the
fornier group, which became the prototype for al1 succeeding secret societies in literature and the public imagination in general, was a source of terror even for European governments. Professor Adam Weishaupt founded the Society at the University of Ingolstadt in May, 1776 "to reform mankind" along lines of equality, fraternity, and rationality. With several German princes and even Goethe among its menibers, the society grew to nearly three thousand by 1784. After being suppressed in 1787, the Illuminati continued to instill fear in established governments and was popularly believed to have been the architect of the French Revol~tion.~~~ The Illuminati became a topical subject in literature, and appear in such works as the translatorts note appended to the English translation of Schiller's The Ghost-Seer (1795) and John Robison8s Proofs of a Cons~iracvauainst Al1 the Reliaions and Governments of Europe ( 1797 ) . One may infer that the Illuminati profoundly impressed Brown from the numerous references to it in his magazines and other publications besides his novels. At the end of his "Remarks on Mysteries," Brown notes that "mysterious fraternities seem to have abounded in al1 ages," and argues that "such fraternities have been much more numerous than is commonly imagined." But he believes that if the jealously guarded ceremonies of such societies were to be revealed, as in "the institution of free-masonry," the mystery "would probably turn out to be trivial or ridiculous." Yet Brown acknowledges the power of mystery on the minds of the public: "...as long as it is known only to the initiated," such devices "will always be a stimulus to the curiosity and ambition of those without the pale. lZg
Still, Brown never became a convert to the doctrines of the Illuminati, even though its principles may have modified his social outlook. Brown's mature social philosophy might well be expressed in his own words: Men are liable to error, and though they intend good, may commit enormous mistakes in the choice of means. While they imagine themselves laboring for the happiness of mankind, loosening the bonds of superstition, breaking the fetters of commerce ...they rnay ...annihilate...not merely the fetters of commerce and feudal usurpations upon property but commerce and property themselves. The apology which may be made for such is that though their activity be pernicious their purposes are pure.130 Brown reveals himself politically as a quintessentially Lockean liberal, who holds property as sacrosanct. In "The Man At Home," he argues for the necessity of imprisoning debtors : "Ta those who imagine imprisonment too heavy a sentence, it may be urged that every thing which endears or dignifies human existence depends upon the sacredness of property." Brown contends "that goverment is instituted for no other beneficial purpose but this," and that "means suitable to this purpose are not merely useful to the state, they are essential to the existence of human ~ociety."'~' 144 Having flirted with the radical doctrines of Rousseau and then Godwin, Brown seemed to have found a compromise in the less extreme philosophy of Locke. In Brown's "Mernoirs of Carwin," Ludloe is called "the eulogist of sincerity" (CBB 1: 273) by Carwin, who is awed by the grandiose nature of his Utopian schemes. Ludloe8s Irish background provides an added dimension. The af f airs of any foreigner were open to suspicion at the time of Wieland's publication, 1798, the year that xenophobia reached its peak in America with the passing of the Alien and Sedition Acts. The first three Acts - the Naturalization Act, the Alien Act, and the Alien Enemy Act - were aimed largely at French refugees and Irish immigrants who had been hostile to the current administration. They were largely a response to the
XYZ Affair, in which French diplomats had sought money £rom American envoysen2 Pamela Clemit declares that "party feeling was at its heightN during 1798. The Republican party, the ancestor of the present Democratic party, which was f ormed by Thomas Jefferson in 1792, espoused "the high ideal of man's innate integrity." But while Jefferson advocated an agrarian society with minimal goverment, the Pederalists, under President John Adams, had a more "pessimistic" view of society, and advocated '*the need for external controls to maintain law and ~rder."l~~The Sedition Act elicited the most opposition of the four Acts. Richard Buel, Jr. notes that the Federalists' "real purpose" in "the early sedition 145 prosecutions was intimidationt' of Republicans. However, the extreme severity of the statutes and their partisan spirit produced an inunediate popular reaction throuqhout the nation. The Republican response, the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798-1799, was an attempt to convince an unreceptive public
"that the Federalists were indeed violating the Constitution." Some Federalists believed that a civil war was imminent, but although the Resolutions were defeated, they coincided with French overtures for conciliation, which inflicted considerable damage upon the ~ederalists,as it undercut their efforts to prevent any renewal of pro-French sentiment and led to their Party's downfall in the election of 1800.134 Robert S. Levine notes that anti-Illuminati fears began to wane by the spring of 1799, partly "because not one member of the Illuminati had ever been discovered in America." To most of the American public, the Federalists ' Alien and Sedition Acts appeared "to be the most threatening signs of political self- interest on the domestic scene. w135
The widespread belief in plots was not "a symptom of disturbed minds, " according to Gordon S. Wood, but "a rational attempt ta explain human phenornena in terms of human intentions and to maintain moral coherence in the affairs of men." Such a mode of thinking "was neither pathological nor uniquely American ." 136 In such a context, the Irish Clithero Edny represents as dangerous an "alien" to Edgar Huntly as the Irish Ludloe does to Carwin. Jared Gardner declares that throughout Edqar Huntlv, "the frishman is increasingly made equivalent to the Indian, and with the darkest savagery of the
wilderness. Clemit notes that Federalist alarm over the French Revolution and of French designs on Louisiana "had
given rise to conspiracy theories, which cast Jefferson as the agent of a vast secret society plotting to subvert American
society. ""6 Ludloe belongs to a mysterious organization, an invisible empire whose purpose is to establish "a moral and
political structure. ..the growth of pure wisdom" (CBB 1 : 279 ) , in an uninhabited corner of the globe. The allusion could not be missed by contemporary readers;"' Brown was following
Grosse by invoking the spirit of the Illuminati. Inasmuch as Ormond is a perverter of Godwinism, he is nevertheless a believer in Utopianism, reflected through his participation in an Illuminati-type secret society. Yet, it should be noted that Ormond was apparently involved mostly with the constructive, Utopian branch of these ref ormets, the builders as opposed to the subversives; Ludloe would appear to belong to the latter gr~up.'~" Brown never mentions the Illuminati by name, but contemporary interest probably rendered this unnecessary: .. .Ormond was engaged in schemes of an arduous and elevated nature. These were the topics of epistolary discussion between him and a certain number of coadjutors, in different parts of the world....it was proper to maintain a uniform silence respecting these, not only because they involved principles and views, remote £rom vulgar apprehension, but because their success, in some measure, depended on their secrecy (CBB 2: 177). 147 Krause views Ormond as "an exemplar of the human intellect run amuck with its own enlightenment," steeped as he is in theories of man's ideal state, which is achievable through sedition.
From the dangers of the Illuminati to those of the plague and Indian attacks, Brown presented contemporary fears without resorting to supernatural machinery. Though Brown created no school, David Lee Clark notes that his influence was pervasive both in America and Europe, and his struggle for American literary independence was a notable success .14' As the f irst American writer of stature, he started the movement if he did not set the pace. Bis works have many faults: simple proofreading being one of them. The inchoateness of his tales can be ascribed to the rapidity with which he wrote and the number of projects on which he was working simultaneously. Larzer Ziff contends that "the process of composition was the process of discoveryw for Brown, as "he found what he was going to say only when he was saying it." Brown followed the ideas and images emanating £rom his subconscious, as did his protagonists. Similarly, his novels resemble the narratives of hie characters as "attempts of the conscious mind to impose order on a sequence that was not rationally organized in the happening. Others deplore his Latinate, crinoline style; yet this attribute of luxuriant, involuted prose is characteristic of such writers as Sir Thomas Brome, Coleridge, Poe, Melville, Henry James, Faulkner, and Thomas 148 Wolfe. It may be argued that many novelists, such as Conrad, find that terror and psychological tensions are best expressed in florid prose. Yet another peculiarity of Brown's fiction is his habit of not naming his characters until well into the novei;"' for instance, Edgar Huntly is not named untii halfway through the novel. Brown's early Mephistophelean appeal, "Give me a tale of lofty crimes, rather than of honest f~lly,""~illustrates both his trailblazing disassociation from his contemporary maudlin, sentimentalist authors and his potential for writing stirring tragedy. Gordon S. Wood goes so far to argue that Brown's "significance as a writer" cornes not from his translation of the Gothic novel from Europe to America, but from his relentless attempts "to examine the moral implications of evil caused by well-intentioned and benevolent persans. Elizabeth Jane Wall Hinds notes that terror
"does not exist within the locations themselves" in Brown's novels, but "in the active role these locations play in the undoing of his narrators." Neither do Brown's spaces "exist to be conquered by penetration," but his landscapes remain "at al1 times alien, and finally, uncontrollable." Hinds concludes that the terror "at the center" of Brown's novels "stems f rom the incoherence of the novels ' discursive forms which take part in a progressive domination of character by the surrounding events and locations, in a loss of control and a concurrent passivity of ~ill.*"~ Robert D. Hume argues 149 that Brown is more closely linked to Godwin's "novel of purpose" than the English Gothic novels, due to Brown's lack of villains with the impressive stature of Radcliffe ' s and Lewis' creations, as well as his lack of exotic foreign locales and his inversion of the Gothic method of placing innocents in peril against Machiavellian evil. Rather, Brown allows his heroes to be protected by their virtue and strength of mind. However, Hume admits that it is "beyond question that Brown does extens ively employ the trappings of Gothi~isrn,"~~~and this remains his great achievement. Brown Americanized the Gothic novel, employing mysterious phenomena to create terror in lieu of European settings. Furthemore, he followed Godwin in rejecting grandiose villainy in favour of a modern sensibility which delved into the psychology of his characters.
Though Brown remains relatively obscure, his best writing bears cornparison with anyone else's in terms of its ability to pull the reader into a pervasive atmosphere of timeless gloom. Fred Lewis Pattee postulates that Brown's total lack of humour, apparently caused by his constant introspections, precluded his achieving greatness . However, his place in literary history is justified: while R. W. B. Lewis sees
Arthur Mervyn as the f irst "American Adam" and George Snell traces the "apocalypticW strain in American literature from Brown, Richard Chase finds a melodramatic mode in American fiction beginning with Brown, and Leslie A. Fiedler argues 150 that the ~reudianpsychological interests of American writers are reflected in Brown. The career of this literary cornet left four important novels in its wake. Perhaps the best idea of a kindred spirit to Brown is contained in Brown's statement, "If you tell me that you are one of those who would rather travel into the mind of a ploughman than the interior of Africa, 1 confess myself of your way of thinking."lS0 Endnotes
'charles Brockden Brown, "The Man At Home," No. 9, The Weekly Maqazine (31 March 1798): 257, rpt . in The Rhapsodist and Other Uncollected Writinqs, ed. Harry R. Warf el (New York:
Scholars' Facsimiies & Reprints, 1943) 71.
'~ouis S. Gross, ~edefininsthe American Gothic: From Wieland to Dav of the Dead (Ann Arbor and London: UMI
Research P, 1989) 5,
3[~illiam Hazlitt], "Art. VIL - Sermons and Tracts; including Remarks on the Character and Writings of Milton, and of Fenelon [sic]; and an Anaiysis of the Character of Napoleon Bonaparte. By W. E . Channing. . ., " The Edinbursh Review 50.99 (October 1829): 126-28.
4~.A. Lawrence, Studies in Classic American Literature (New York: Thomas Seltzer, 1923) 51,
'~hiladel~hiahad a population of 70,000 in 1800, while New York had 60,000, Boston 25,000, Charleston 18,000, and Baltimore 13,000. Martin Green, "The God That Neglected to
Corne: American Literature 17 80- 1820, " American Literature to -1800, ed. Marcus Cunlif fe (London: Sphere Reference, 1973 ) 62, vol. 8 of Sphere Historv of Literature (10 vols., 1973-
88).
6~aulAllen, The Late Charles Brockden Brown, ed. Robert E. Hemenway and Joseph Katz (1814; Columbia, South Carolina:
15 1 J. Faust & Co., 1976)
'~avidLee Clark, Charles Brockden Brown: Pioneer Voice of America (Durham, North Carolina: Duke UP, 1952) 43.
'~obertA. Ferguson, Law and Letters in American Culture (Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: Harvard UP, 1984) 129.
9~rown's poem was published on February 26, 1789 in The State Gazette of North Carolina. When the hero's name was changed from Franklin to Washington, the poem appeared to be a slander on the latter's character. In his journal, Brown dismissed the affair with the observation, Tour printers are whimsical animals. " Allen 17.
1°steven Watts, The Romance of Real Life: Charles Brockden
Brown and the Oriqins of American Culture (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins UP, 1994) 30, 104, 3.
"~he four essays cornprising "The Rhapsodist" were published in the August , September, October, and November, 1789 issues of The Universal Asvlum, and Columbian Maqazine, known at that time as The Columbian Maqazine; or Monthly miscellanv. The articles were signed, "B, " "R," "0," and "W," so a fifth article was presumably intended. Warf el, "introduction" vi.
12~usselB. Np, "Historical Essay, " Orniond; or The Secret Witness, Bicentennial Edition 2: 295.
13~rown,"The Man At Home, " No. 9, The Rha~sodist7 1. 14~lihuHubbard Smith, The Diarv of Elihu Eubbard Smith 117714798), ed. James E. Cronin (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1973) 171.
"~rown planned a dramatization of Robert Bagets novel,
Hermspronq, or Man as He 1s Not (1796), which is reminiscent not only of Bage's earlier novel, Man As He 1s (1792), but of the full title of Godwin's Caleb Williams as well. Nye 2:
16~nonymous, "Mernoir of Charles Brockden Brown, " Wieland: or The Transformation, by Brown (Philadelphia: 1889) 9.
171ee R. Edwards, ed., "Afterword, " Alcuin: A Dialoque (New York: Grossman Publishers, 197 1) W.
?John Bernard offers a detailed description of Brown during this time: Brown gave very little idea of an imaginative writer in his appearance. He was short and dumpy, with light eyes, and hair inclining to be sandy, while the expression of his countenance told rather of ill-health than of intellect....Yet vividly in his countenance glowed the light of benevolence; that was his nature, and he could no more have suppressed its expression than he could have kept his eyes closed....Brown enjoyed life, and could be a cheerful if not an entertaining companion. He said but little, but he had a ready sympathy which drew out clever things in others, so that I was induced to remark to him upon his difference in society from the sombreness of his writings. His reply struck me as being curiously illustrative. "1 am conscious, " said he, "of a double mental existence. When 1 am sufficiently excited to write, al1 my ideas flow naturally and irresistibly through the medium of sympathies which steep them in shade, though the feelings they bring are so pleasing as to prevent my perceiving it....This 1 term...my imaginative being. My social one has more of light than darkness upon it ....Perhaps...the difference of the two may be thus sununed up: in my literary moods I am aiming at making the world something better than 1 find it; in my social ones 1 am content to take it as it is. John Bernard, Retros~ectionsof America, 1797-1811 (1887; New
York: Benjamin Blom, 1969) 252-53.
illi lie Deming Loshe numbers Wieland as the twenty-third
American novel in The Earlv American Novel (New York: New Era Printing Company, 1907) 109.
''~fter writing Arthur Merwn, Brown was visited by John Davis, who provides an image of Brown's method of writing: Mr. Brown occupied a dismal room in a dismal street. I asked him whether a view of nature would not be more propitious to composition; or whether he should not write with more facility were his window to command the prospect of the Lake of Geneva. - Si, said he, qood pens, thick paper, and ink well diluted, would f acilitate my composition more than the prospect of the broadest expanse of water, or mountains rising above the clouds. John Davis, Travels of Four Years and a Half in the United States of America Durino 1798, 1799. 1800. 1801, and 1802, ed.
A. J. Morrison (1803; New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1909) 163-64.
?John Burton, Lectures on Female Education and Manners (New York: 1794) 132.
22~homasJefferson, "To Nathaniel Burwell, " 14 Mar. 18 18, letter in The Writinqs of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Paul Leicester
Ford, vol. 10 (New York: 1899) 104 (10 vols., 1892-1899).
23~athyN. Davidson, Revolution and the Word: The Rise of the Novel in America (New York and Oxford: Oxford UP, 1986) Form, and the Orisins of the United States (Chicago and
London: U of Chicago P, 1996) 145-46.
25~ane Tompkins, Sensational Desiqns : The Cultural Work of American Fiction, 1790-1860 (New York and Oxford: Oxford UP,
1985) 44.
26~ooby,193.
*'~rown, "Walsteints School of History lrom the German of Krants of Gotha," The Monthlv Maaazine, and American Review,
1 (August 1799): 335-37, rpt. in The Rha~sodist, 146-48.
*~arfel, "Introduction, " The Rha~sodiçtxi.
9~amela Clemit, The Godwinian Novel : The Rational Fictions of Godwin. Brockden Brown. Mary Shelley (Oxford: Clarendon P, 1993) 121, 126.
30~lark,Pioneer Voice 17s.
3'~illiam Dunlap, The Life of Charles Brockden Brown: tosether with Selections from the Rarest of Bis Printed Works,
from His Oriainal Letters. and from Ais Manuscri~ts before Un~ublishedvol. 2 (Philadelphia: 1815) 100, 2 vols.
32~aredGardner, "Alien Nation : Edgar Huntly s Savage Awakening ,'' American Literature 66.3 (September 1994): 431.
33~nhis last pamphlet, Brown maintains a neutral position in relation to party affiliation: If any think it of moment to enquire to what party I belong, 1 answer confidently, that 1 pertain to NONE, as 1 believe in the justice and policy of peace and unrestricted trade in our present circumstances, I can claim no kindred with one party.
An Address ta the Concrress of the United States, on the Utilitv and Justice of Restrictions upon Foreiqn Commerce. With Reflections on Foreiqn Trade in General, and the Future Prospects of America (Philadelphia: 1809) vi-vii.
34~hilemst biographies cite February 22 as the date of Brown's death, in the footnotes to his biography, Charles Brockden Brown: American Gothic Novelist (Gainesville: U of Florida P, 1949), Barry R. Warfel cites references that Brown died on February 21 and was buried the next day. Donald A. Ringe notes that Warfel's footnotes were "privately distributed in Dittoed f orm in 1953. " Ringe, Charles Brockden
Brown, rev. ed. (Boston: Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1991) 130
35~rown,"Walsteinr s School of Ilistory .. . , " The Rha~sodist
6~lexander Cowie , "Historical Essay, " Wieland, Bicentennial Edition 1: 324.
37~redLewis Pattee, ed. , "1ntroduction, " Wieland. or The Transformation, tosether with Memoirs oi Carwinthe Biloctuist,
A Fracment (New York: Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich, 1926) xxx.
39~arry E. Arnold, Ablazel The Mysterious Fires of 157
Spontaneous Human Combustion (New York: M. Evans and Company, Inc., 1995) 300-06, 54, 313.
40~homasDeQuincey, Confessions of an Enslish Opium Eater ed. Alethea Hayter (rev. ed. 1856; Harmondsworth, Middlesex,
England: Penguin Books, 1972) 210.
43~ncvclo~edia:or, a Dictionarv of the Arts, Sciences and Miscellaneous Literature 18 vols. (~hiladelphia: 1798) quoted
in Pattee xxxiv.
45 [~azlitt] , " . . .Sermons and Tracts. . ." 127.
46~ontagueSumers, The Gothic Quest: A Bistory of the Gothic Novel (London: Fortune P, n.d. [1938]) 151 n.63.
*'watts 88.
es Daniel*, Livins In Fear, A Historv of Horror in the Mass Media (New York: Da Capo, 1975) 30.
49~lemit132.
Fliegelrnan, Deciarinq Inde~endence: Jefferson,
Natural Lanquaqe, 6 the Culture of Performance (Stanford, California: Stanford UP, 1993) 152-53.
51~ross9.
52~atts88-89. 54hy Fliegelrnan, ed. , introduction, Wieland and Mernoirs of Carwin the Biloquist, by Charles Brockden Brown (1798; ed. Fliegelrnan; Aannondswosth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1991) xi, x-xi.
S5~o~pkins47, 49, 53, 58, 60.
%homas Love Peacock, "Gryll Grange," Headlonca Hall and
G~llGranqe, ed. Michael Baron and Michael Slater (1860; Oxford: Oxford UP, 1987) 311.
58~atteexxviii.
%rry Heller, The Delights of Terror: An Aesthetics of the Tale of Terror (Urbana and Chicago: U of Illinois P, 1987) 61.
63~liegelman,introduction, Wieland xxiii. 64~hirlaySamuels , "Infidelity and contagion: The Rhetoric of Revoi~tion,~Earlv American Literature 22.2 (Fall, 1987): 187 .
65~hescene in Macbeth is as follows: Macduff: How does my wife? Ross : Why well. Macduff: And al1 my children? Ross : Well too. Macduff: The tyrant has not batter'd at their peace? Ross: No; they were well at peace when 1 did leave 'em. (4.3.176-79)
William Shakespeare, The Traqedy of Macbeth, The Oxford
Shakespeare, ed. Nicholas Brooke (1623; Oxford: Clarendon P,
66~atteeXI-xli.
67~ohnGreenleaf Whittier, l'Fanaticism," The ~ationalEra June 1848), rpt. in The Prose Works of John Greenleaf
~hittier, Standard Library Edition (Boston and New York:
1892) 392, 391-92, vol. 7 of The Prose Works of John Greenleaf
~hittier(7 vols.).
68~ardner440.
69~ichard Slotkin, Reqeneration Throuqh Violence : The Mvtholoav of the American Frontier, 1600-1860 (Middletown,
Connecticut: Wesleyan UP, 1973) 384, 389.
70~lizabethJane Wall Hinds , "Charles Brockden Brown and the Frontiers of Discourse," Frontier Gothic: Terror and
Wonder at the Frontier in American Literature, eds. David Mogen, Scott P. Sanders, and Joanne B. Karpinski (Rutherford,
Madison, and Teaneck: Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 1993) 110.
"~rown, "Extract £rom the 'Sky-Walk, "' The Rha~sodist140- 41.
enri ri Petter, The Earlv American Novel (Columbus: Ohio State UP, 1971) 357. 73~ydney Je Krause, "Historical Essay, " Edgar Huntlv,
Bicentennial Edition 4: 319-20.
74~onaldA. Ringe notes that "Somnambulism. A Fragment" was attributed to Brown in 1963, by Alfred Weber in "Eine neu entdeckte Kurzgeschichte C.B. Browns" [A newly discovered short story of C.B. Brown], Jahrbuch für Amerikastudien 8
(1963): 280-96. Ringe 130 11.12.
"~rause 4: 321, 325 11.32. The device of somnambulism will be explored in greater detail in Chapter 4.
'%il1 Christopherçon, The Apparition in the Glass:
Charles Brockden Brown's American Gothic (Athens and London: U of Georgia P, 1993) 138-39, 148.
77~arrollSmith-Rosenberg, "Subject Fernale: Authorizing
American Identity ," American Literary Bistory 5.3 (Fall 1993 ) : 494-95.
eslie lie A. Fiedler, Love and Death in the American Novel, rev. ed. (New York: Stein and Day, 1966) 158.
"~lark, introduction, Edgar Huntly or Mernoirs of a She~ Walker, by Charles Brockden Brown, ed. Clark (1799; New York:
Macmillan Company, 1928) xx. Wilkie Collins would later employ the device of somnambulisrn as the clue to the mystery in his novel, The Moonstone (1868).
'O~rabo, "Historical Essay ," Arthur Mervyn, Bicentennial Edition 3: 462. hichael Warner, The Letters of the Republic : Publication and the Public S~here in Eiahteenth-Centurv America (Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: Harvard UP, 1990) 170-
82~arner Berthof f , introduction, Arthur Mervvn , ed. Berthoff (New York: Holt, Rinehart and ~inston,1962) xv.
84~esDaniels, Livins In Pear, A Histoq of Horror in the
Mass Media (New York: Da Capo, 1975) 31.
85~,muals, "Plague and Politics in 1793: Arthur Mervyn,"
Criticism 27.3 (Sumer 1985) : 225.
86~amuels232.
"clark, Pioneer Voice 18 1.
'*~athew Carey, A Short Account of the Malisnant Fever which ~revailed in Philadelohia, in the year 1793: with a statement of the ~roceedinqsthat took place on the subiect. in different arts of the United States, 5th ed.
(Philadelphia: 1830) 25.
'~in~e,American Gothic : Imaaination and Reason in
Nineteenth-Centurv Fiction (Lexington: U of Kentucky P , 1982 ) 44.
90~hileit is generally agreed that The Bistorv of Maria Kittle, by Mrs. Ann Eliza Bleecker, written in 1781, but f irst published as a book in 1793, is the first Anierican novel to 162
give any extensive treatment to the ~ndian,Sydney J. Krause
argues that it "is little more than a fictionalized captivity
narrative." Krause 4: 374.
91~amesFenimore Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans: A Narrative of 1757, ed. James A. Sappenfield and E. N. Feltskog (1826; Albany: State U of New York P, 1983) 11.
95~ormanS. Grabo, The Coincidental Art of Charles Brockden Brown (Chape1 Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1981) 68.
g7~inds, Private Pro~erty: Charles Brockden Brown's Gendered Economics of Virtue (Newark: U of Delaware P, 1997) 135, 141-42, 141, 147.
loo~illiamGodwin, appendix 1, Caleb Williams 327-34.
101~odwin, 1832 preface, Fleetwood: or, The New Man of Feelinq, Standard Novels No. 22 (1805; London: 1832) ix-x.
lo2~sJuliet Beckett notes, " [Caleb Williams ' ] Gothic movement continues in our own mind as we mu11 over it, constantly seeking for resolutions and rejecting those we 163
f ormulate. " Beckett, introduction, St . Leon, A Tale of the Sixteenth Century, by William Godwin ( 1799; New York: Arno P, 1972) xxviii.
lo3~rnest Marchand, introduction, Ormond, ed. Marchand,
Aafner Library of Classics No. 24 (New York and London: Hafner Publishing Co., 1937) xxxviii.
am es Thornpson, "Surveillance in william Godwin ' s Caleb Williams," Gathic Fictions: Prohibition/Transqression, ed.
Kenneth W. Graham (New York: AMS P, 1989) 183.
105~odvin, Enauirv Concernina Political Justice and Its Influence on Modern Morals and Happiness, ed. Isaac Kramnick (1793; Harmondsworth, Middlesex, Enqland: Penguin Books, 1985) 469.
lo6~rown," 'Advertisement ' for 'Sky-Walk, "' The Rhapçodist, 136. Brown's Ormond resembles Conrad's Kurtz; the lack of a first name is typical of the monolithic amorality which Brown discusses.
107~illiam8. Prescott, "Life of Charles Brockden Brown, " The Librarv of American Bioqraohv, ed. Jared Sparks, vol. 1 (New York: 1834) 146 (10 vols., 1834-36).
lo8~inge,Charles Brockden Brown 47.
lo9~alartin S. Vilas, Charles Brockden Brown (Burlington, Vermont: Free Press Association, 1904) 28-29.
"*~lark, Pioneer Voice 173. l1l~odwin,Political Justice 325.
l13~odwin,Political Justice 350.
"~rauçe, "Historical Notes, " Ormond, Bicentennial Edition
2: 416.
ll'clark, Pioneer Voice 179.
18~rabo,Coincidental Art 85.
119~illiamC. Spengemann wonders if Mervyn's xnarriage to the older, wealthy woman makes him "a Tom Jones, momentarily seduced by the charms of his Lady Bellaston, yet destined eventually for a union with his Sophia Western." Spengemann, The Adventurous Muse: The Poetics of American Fiction, 1789- 1900 (New Haven: Yale UP, 1977) 100.
120~arzetZiff, Writina in the New Nation: Prose, Print. and Politics in the Earlv United States (New Haven and London: Yale UP, 1991) 81.
121warner 153.
122~.W. B. Lewis, The American Adam: Innocence, Traqedv and Tradition in the Nineteenth Centun (Chicago: U of
Chicago P, 1955) 97-98.
123~nonymous,"On the Writings of Charles Brockden Brown, 165 the American Novelist," The New Monthlv Maqazine and Universal Reqister 14.83 (1 December 1820): 611.
125~arfel, Charles Brockden Brown: American Gothic Novelist 191-94, 197-201.
l2 6~rause,"Clara Howard and Jane Talbot : Godwin on Trial, " Critical Essavs on Charles Brockden Brown, ed. Bernard
Rosenthal (Boston: Gw Km Hall S Co., 1981) 208.
127~aryShelley, The Journals of Mary Shellev 18144822, ed. Paula R. Feldman and Diana Scott-Kilvert (Oxford: Clarendon
P, 1987) 48, 53, vol. 1 of The Journals of Mary Shellev 1814- 1844 (2 vols.).
128~rause,"Historical Notes, " Onnond, Bicentennial Edition
2: 473.
129~rown, "Remarks on Mysteries ," Literarv Essavs and Reviews 177.
130~rown,quoted in Clark, Pioneer Voice 190.
131~rown,"The Man At Home," NO. 13, The Weeklv Magazine (28
April 1798): 384, rpt. in The Rhar~sodist95.
13*~ardner433.
133~lemit114.
13*~ichardBuel, Sr. , Securina the Revolution: Ideoloav in American Politics. 1789-1815 (Ithaca and London: Corne11 UP, 1972) 192, 217, 219, 223.
135~obert S. Levine, Conspiracv and Romance : Studies in
Brockden Brown, Cooper, Hawthorne, and Melville (Cambridge:
Cambridge UP, 1989) 22.
136~ordon S. Wood, "Conspiracy and the Paranoid Style: Causality and Deceit in the Eighteenth Century," The William and Marv Quarterlv 3rd ser. 39.3 (July 1982): 429.
137~ardner443.
139~rown's friend, William Dunlap, notes in his Diarv for
September 14, 1798: "Afternoon read C B Brown's beginning for the life of Carwin - as far as he has gone he has done well: he has taken up the schemes of the Illuminati. " Dunlap, Diarv of William Dunlap (1766-18391 The Memoirs of a Dramatist,
Theatrical Manaser, Painter, Critic, Novelist, and Historian vol. 1 (1930; New York and London: Benjamin Blom, 1969) 338- 39 .
140ilrause, "Historical Notes, " Ormond, Bicentennial Edition
2: 435.
142~lark, "Introduction, " Edoar Buntlv xxii.
143~iff144.
44~archand xxxvi-xxxvii . 145~rown,The Man At Home, " No. 9, The Weeklv Masazine ( 3 1
March 1798): 257, rpt. in The Rhapsodist 71-72.
146~ood437.
lQ7~inds, lQCharles Brockden Brown and the Frontiers of Discourse" 123-24.
lQ8~obertD. Hume, "Charles Brockden Brown and the Uses of
Gothicism: A Reassessment," ESQ: A Journal of the American Renaissance 18.66 (1972): 10-11.
14'pattee xïvi.
''*~rown, quoted in Fiedler 147-48. Chapter 3: Edqar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe continued Brockden Brown's transformation of the Gothic machinery of European writers, turning Gothicized landscapes of nature into Gothicized landscapes of his characters ' minds. While Brown dispensed with the superstitious Gothic trappings of the Old World in favour of rational terrors produced by bizarre phenornena, Poe embarked upon an exploration of psychological terrors implicit within the minds of his troubled protagonists. Whereas Brown avoided the supernatural by means of pseudo-scientif ic wonders, Poe delved further into the recesses of his narrators' minds; he created vivid portraits of mental decay with his depictions of unbalanced psyches, while exploring such themes as insanity, the urge for revenge, and the obsession caused by constant mourning. As well, Poe exploits the potential for terror through various phobias, with such macabre topics as premature burials. Poe's tales unifomly present natural terrors, in which madmen are more apt to be found than supernatural presences. The few stories which appear to be superficially supernatural are, in reality, metaphors in the style of allegories or satires. Poe creates terror of the sou1 by filtering the supernatural through the minds of his narrators, which lends a further dimension of ambiguity to the tales by offering the reader an equivocal explanation. The reader may accept supernatural undertones, but understands that he is 169 listening to a deluded, unreliable narrator.
The details of Poe's life are so well known that most people tend to blend it with their remembrance of his tales, in what Poe's recent biographer Kenneth Silverman calls "a single impression of eerie melancholy."' From his birth in Boston on January 19, 1809 to his mysterious death in Baltimore on October 7, 1849 - he had been found four days earlier in a tavern, after having vanished for almost the entire previous week - Poe's life serves as a template of a struggling artist tormented by poverty, alcohol, and an unfortunate tendency to make enemies. The early desertion by his unsuccessful actor father and the death of his actress mother, the disinheritance by his aloof guardian, and the lengthy, terminal illness of his young wife al1 contributed to an unfortunate, traumatic existence, which was further complicated by career vicissitudes as Poe pursued the elusive goal of publishing his own magazine.' With such a melancholy shape to his life, the tendency to merge his biography with his reptation as a terror writer is not surprising. Indeed, several of his tales replay the more shocking events of his life either in isolated motifs or larges the~nes.~However, Poe's legacy is vast in its breadth, with tales of mystery and satire, poems, essays, lectures, reviews, and journalism. In addition, Poe attempted a play in blank verse with Politian
(1835), he analyzed the origin and nature of the universe in his treatise Eureka ( l848), and besides being renowned for his 170 skills in cryptography, he is credited with inventing the genre of detective fiction. It would be a great disservice to categorize Poe as only a masterly writer of macabre fiction, although that achievement in itself is worthy of the utmost respect. Poe's theory of literature was based on his belief in "the unity of effect or impression." In his review of Nathaniel Hawthorne's revised edition of Twice-Told Tales
( 1842) , which was also the f irst attempt at a theoretical analysis of the short story format, Poe took issue with Hawthorne's use of the term "tale" to describe al1 the works in his volume, since several were less akin to purely fictional narratives than to the sketches of Washington Irving, whose fiction lacked a unifying effect. Poe ' s requirements for the short story were teleological, in that it must produce a single effect, which should be present £rom the initial sentence of the story. Any non-essentials not contributing directly to the story should be eliminated, as the story must have brevity and verisimilitude, what he terms a "basis in Truth." The short story, therefore, was superior to the novel because it could be read in one sitting, which preserved "the immense force derivable from t~tality."~ Anong Poe's numerous short stories, his tales of terror account for a relatively small percentage, yet their forceful impressions have dwarfed his other works. In the preface to his first collection of short stories, the two-volume Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (1839), Poe declared his work to be free of German influence: The epithets "Grotesque" and "Arabesque" will be found to indicate with sufficient precision the prevalent tenor of the tales here published ....I am led to think it is this prevalence of the "Arabesque" in my serious tales, which has induced one or two critics to tax me. . .with what they have been pleased to term "Germanism" and gloom. The charge is in bad taste, and the grounds of the accusation have not been sufficiently considered.' Poe's concern to separate himself from European writers of terror fiction shows his contempt for "pseudo-horror" which instills fear in the reader by Gothic trappings or devices, usually of the supernatural variety: Let us admit, for the moment, that the "phantasy-pieces" now given are Germanic, or what nota Then Germanism is "the vein" for the time being. To morrow I may be anything but German, as yesterday 1 was everything else. . ..the truth is that, with a single exception there is no one of these stories in which the scholar should recognise the distinctive features of that species of pseudo-horror which we are taught to cal1 Germanic, for no better reason than that some of the secondary names of German literature have become identified with its f olly . Poe's "single exception" is "Metzengerstein," an early satire of Gothic conventions which will be discussed later, His conclusion succinctly illustrates his philosophy of terror:
If in any of my productions terror has been the thesis, 1 maintain that terror is not of Germany, but of the soul, - that I have deduced this terror only from its legitimate sources, and urgcd it only to its legitimate resuits (EAP 2: 473). It has been recently argued that this declaration is an acknowledgement of Germanic influence tempered with a claim for generalization, rather than a disavowal. Thus, Poe's ah was to universalize concrete Germanic influence to create an atmosphere of terror devoid of any specific cultural origin. Indeed, more than anything, the use of the term "arabesque" is connotative of Orientalism, although such elements do not represent a complete negation of German influence.' Poe manufactures "terror. .. of the soul" in the depiction of unbalanced mental states, as he internalizes the violence of Gothic narratives into studies of unstable characters. With psychological observation, Poe presents the capacity for violence inherent in the human mind. Poe's method is divisible into four subcategories: depictions of madness, revenge, mournful obsession, and phobias.
Insanity is the primary characteristic of the narrator of Poe's short story, "The Tell-Tale Fieart'' (1843), although he commences his confession with stringent assurances to the contrary : TRUEl - nervous - very, very dreadfully nervous 1 had been and am; but why will you say that 1 am mad? The disease had sharpened rny senses - not destroyed - not dulled them. Above al1 was the sense of hearing acute. 1 heard al1 things in the heavens and in the earth. 1 heard many things in hell. Bow, then, am 1 mad? Hearkenl and observe how healthily - how calmly 1 can tell you the whole story (EAP 3: 792).
Such an ironic opening does little to assuage the suspicions of the reader, who is accused by the narrator of having doubted his sanity in the first place. The temptation arises to question whether this nameless narrator could be the same unnamed interlocutor who was called a madman by Roderick Usher, in a Poe story published four years earlier. One wonders further if such extreme nervousness would not be, in itself , a f orm of madness. The narrator's style of speech betrays himself. While Poe would rhapsodize about the stylistic use of dashes in a Marginalia from February, 1848, noting that a dash "represents a second thought - an emendati~n,"~their halting, jarring tendency underscores the narrator's unreliability:
Now this is the point. You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely 1 proceeded - with what caution - with what foresight - with what dissimulation I went to workl 1 was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before 1 killed him (EAP 3: 792).
It is noteworthy that the narrator makes a distinction between his craftiness and the unintelligence of "madmen. " To the narrator, madness consists essentially of doltish imbecility, whereas his inordinate precautions preclude any such association. Yet, even a medical analysis of madness from 1792 included this warning: "Mad people are frequently very quick in repartee, and exceedingly acute in their remarks.... IV B In addition, the question of motive appears to remove any doubt of his sanity, for what the narrator fears about the old man is his deformed eye. At least, that is the motive he grasps when trying to recall his motive: "Object there was none. Passion there was none. 1 loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult." He dismisses any thoughts of comxnon robbery for a far more unique motive: Tor his gold 1 had no desire. 1 think it was his eyel yes, it was thisl One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture - a pale blue eye, with a film over it." Such an 174 overwhelming distaste for a single minor deformity in an othewise exemplary person is also somewhat reminiscent of Aylmer's similar disgust for a physical condition in
Hawthorne's '@TheBirthmark," which was published only two months after Poe's story. Aylmer's solution to his problem with Georgiana's birthmark results in her death, the fate met by the old man in Poe's story. To Poe's narrator, the old man's eye is baleful, accusatory, and all-seeing, driving the narrator into a murderous decision: "Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees - very gradually - I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever" (EAP 3: 792). Still, Poe lends his story an equivocal dimension of ambiguity, one which does not preclude an actual supernatural presence, as Thomas Ollive Mabbott notes.' Poe's tale is based on the popular superstition of the Evil Eye, current in Italy, Africa, and some parts of the United States, in which a glance can bewitch or bring pain or bad luck to another. While an Evil Eye might be acquired unwittingly, it may also be the weapon of a person suffering from demonic posse~sion.~~But Poe leaves unanswered how much of the narrative is hallucination - whether the narrator went mad before he fancied the old man had the Evil Eye or whether a real Evil Eye drove the protagonist mad. Traditionally, the eye has represented light and understanding; therefore, the narrator's irrational dislike may be traced to his belief that his madness has been detected visually. That is, since the
old man 's all-encompassing gaze can detect his companion's insanity, the narrator must rid himself of this intolerable burden.ll It is even possible that this is not the first tirne that the narrator has committed murder; therefore, in al1 likelihood, he is overcome by guilt £rom the apparently all- seeing nature of the vulture eye. Yet, any possible pretext for a supernatural instigation for the crime is subsumed by the killerfs rationalizing of his own behaviour. Bis self-justification, through displacement, represses the real source of his anxiety and foists it ont0
that of his friend, possibly his only cornpanion. What little
regard the reader may have possessed for the criminal's detached patience disappears when he collapses into hysterical remorse. David S. Reynolds notes that several popular crime narratives had portrayed murderers sympathetically, leaving the reader in a confused moral quagmire. Even Hawthorne felt inclined to admire the affability of Frank Knapp, the killer who was one of Poe's sources for his story, and who displayed a remarkable nonchalance during his murder trial. Knapp served as a mode1 for the detached and manipulative murderer, whose type was mythologized in a number of popular crime heroes ranging from William Gilmore Simsf title character in
GUY Rivers (1834) to George Lippard's Devil-Bug in The Ouaker
Citv: or. The Monks of Monk Hall (1845). But Poe enlists no
such sympathy, as the narrative voice itself undermines any 176 such inclination on the part of the reader. It becomes the main focus of attention. By engaging the reader on an emotional level rather than a moral one, Poe lifts the story above the justified criminal, one of sensational literature's most problematic figures." Little sympathy could be evoked for a narrator who revels in his own manic personality, which is, by turns, elated, hypersensitive, and excited, and one which contains a low irritability threshold. A paranoid schizophrenic, he is betrayed by his own aggressiveness, hostility, and delusions of persecution. l3 Poe 's killer echoes the complaints of Roderick Usher when he adnionishes his audience, "...have 1 not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over acuteness of the senses?. .." (EAP 3: 795). Such excessive reactions to sensory perceptions, termed hyperesthesia, may be the results of psychological, as well as physiological, factors. In fact, while the narrator appears to suffer most from hyperacusis, an abnormal sensitivity to sound sometimes found in hysteria, l4 most readers would conclude that the heart the killer hears is his own, rather than one of supernatural origin.15 The narrator hopes to allay any doubts of his sanity with the description of how he approached the crime. Not only does he wait patiently in the darkness before striking, but he also removes the corpse in an almost scientific manner. Adding mayhem to murder, his indignity to the deceased is accomplished with surgical precision: "If still you think me mad, you will think so no longer when 1 describe the wise precautions I took for the concealment of the body.. .I dismembered the corpse. 1 cut off the head and the arms and the legsw (EAP 3: 796). Poe had employed the classical rhetorical figure of polysyndeton, a repetition of conjunctions calling attention to individual detail, most memorably the previous year, in the last sentence of "The
Masque of the Red ~eath."16 In this case, it serves to
enhance the violence of the action, while depicting the callous detachment of the killer . The insane satisfaction with which the killer gloats over his own cleverness is another tell-tale clue to his mental state:
1 then took up three planks £rom the flooring of the chamber, and deposited al1 between the scantlings. 1 then replaced the boards so cleverly, so cunningly, that no human eye - not aven his - could have detected anything wrong. There was nothing to wash out - no stain of any kind - no blood-spot whatever. 1 had been too wary for that. A tub had caught al1 - ha! ha! (EAP 3: 796). Although the gore inherent in such activity provokes a reaction of horror in the reader, through revulsion at the thought of the crime, Poe was rather restrained compared to contemporary popular crime fiction of such sensationalwriters as George Lippard and George Thompson. fndeed, as David Reynolds argues, to suggest that Poe's dark vision was unusual for his day would be quite misleading. Poe's craftsmanship removes the reader "froni the realm of horrid gore to that of diseased psychology," and rises above the level of tawdry sensationalism that had surrounded the cases which inspired 178 the story.17 Through the telling, or rather, confessing, of a lucid narrative, the killer believes he is displaying his sanity . But the combination of narrative lucidity with mad assertions - his motive and his hearing of the heart beneath the floor - underscores what Ken Frieden describes as "a disconcerting contradiction between his representing and represented personae ."18 The narrator's confession reaches a climax with his contradictory needs and discordant impulses: for love of the old man, self-respect, punishment, and, perhaps not surprisingly, companionship- The need to communicate betrays the narrator's fear of isolation; his act of murder has only removed him further £rom society. What was intended as his liberation from the bondage of being seen by a single all- seeing friend, now, presumably, has led him into an imprisonment in which his every move can be viewed by any number of people, their curiosity being primarily one of morbid interest, rather than solicitude. As Sybil ~Ületich- Brinberg argues, Poe brings "the uncanny into the compass of the affirming self's profound and comprehensible human emotions without, however, harmonizing them in a genuine catharsis." With the possible exception of "The Fa11 of the House of Usher," "The Tell-Tale Heartm succeeds more than any of Poe's tales in "transforming the uncanny into the tragic. "19 The narrator of "The Black Catw could be a less manie 179 twin of his counterpart in "The Tell-Tale Heart," which was published earlier in the same year. This murderous narrator is similarly obsessed with confession and the need to
communicate, this the by means of a written, rather than oral, narrative. He commences with a declaration of his sanity, although he admits that he has little chance of
getting anyone to believe him: "Mad indeed would 1 be to expect it.. ..Yet, mad am 1 not - and very surely do I not dream." Bis need to confess urges him to relate his crimes:
"But to-morrow 1 die, and to-day 1 would unburthen my soul" (EAP 3: 849). Christopher Benfey argues that such confession
is a type of salvation, and postulates that it is isolation which drives hirn insane, as well as the narrator of "The Tell- Tale Heart." Both narrators are repelled by inexpressive features, the old man's vulture eye or the missing eyes of the
cats .'O But, in the case of the cats, it is clear that they repel the narrator because they remind him of his wife, although he does not recognize this association. The violence he wages on the first cat does not prevent him from allowing a second feline to enter his life. The "series of mere household events" that the narrator promises to describe "plainly, succinctly, and without comment" (EAP 3: 853) offer a morbid view of domestic life, with marital bliss turned to agony because of alcoholism. The "Fiend Intemperance" (EAP 3: 851) destroys the pet-loving couple's tranquility, while the poverty resulting from the f iery destruction of their home 180 causes the narrator to resign himself "to despair" (EAP 3:
852). Even his wife's murder occurs when she accompanies the narrator "upon some household errand" (EAP 3 : 856). What appears to be the accidental interference of his wife, in preventing his murder of the second cat, unleashes his deflected hostility, as he destroys her in a frenzy of terrifying suddenness. David ri on Davis argues that this is the moment when the identification between cat and wife becomes suddenly complete. While he justifies her murder as her own fault, his emotional relief and satisfaction arises from the accomplishrnent of his original desirem2' The narrator has a less manic nature than his counterpart in "The Tell-Tale Heart," but this could be attributed to his alcoholism acting as a depressive influence. Bis madness is just as homicidal in nature, however, as he showed when he
"buried the axe in her brain" (EAP 3: 856). This climactic act of savagery has several antecedents in his cruel treatment of his pets. That Pluto "still retained suf ficient regard"
(EAP 3: 851) with the narrator above all his other pets only makes his fate that much worse. After cutting out one of its eyes, the narrator hangs his cat to the limb of a tree. Yet the description of violence is similar to that of "The Tell- Tale Heart" in its rising above mere sensationalism to probe psychological motivation. A similar depiction of graphic violence occurs in Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue"
(1841), with a razor-wielding ape cutting the throats of two women. But Reynolds takes issue with Mabbott's contention that such a gory passage is a fault.12 Reynolds argues that Poe includes only enough gore to suggest to his contemporary readers that they are in the familiar world of sensational literature, as he distinguishes himself by his avoidance of explicit violence. 23
As with the equivocal supernatural undertones of the Evil Eye in "The Tell-Tale Heart," the possibility of paranormal agency is registered by Poe's ambiguous linkage of cats with witches. Simply from the title of the story, the leader would kediately recall such superstitions regarding black cats which stemmed £rom the Middle Ages. Poe's story can even be traced to earlier superstition, as the Egyptians held the cat as sacred; whoever killed one, even by accident, was punished by death.24 Poe draws attention to the matter apparently only in order to dismiss such credulity: [Pluto, the cat] was a remarkably large and beautiful animal, entirely black, and sagacious to an astonishing degree. In speaking of his intelligence, my wife, who at heart was not a little tinctured with superstition, made frequent allusion to the ancient popular notion, which regarded al1 black cats as witches in disguise. Not that she was ever serious upon this point - and 1 mention the matter at al1 for no better reason than that it happens, just now, to be remembered (EAP 3: 850). When Poe places the cat in this superstitious context, only to have the topic dismissed by a contemplative narrator, the notion lingers with an ambiguous residue. In the essay
"Instinct vs Reason - A Black Catw ( 1840 ) , Poe had wittily recalled that he owned "...one of the most remarkable black 182 cats in the world," and that "...this is saying much; for it will be remembered that black cats are al1 of them witches"
(EAP 2: 479). While the seemingly supernatural aspects attributed to such creatures no doubt arose from their dark hue, their sometimes prescient instincts could not help but contribute to such a notion. Poe stops just short of granting them rational capacity: "The black cat...must have made use of al1 the perceptive and ref lective faculties which we are in the habit of supposing the prescriptive qualities of reason alone" (EAP 2: 479). Mabbott notes that since Poe considered cats to be reasonable creatures, the narrator was already a murderer morally before the killing of his wife made him one iegally (EAP 2: 848). Mabbott also sees the hint of the supernat~ral'~in his violent rage against Pluto: "The fury of a demon instantly possessed me" (EAP 3: 851). But this demon is alcohol, which medical authorities had recognized was capable of an incitement to violence. Isaac Ray, a medical contemporary of Poe, noted that an intoxicated person "is apt to imagine either that he has offended someone.. .or that he has been offended, and fixes upon some one as the object of his maledictions, perhaps his blows ."26 Ray followed Dr. Benjamin Rush, who had taught Brockden Brown's friend, Elihu Hubbard Smith," in frequently using such terms as "perversity" and in analysing the inexplicable actions of his patients." The alcoholism of Poe's narrator turns hin, into a vesse1 waiting to be inhabited by ...the spirit of PERVERSENESS. Of this spirit philosophy takes no account. Yet 1 am... sure...that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart....Who has not, a hundred tintes, found himself committing a vile or a silly action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not?...This spirit of perverseness...came to my final overthrow. It was this unfathomable longing of the sou1 to vex itself - to offer violence to its own nature - to do wrong for the wrong's sake only - that urged me to continue and f inally to consumate the in jury I had inf licted upon the unof fending brute (EAP 3 : 852) . Ken Frieden interprets this perverse spirit as the reversa1 of
the daimonion that turns Socrates away from evil; its overt
instigator even bears the name of the god of the under~orld.~~Whereas an archetypal villain would commit villainous deeds presumably for the sake of delighting in his own villainy , this negative impulse of "perverseness" ultirnately results in self-destruction, operating independently of a villain's natural motivation for self- interest.
Poe enlarged upon this theory in his later story, "The
Imp of the Perverse" ( 1845) . The narrator of this story again goes to great lengths to convince the reader of his sanity:
"Had 1 not been thus prolix, you might either have misunderstood me altogether, or, with the rabble, have f ancied me madl* (EAP 3: 1224). What begins as a psychological discussion of one of the more unusual unbalanced mental states is revealed to be a murderer's confession. This sudden transition in the reader's situation, from reader of a philosophical discourse to prison visitor, in itself, is a 184 jarring example of perversity. Prieden notes that Poe's narrator speaks in rational tones and points to the limits of reason, beyond which the senses must be guided by belief. But in denying his madness by attributing his situation to the argument he describes, the narrator hovers between calculation and illogic, in referring to a cause which is only a perverse absence of cause." Poe's narrator argues, "We perpetrate [such actions] merely because we feel that we should not" (EAP 3: 1223). Poe's awareness of the universal capacity for sin adds to his description of the tendency to put obstacles in one's path merely for their own sake. "An appeal to one's own heart is...the best reply to the sophistry just noticed...It is not more incomprehensible than distinctive" (EAP 3: 1221). The "spirit of the Perverse" (EAP 3: 1223) produces a range of consequences, front the mischievous to the drastic to the fatal. Whether one desires "to tantalize a listener by circumlocutionw (EAP 3 : 1221) when direct speech is desirable, whether one procrastinates, delaying a task until it is too late, or whether one gazes over a precipice, subconsciously desiring to tumble forwards, the urge to court oblivion operates on any number of negative levels. This negative impulse towards perverseness, what J. Gerald Kennedy terms a "displaced self-destructi~eness,"~~would appear "a direct instigation of the arch-fiend, were it not occasionally known to operate in furtherance of good" (EAP 3: 1223), yet what context the latter premise would assume is difficult to 185 fathom.
This narrator takes greater pains than either the narrator of "The Tell-Tale Heart" or "The Black Cat" to sound sane. Each of these f irst-person narratives becomes progressively more concerned with gaining the reader's understanding that their narrators are not insane. With "The Tell-Tale Heart," the impression of sanity explodes with the f irst sentence, as the nervousness alone of the narrator's oral address to the reader gives him the appearance of being unhinged. The written narrative of "The Black Cat" takes the form of an autobiographical apology, which induces a greater sympathy front the reader, until the narrator's confession of his cruel crimes. The narrator of "The Imp of the Perverse" outdoes both his predecessors in assuming a learned air while discussing what appears to be abstract philosophy. Only near the end of his narrative, in his account of an apparently motiveless murder, does he lose the reader's sympathy and belief in his sanity. In fact, the point where this occurs may be denoted just a couple of sentences before this final section, when he raises the issue that "the rabble, have fancied me mad." His initial sentences describing his crime cause him to revert to the same smug satisfaction with his own cleverness as the narrator of "The Tell-Tale Heart": Tt is impossible that any deed could have been wrought with a more thorough deliberation." He relates the the he spent planning every facet of his crime: "For weeks, for months, 1 pondered 186 upon the means of the murder. 1 re jected a thousand schemes, because their accomplishment involved a chance of detection" (EAP 3: 1224). The choice of a murder weapon, however, is ingenious, and displays the careful consideration given by this most clever of the three murderers. In the earliest of these stories, the old man is killed by a rather awkward method, as the victim is presumably su£ focated by his own bed. The wife of Plutofls owner is dispatched more ef fectively, but rather messily , with her head cloven in two by an axe. In contrast, the patient narrator of "The Imp of the Perversew kills by poisoned candle, leaving the coroner to declare "Death by the visitation of God" (EAP 3: 1224) . Unlike his murderous brethren, he is not visited shortly after his crime by the authorities. The time lapsed is only four hours in "The Tell- Tale Reart," while the police arrive on "the fourth day of the assassination" (EAP 3: 858) in "The Black Cat. " But this narrator succeeds in committing the perfect crime and enjoying his ill-gotten gains "for years." But his conscience inevitably brings about his downfall. He is safe, at first, because "the idea of detection never once entered my brain"
(EAP 3: 1224), but once he begins muttering the refrain of "1 am safe," it is only a matter of the before his imp provokes him to state that he is safe only "if 1 be not fool enough to make open confessionl" (EAP 3: 1225). Once the thought enters his conscious aind, al1 hope is lost. Bis suicida1 desire for 187 confession consigns him to the gallows. The reader finally comprehends why "the rabblew believe him to be mad. The narrator even admits that he "bounded like a madman through the crowded thoroughfares," gasping for breath, becoming
"blind, and deaf, and giddy' (EAP 3: 1226) when his fear overtakes him. It is only in the quiet surroundings of his ce11 that he can attempt an inquiry into the causes of his actions in order to prove his sanity. Poe also depicts madness in other stories, but without the sense of claustrophobia inherent in such an unreliable first-person narrative. In such stories, the reader's identification with the confessing murderer causes him to be less shocked by the crime than by his subsequent capture. Terror arises £rom the realization that such insanity could be contagious. As a result, in a story such as "The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether," published in 1845, the terror is lessened because Poe treats madness satirically. In what may be interpreted, subtextually, as a fear of slave rebellion,33 with the lunatics in control of the asylum, Poe portrays their "cunning" as "proverbial, and great." Poe argues that "the dexterity with which [a madman] counterfeits sanity, presents, to the metaphysician, one of the most singular problems in the study of mind," and describes what rnight be considered the most fearsome aspect of insanity. In this regard, the narrator of "The Tell-Tale Heart" may be identified by his apparent madness and, thereby, isolated. 188 But, as with the ability of the narrator of "The Imp of the
Perverse" to argue abstruse, philosophic premises, "When a madman appears thoroughly sane, indeed, it is high time to put him in a straight jacket" (EAP 3: 1018). This, of course, assumes that a madman will eventually assume an appearance of sanity at the zenith of his madness. But, if this is the
case, the question arises as to how his return to sanity may be otherwise ascertained.
However, the madmen in control of the asylum provoke humour rather than terror. Poe signals this mirthful element to the reader with the title of his story, which portends a type of lynching activity rather than a learned study. A similar humour is present in "The Sphinx," Poe's story that was first published in January, 1846. Although this story begins as a f irst-person narrative by someone who "doubted my own sanity - or at least the evidence of my own eyes" when he sees the title cxeature, the reader does not share the fascination of contagious insanity that one obtains with "The
Tell-Tale Heart." The narrator of "The Sphinxw admits to having a superstitious disposition, but the tone of the story allows the reader to treat the narrator as a credulous witness to explicable phenomena, rather than a murderer justifying his crimes. That he "was almost seriously disposed to defend" what he terms "the popular belief in omensM designates him as an unreliable narrator. His conviction that he "was neithex mad nor in a dream" (EAP 3: 1247) is tempered by his suspicion 189 that his friend regards him as one whose "insanity was a thing beyond suspicion." It is instructive that the narrator fears insanity more than death: "1 was now immeasurably alarmed, for 1 considered the vision either as an omen of my death, or, worse, as the forerunner of an attack of mania" (EAP 3: 1249). The humourous conclusion, revealing the narratorts delusion, is yet another example of the explained supernatural, one which illustrates that rational explanations are likely to be found behind even the most unusual phenomena. A final example of madness occurs in "The Pal1 of the House of Usher" (1839). The narrator describes Roderick Usher 's melancholy eccentricity without ref erring directly to any irrationality. For his own part, however, Usher calls the narrator mad when, at the conclusion, he hears his recently entombed sister coming "to upbraid" him for his haste:
"Madmani 1 tell you that she now stands without the doorfv
(EAP 2: 416). But the reader has received no hint that the narrator is not in control of his senses. Other than being possibly neurotic, in repressing any knowledge which frightens or humiliates him, the narrator does not deny or repudiate reality as Usher does. " Presumably, Usher calls the narrator mad because he refuses to acknowledge Madeline's presence. But if Usher is correct and the narrator is really a madman, then his entire narrative is called into question. While this may seem a drastic interpretation, particularly since Usher resembles the narrator of "The Tell-Tale Heart" in 190
his suffering "£rom a morbid acuteness of the senses" (EAP 2:
403 ) , Usher 's denunciation of the narrator's apparent guise of rationality at least raises the question of his reliability. If nothing else, the narrator has been obtuse, if not irrational, in not comprehending the nature of the triangular relationship between the Usher siblings and their house. In addition, Usher is correct in announcing that Madeline is beyond the door and that they buried her alive. Roderick cannot blame Madeline, his twin, for her own entombment. But Roderick can turn to the narrator, who mirrors his taste and style, for both comf ort and condemnation . However , unlike Usher, the narrator saves himself by breaking free at the crucial moment. Poe 's creation of non-supernatural terror through the depiction of revenge is nowhere better exemplified than in "The Cask of Amontillado" (1846). The idea of revenge becomes the ruling passion for Montresor, which produces an unbalanced mental state that leads directly to murder. As with the confessions of the nameless murderers in "The Tell-Tale Heart," "The Black Cat," and "The Imp of the Perverse," Montresor relates the narrative of what appears to be the perfect crime. Unlike his predecessors in the other stories,
Montresor appears to have succeeded where they have failed, in stifling the troubling pangs of an annoying conscience. But critics are divided as to whether, in fact, he does succeed in his crime.35 Walter Steppf6 and Eric Mottram3' view Montresor as an unrepentant, pathological killer who revels in his power over Fortunato, which produces vicarious satisfaction for Poe and his reader. By contrast, G. R. ~hornpson~' and Sybil Wületich-Brinberg3' see the narrator confessing on his deathbed after five decades of being wracked with guilt. hile Mabbott argues that such questions will probably always remain rnoot,'O the lengths to which Montresor contemplates his revenge makes him a case study in psychological obsession. Be begins his narrative with the curious argument that he "vowed revenge" not because of "the thousand injuries" which Fortunato had dealt him, which "1 had borne as I best could," but because "he ventured upon insult." The distinction between "injuriesN and "insult" is a fine one; perhaps Fortunato made the mistake of disparaging Montresor's lineage, in addition to numeroi~s obnoxious incidents of a lesser nature. The reader is never told the exact nature of Fortunato's insult, but Montresor's response is noteworthy: You...will not suppose ...that 1 gave utterance to a threat. At length 1 would be avenged; this was a point definitively settled - but the very definitiveness with which it was resolved precluded the idea of risk. 1 must not only punish, but punish with impunity. A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong (EAP 3: 1256). The idea of revenge stresses the personal bitterness which seeks relief in hanning an enemy. To resort to threats would be beneath Montresor's dignity, as only complete annihilation 192 of his opponent would bring satisfaction. To allow his enemy to live would be an invitation to retaliation, and probably punishment by the authorities. Thus, murder becomes the goal, but one which must be committed without fear of any penalty.
Montresor's curious self-justification about a wrong being "unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser," posits that retribution, in the guise of social or divine punishment, should not be dealt to an injured party avenging an insult. The notion that the avenger must "make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrongw is one which courts disaster if the opponent is allowed to retaliate in any manner. Such an action satisfies the hunger that a self- justified avenger feels for the humiliation inflicted upon him by his opponent. It is surprising that Montresor does not go further, in terms of humiliation, and require that Fortunato realize his error. If he forces Fortunato to apologize, in as sincere a manner as possible, Montresor's vindictive nature would be even further gratified. Nonetheless, to succeed with a perfect crime, the criminal must conduct himself with an austere equanimity. Therefore, the desire to confess must be stifled so that the killer does not meet the same fate as the narrator of "The fmp of the Perverse." As with The Fa11 of the Bouse of Usher," Gothic trappings exist in the presence of decaying architecture. But instead of a centuries-old mansion, the catacombs beneath Montresor's palazzo harbour a terrifying ossuary, replete with 193 the scattered bones of his ancestors. He describes the scene at "the most remote end of the crypt," which has walls "lined with human remains, piled to the vault overhead, in the fashion of the great catacombs of Paris" (EAP 3: 1261) . Richard P. Benton notes that the deepest part of the
subterranean corridors pass underneath the bed of the river, as Montresor's palazzo is perched on a river bank. Thus, they would be as cold and damp as described, because the carnival season occurs several weeks before spring. The subterranean
vaults and passages must have been the substructure of a much earlier feudal castle, which Benton argues was probably built no later than the thirteenth century. Such a place might have
provided the carnival atmosphere for Prince Prospero. Benton argues that the Medieval architect would have lined the walls with granite, supporting the ceilings with pilasters and
arches in order to prevent possible cave-ins caused by the "nitre," potassium nitrate which has been tunnelled out of limestone. In the course of th, these galleries and vaults
would become catacombs, or receptacles for the dead." The niche in which Fortunato is trapped is at the utmost extreme
of the labyrinth of the vaults. It is "a still interior recess" within a wall behind a rampart of bones that "had been thrown down, and lay promiscuously upon the earth, forming at one point a mound of some size," which was, in turn, within "another less spaciousw crypt at "the most remote end of the crypt. " Such a forlorn locale amid such grim relics surpasses 194 the dreariness of the subterranean passages described in the
Gothic novels of Lewis and Maturin. As Richard Wilbur notes, such catacombs symbolize the irrational mind of the narrator; 42 thus, the labyrinthine passages ref lect how the obsession for revenge has twisted the avenues of Montresor's mind . Benton argues persuasively that Montresor's revenge is further facilitated by his superior health. Folk tradition held that breathing the night air in cold and damp weather could produce consumption or malaria. Thus, when Montresor meets Fortunato, he is wearing a mask, not only to protect his identity, but his health as well. Fortunato already appears to have a slight case of influenza, but Montresor's repeated ironie concern for his health increases Fortunato's fear of the vaults. The underground air contains more carbon dioxide than oxygen, and the heat of the flambeaux further reduces the amount. In addition, the nitrous deposits induce a fit of coughing in Fortunato and, when given more alcohol, his def ences are almost entirely obliterated. '' Montresor ' s false solicitude is blinding in its heavy use of irony. It is instructive that Montresor never once declares his intention to Fortunato, even though the avenger must "make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong. " Even as he is sealing his opponent within the niche, Montresor goes about his task with the appearance of verbal nonchalance: "Pass your hand... over the wall; you cannot help feeling the nitre. Indeed it 195 is very damp. Once more let me implore you to return. No? Then 1 must positively leave you. " Menace arises in what sounds like a hannless gesture of good will: "But 1 must first render you al1 the little attentions in my power" (EAP 3: 1261). Montresor's judgment - "a wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser" - leaves the reader with an equivocal feeling, as the penultimate sentence describing "the old rampart of bones" thrusts the action of the narrative back fifty years: "For the half of a century no mortal has disturbed them" (EAP 3: 1263). If those critics are correct in their interpretation that Montresor confesses on his deathbed after suffering through decades of guilt, then the revenge has failed. In this context, Montresor appears to spend a lifetime of anxiety over a crime he comniitted in his youth. Nothing more can be done to harm Fortunato, but the pangs of conscience have sharper fangs than that of the serpent "imbedded in the heelw (EAP 3: 1259), the Montresor coat-of-arms. The few instances in which Montresor hesitates in culrninating his revenge are indicative of a certain lack of resolve." After Fortunato begins ta scream, he admits, "for a brief moment 1 hesitated - 1 trembled." He almost surrenders to his fear: Wnsheathing my rapier, 1 began to grope with it about the recess: but the thought of an instant reassured me." He finds reassurance amid the remains of his ancestors: "1 placed my hand upon the solid fabric of the 196 catacombs, and felt satisfied" (EAP 3: 1262). But when Fortunato begins to laugh, it sends a shiver through Montresor "that erected the hairs upon my head." This fear seems to pass fairly quickly, but he then appears to give way at the conclusion of his revenge, after he hears only a jingling of the bells in response to his calls: "My heart grew sick - on account of the dampness of the catac~mbs.~ Montresor could be taken at his word that this was in fact the case, were it not for Poe's use of the dash. Here, the tell-tale emendation it articulates is apologetic at best, being almost transparent in its attempt to cover his feelings of disgust. The final benediction, "In pice reguiescatl" (EN? 3: 1263) appears either ironic or sincere depending on his feelings for Fortunato fifty years later. If it is directed to the bones of his ancestors, then arguably the revenge is complete, as the insult to him and his house has been expunged. But it may also be a plea for himself to "rest in peace, " after a deathbed con£ession. Since such dif ferent analyses exist , the equivocal nature of Montresor ' s revenge allows the reader to choose his own interpretation, or even to have it both ways, in relishing the crime while moralizing over its consequences. Besides using themes of madness and revenge, Poe also creates terror of the non-supernatural variety through the depiction of mournful obsession. In his essay, "The Philosophy of Compositionw (1846), Poe argues that the death 197 "of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical
topic in the world. "" Therefore, the propensity of Poe's protagonists to brood over the loss of a loved one is a recurrent, if not the predominant , theme in his poetry as well as in several of his stories. The mourning which is felt for Lenore in "The Raven," or for "Annabel Lee" and "Ulalume," rnirrors the obsession with the memory of the deceased, an emotion which haunts the narrators of such stories as "Ligeia," "Berenice," "Morelia," "The Assignation," "The
Oblong Box, " "The Oval Portrait, " and "Eleonora. " "Ligeia" (1838), Poe's story of the apparent return to life of a dead female, somewhat resembles Irving's "The Adventure of the German Student." But whereas the possibility of supernatural elements is dissipated by the madness of Irving's protagonist, Gottfried Wolfgang, Poe imbues his stories with added layers of complexities. Poe creates an equivocal ending which permits the reader to believe that the dead return supernaturally or that the unreliability of the narrator calls his account into question. Indeed, the interpretation could be made that the apparently deceased lady is merely the victim of a cataleptic trance, if the transformation of her hair from blonde to brunette is ascribed to the narrator's hallucination. In this story of a loved one who dies while struggling vainly to cling ta life, and the narrator's attempt to resurrect her through a new wife, Poe articulates the passion which leads to obsession. Ligeiats belief that "Man 198 doth not yield him to the angels, nor unto death utterly, Save only through the weakness of his feeble willw (EAP 2: 319) underscores her strength of spirit. Such a notion would be inverted in Poe's later story, "The Facts in the Case of Mo Valdemar," in which the will of a mesmerist maintains life in his patient. Poe himself denied that "Ligeia [lived] again in the person of Rowena," as she takes over Rowena's body only to be entombed as her. Poe hinted that he should have indicated this more closely, but this was in the context of an ironic letter written to an admirer who seemed to have missed the point of the ending. 46 David R. Saliba interprets Ligeia as a dream figure.47 The narrator confesses to drug addiction after her death, as he became "a bounden slave in the trammels of opium, and my labors and my orders had taken a coloring from my dreamsw (EAP 2: 320). In this context, it is not curious that Poe's tale stops at the point of highest drama. It provides the most effective conclusion if the narrator is interpreted as a monomaniac, but, as Roy P. Basler notes, if this were to be read as a supernatural tale, the return of Ligeia is only a climax in need of a déno~ernent.~~Through the use of an equivocal ending, the story remains true to its realistic roots, even with the unreliability of the narrator. Saliba concludes that her return marks the culmination of the nightmare, a final confrontation of conscious and unconscious which becornes too overwhelming for the narrator's ego, in 199 tems of emotion. Thus, the inability to decipher Ligeia's true nature magnifies the sense of terror in the narrator and the reader. 49 Although D. H. Lawrence opts for the supernatural interpretation, as he sees Ligeia and the narrator as vampires feeding on Rowenar5O Do ~amakrishna notes that the attitude of the narrator is different £rom those in "Berenice" and "Morelia," with regard to the deceased." Yet, that the figure who appears to be Ligeia should shrink from the touch of the narrator is inconsistent with the nature of her lover's ardour. It makes sense only if it is his abused second wife, the Lady Rowena Trevanion, of
Tremaine. Since the narrator appears to poison her during an opium-induced haze, her reaction to his touch should not be surprising. If she had been given a death-like appearance by the administering of "three or four large drops of a brilliant and ruby colored fluid" (EAP 2: 325), her husband's delusion that she has transformed into his first wife may be attributed to the opium. In this respect, only by closing the story at the point of her recovery could Poe leave the narrative open- ended, which suggests the reincarnation of Llgeia in Rowena's body. Go R. Thampson affirms that the "weird events" of
"Ligeia" are a psychological delusion of the narrator, which is "so subtly insinuated that the reader tends to see only from the narrator's point of vie^."^^
Still, it is the narratorrs mournful obsession over the loss of his first wife that isolates him from his second bride, whom he marries in "a moment of mental alienation" (EAP 2: 320-21). She represents an attempt to fil1 the void left in his life, but also a failed subconscious attempt to escape
Ligeia. Rowena is l'fair-haired and blue-eyedw (EAP 2 : 321) , while his first wife boasts "raven-black ...g lossy ...luxuriant and naturally-curling tresses" (EAP 2: 312). But, unlike
Ivanhoe, the narrator finds the fair Rowena no substitute for
his dark, poetic lady. Saliba concludes that Ligeia is a
figure representative of the narrator 's unconscious mind. 53 Paradoxically , she possesses a " fierce energy' so constrained that her husband perceives it only when her eyes expand, while her "wild words" are uttered through "the almost magical
melody, modulation, distinctness and placidity of her very low voice..." (EAP 2: 315). Basler finds the narrator to be almost psychopathic in his obsession, his detailed description of Ligeiafs features being a failed attempt to find the meaning of life through the object of his desire. But even
though his senses fail him, his imagination refuses to accept
def eat .54 Hia description mirrors his inability ta capture the strange essence of her features:
In beauty of face no maiden ever equalled her....Yet her features were not of that regular mould which we have been falsely taught to worship...although 1 perceived that her loveliness was indeed "exquisite," and felt that there was much of "strangeness" pervading it, yet 1 have tried in vain ta detect the irregularity and to trace home my own perception of "the strange" (EAP 2: 311-12). With Ligeiafs demise, the narrator's obsession gives way to 201 megalomania; he is willing to destroy his second wife to recreate his first. Struck by the aphorism of Joseph Glanvill, which Ligeia says just before she dies, Poefs narrator tries to overcome his "feeble willw (EAP 2: 319) by renouncing visible reality. Edward H. Davidson notes that such a use of will recasts the world entirely in terms of the most intimate visions of the self, with even the power to make reality a direct embodiment of the selfaS5 J. Gerald Kennedy notes that the narrator is lost without Ligeia; by placing her on a pedestal above al1 other women, not only does he doom any chances of marital bliss with Rowena, but he also subconsciously admits his own lack of self-esteem and strength in his own ego.56 Given the unreliability of a narrator in the throes of such an obsession, he is unwilling to admit to the reader what he is unwilling to admit to himself. In trying to get the reader to believe that Ligeia returned from the grave, Basler notes that he is unwilling to confess that he poisoned Rowena and that Ligeia's resurrection was a mere hallucination. 57 While "Ligeia" represents Poe's mostdetailed exploration of mournful obsession, two of his earlier stories explored obsessive behaviour founded not on their narratorsf love for the departed, but on their inability to expel their memory. In "Berenice" (1835), Poe depicts an obsessive relationship based on "speculation," rather than passion. As with Ligeia, to the possessive narrator, Egaeus, the cousin he marries is nothing more than a dream figure. Saliba notes that it is Berenice's apparent immortality and inability to be possessed which cause Egaeus to become anxious and oppressedOs8 AS with Poe's later story, "The Oval Portrait," the marriage proposal cornes "in an evil momentw (EAP 2 : 214 ) . Egaeus realizes that his cousin has become ...not...the living and breathing Berenice, but. ..the Berenice of a dream; not.. .a being of the earth, earthy, but...the abstraction of such a being; not...a thing to admire, but to analyze; not...an object of love, but... the theme of the most abstruse although desultory speculationw (EAP 2: 214). Egaeus admits to "monomania" in his "nervous intensity of interest" (EAP 2: 211), an oversensitivity not of the senses, as with Roderick Usher, but of the intellect's tendency to brood over a particular object. As Berenice's body wastes away, and her face becomes more skeletal, he refines his obsession with Berenice to what becomes her predominant f eature, what he believes to be the source of her fascination, her teeth. In a letter to Tm W. White, the editor of the Southern Literarv Messenqer, Poe apologized for his story, which had received complaints. He states that he finds the subject of his story to be "far too horrible,'* and allows "that it
approaches the very verge of bad-taste." Since the story arose only because of a bet, he declares that "1 will not sin
quite so egregiously again. w59 But the gruesomeness Poe employs reveals that he is satirizing Gothic conventions with the audacity of his ending. Egaeus stresses the wasting, 203 vampiric qualities of Berenice's disease, as her "species of
epilepsy" terminates usually in a "trance" (EAP 2: 211). Within this framework, Egaeusf removal of Berenicefs teeth appears to be an absurd addition to vampire f~lklore.'~ Poe travesties the usual methods of dispatching a vampiric femme fatale - stakes, sunlight, or decapitation - in what one modern critic denounces as "an obscene sick jokemU6l While they were in Berenicefs mouth, the "thirty-two small, white, and ivory-looking substances" seemed to be the source of
ideas, but "scattered to and fro about the f loor" (EAP 2: 219), they become symbols of Egaeus' guilt. Psychologically,
it points to the failure of the ego, represented by Egaeus, to understand the meaning of its nightmarei6' the dream state remains as inscrutable to the narrator as the obsession which drives him to mutilate his bride. In this sense, the inability to possess her fails to be achieved with the
stealing of her teeth. The ending also represents a rare use of horror, rather than terror on Poe's part, as the cumulative effect is one of repulsion rather than fear, particularly when the reader discovers that Berenice was not dead when her teeth were e~tracted.~~Therefore, the ending of this early story may be regarded as an experiment to detemine how far his readers would follow him, as Poe remained true to his declaration that he would not "sin quite so egregiouslyw in the future. Poe invests another story, wMorella,w with the 204 possibility of reincarnation, and returns to the theme of metempsychosis, which he had explored in "Metzengerstein."
Hints of this theme would appear in "Ligeia, " "Eleonora," "The
Black Cat," and "A Tale of the Ragged Mountains." The narrator's initial fascination with his wife, Morelia, turns to dread - "joy suddenly faded into horror" - as he feels "her cold hand" while studying with her as she pored "over
forbidden pages" (EAP 2: 230), an apparent allusion to black magic. Bis rejection leads to her dying curse: "thy days shall be days of sorrow. .. " (EAP 2 : 233 ) . The prophecy is fulfilled when he gives his daughter the name of his wife, after waiting ten years to name her. This action takes on the aura of a magic spell, as the daughter dies on the spot. To the narrator, Morella appears to inhabit her daughter, whose "srnile," "eyes," "high forehead," "silken hair," and "wan fingers" (EAP 2: 234) bear the imprints of her mother.
Michael R. Burduck notes that Morelia's apparent imortality carries little comfort for her, and causes her to face utter loneliness, as underscored by the epigraph from Plato:
"Itself, by itself solely, ONE everlastingly, and single" (EAP 2: 229). In such a context, Morella's spirit is free to take control of a new body .6d Such a supernatusal interpretation is reinforced by the narrator0s finding "no traces" of his wife in her "charnel" (EAP 2: 236). Yet, given the unreliability of Poe's narrators, it is more likely that he has no memory of moving 205 her corpse. The narrator blocks his memory subconsciously, as
Egaeus does when he tears out his wife's teeth in "Berenice,"
a story published just a month before "Morelia" in 1835. The resemblance of his daughter to his wife only gains supernatural portent when filtered through the obsessive mind of the narrator, who "longed with an earnest and consuming desire for the moment of Morelia's decease" (EAP 2: 232). In addition, his daughter only appears to die immediately after
she is baptized. In itself, the phrase, "But she died" (EAP
2: 236), has no connotation of time. The supernatural invitation also demands that Morelia would cause the death of her daughter just to cause her husband remorse. As in "Berenice," it should not be surprising that the obsessive dread of a deceased bride should assume supernatural appearances, particularly given Poe's penchant for unreliable narrators.
In an earlier story, published in 1834 as "The Visionary" and later retitled "The Assignation," Poe depicts a stranger's rescue of a child as the climax of a passionate, but doomed, affair. For the first time, Poe deals with what he would later tem the "most poetical topic in the world," the theme of the death of a beautiful woman. In this case, another unreliable narrator stumbles across a love affair. When an
infant dropped accidentally into the waters of Venice is rescued by an acquaintance of the narrator, the latter fails to perceive the meaning of the Marchesa Aphrodite di Mentoni: 206 "Thou hast conquered - one hour after sunrise - we shall meet - so let it bel " (EAP 2: 155). Not until the end of the story does the narrator comprehend "the entire and terrible truthw (EAP 2: 166) of the suicide pact, as the stranger and the Marchesa are revealed to have taken poison. Because of Poe's use of an obtuse narrator, the obsession of the Byronic stranger for the Marchesa is revealed through his art - his poetry and his palazzo. David R. Saliba notes that the interior of the stranger8s palazzo resembles the interior of his mind, as it is related to a cathedral, the central image of Gothic literature. Such a style breaks the rules of decor, in terms of balance and proportion, which Poe later established in a sketch entitled "Philosophy of Furniture"
(1840).65 The glaring garishness of this palazzo suggests the insanity of a nightmare world, from which the narrator is awakened with a sudden flash by the double suicide. Both the stranger and the Marchesa have transformed themselves into works of art, in what Charles E. May defines as Poe's "ultimate epiphany", his transforming of the temporal into the unchanging spatial unity of a work of art. The static tableau presented by the double suicide is reminiscent of the conclusion of Romeo and Juliet, fulfilling the artistic intent of unity , order, and pattern. 66 Poe returns to the theme of life transformed into art in "Life in Death" (1842), revised in 1845 as "The Oval Portrait," a story in which he depicts an artist's obsession 207 with painting his bride's portrait. The story, recounted in a volume read by the narrator, begins in the tone of a rather grim fairy tale: "She was a maiden of rarest beauty, and not more lovely than full of glee. And evil was the hour when she saw, and loved, and wedded the painter" (EAP 2: 664). She seems to guess intuitively that she does not have the ability to conquer her rival, the painter's other "bride, " his art. She dreads his picking up a brush and it is "a terrible thingw when he articulates his desire to paint her. While she "pined visibly ...but...smiled on and still on, uncomplaininglyfW he "took a fervid and burning pleasure in his task, " until he "had grown wild with the ardor of his work. " He becomes so obsessed with his idealized vision of his bride that he looks at her "rarely," and does not notice her decline until it is too late. Whether the painter may have become obsessed with mourning over the loss of his bride, neither the narrator nor the reader ever discovers. Unlike the tale of how the portrait was created, the narrative frame which surrounds this story is left incomplete. Poe ends the story at the climactic moment, without any dénouement depicting the narratorts reaction. Such an anticlimax is unnecessary, but the reader is left to decide not only whether the painter is overcome with grief or if he continued to find meagre solace in having created such a vibrant portrait, but whether the portrait itself drained her life. The lack of dwellers in the chateau 208 which houses the portrait may be seen as reflective of the absence with which the painter must have lived the rest of his days. An equivocal hint of the supernatural appears in Poe's description of the transforming power of art: "And he would not see that the tints which he spread upon the canvass were drawn from the cheeks of her who sat beside him" (EAP 2: 665). He "grew tremulous and very pallid, and aghast," before he discovers that his wife is dead, since, as far as art is concerned, the vividness of the portrait is of paramount importance, and "It is indeed Life itself!" (EAP 2: 666), as the painter declares in short-lived rapture. David Ketterer notes that this description of how art is capable of transfonning an ordinary woman into an ideal one mirrors the artist's transcendence over the everyday world through his use of arabesque architecture. 67 The chateau's "walls were hung with tapestry and bedecked with ...trophies ...with an unusually great number of very spirited modern paintings in frames of rich golden arabesquew (EAP 2: 662). Poe even conjures his Gothic ancestor in describing the setting of the Apennines, whose "commingled gloom and grandeurw were "not less in fact than in the fancy of Mrs. Radcliffew (EAP 2: 662).
The narrator of Poe' s story, "The Oblong Box" ( 1844 ) , remains confused when confronted with a case of rnournful obsession. The story becomes a mystery because of the narratorts inability to deduce the motivation of his fellow passenger, Cornelius Wyatt. As Wyatt travels with his wifets 209 maid pretending to be his bride, the narrator assumes that Wyatt 's sombre temperament arises from his experiencing "entire and speedy disgust" (EAP 3: 927) from having married a rather unprepossessing bride. Since Wyatt is an artist, he assumes that the "sobbinq or sighing" emanating from his cabin must be a fit of "artistic enthusiasm," as he gazes at what he guesses to be a copy of "The Last Supper. " Poe describes Wyatt's act ironically, since he is later revealed to have been gazing on the corpse of his wife, rather than a painting: "He had opened his oblong box, in order to feast his eyes on the pictorial treasure within" (EAP 3 : 929). Wyatt's mournful obsession drives him to the point of madness. The narratorts attempt at finding humour in the box causes Wyatt to burst into a fit of laughter, in which he indulges "for ten minutes or more" (EAP 3: 928) before collapsing. Unable to fathom the despair Wyatt shows in his suicida1 act of lashing himself to the box after the shipwreck, the obtuse narrator regards Wyatt's act as a bizarre spectacle. Filtered through his point of view, the joining of Wyatt and his dead love becomes merely "an exceedingly singular thing" (EAP 3: 932). The narrator admits to drinking too much "strong green tea," as well as being "nervous" (EAP 3: 928), and prone to poor sleep. Yet, when the truth is revealed to him, he confesses to having been "too careless, too inquisitive, and too impulsive" (EAP
3: 934) in his discernment of the mystery. Poe's story thereby illustrates the essential solitude of the mourner, who remains isolated £rom al1 social connections in a world of his own misery. Poe allows an exception to the tragic consequences attendant upon cases of rnournful obsession in "Eleonora" ( 184 1 ) . Although the narrator swears to his cousin and bride, Eleonora, never to marry again after her death, his discovery of another woman, Ermengarde, causes him to break his vow. J.
Gerald Kennedy terms this "a cheerful rewriting" of "Ligeia," in the sense that the departed appears to sanction her husband's remarriage. In this respect, "Eleonora" appears to solve the problem of "Ligeia" by having two women - one living, one dead - collaborate tacitly to make the narrator happy. But the sentimentality of the conclusion appears to mock the notion of happy endingd8 'Sleep in peacel - for the Spirit of Love reigneth and ruleth, and, in taking to thy passionate heart her who is Emengarde, thou art absolved, for reasons which shall be made known to thee in Heaven, of thy vows unto Eleonora' (EAP 2: 645). Joan Dayan argues that Poe mocks an impossible conception by making it possible, with what the narrator believes to be a supernatural message. In reinvigorating the triteness of a blessing, the most empty formula, Poe's use of the invocation "Sleep in peacei" has the ambiguity of being a possible curse instead of a benediction, in the manner of Montresor's "In pâce req~iescatl"~~But Poe would have been more specific if he intended his reader to suspect that Eleonora is resurrected in Ermengarde's body, as in Worella," or if the narrator 211 suf fers from madness .'O Theref ore, "Eleonora" appears to be the only example of Poe's depictions of mournful obsession that is transformed into hopeful bliss.
A final example of Poe's technique in creating non- supernatural terror appears in his depiction of phobias. Whereas Poe creates terror through the excesses with which his characters indulge their penchants for madness, revenge, and mournful obsession, the reader realizes that his chances of being as absorbed are relatively small. In contrast, phobias are universal; thus the depiction of such fears produces terror in the reader according to the gravity and universality of the phobia. While one might assume that the primary fear of death, thanataphobia, would be the topic on which Poe would build his tales of terror, the reverse is actually the case. What such characters as the narrator of "LigeiaW dread is not so much dissolution, but the inability to escape the haunting memory of the past. For Poe's characters, life itself becomes a struggle against the imp of the perverse, guilt over revenge, or a painful series of episodes revolving around mourning for a lost love. In this context, these characters require a more gruesome fear to make their trepidation credible.
While the reader might suspect that ailurophobia, the fear of cats, would be a theme of "The Black Cat," initially the narrator does not harbour such a dread. The description of the vileness of the rats in "The Pit and the Pendulum" generates an impression of the narratorrs loathsome disgust, but not necessarily prima1 fear. Nyctophobia, the fear of darkness, also appears to a degree in the narratorrs apprehension of his surroundings. A combination of autophobia, the f ear of being alone, and agoraphobia, the f ear
of open spaces, might be said to be the motivating factors of "The Man of the Crowd," as the narrator may be unreliable in his inability to interpret this character. The reverse of this fear may be seen in "William Wilson," in which the narrator is unable to escape his other half. Even bathophobia, the fear of depths, may be evinced in such tales as "MS. Found in a Bottle" and "A Descent into the Maelstrom." But the phobia with which Poe achieves his greatest success is one particularly fitted to creating terror in his reader's mind. What Poe considers the ultimate phobia is taphephobia, the fear of being buried alive, which has the potential for universal fear, regardless of the probability of meeting such a fate. Poe depicts this phobia in several stories, none more centrally than in the tale devoted to the subject, "The
Premature Burial" (1844). Although the impulse to write this tale presumably arose from the publicity surrounding the "Life-preserving ~offin,"'~an exhibit at the American Institute's annual fair in New York in 1843," elements of this theme had appeared in several of Poe's previous stories: "LOSS of Breath,"
"Berenice, " "Morelia, tg "King Pest, " "Ligeia, " "The Fall of the 213
Bouse of Usher," and "The Colloquy of Monos and Una." But the live burials in those tales were not the central topic of a story. With "The Premature Burial," Poe begins by apologizing for the nature of his topic: "There are certain themes of which the interest is all-absorbing, but which are too entirely horrible for the purposes of legitimate fictionw
(EAP 3: 954-955). If such themes are not eschewed, the "mere
romanticist" may "offend, or O.. disgustw his reader, but such a topic as premature burial has "an interest profound" (EAP 3: 961), and because of its basis in truth, it may be treated precisely because of its universal possibility . After detailing a number of historical examples of premature burial, the narrator concludes that since detection of such events is rare, "we must admit that they may frequently occur without our cognizance. " Poe ' s narrator describes the terrors of such an event as being unsurpassed. He commences his narrative proclaiming, "To be buried while alive, is, beyond question, the most terrific of...extremes which has ever fallen to the lot of mere mortality" (EAP 3 : 955) . Later, he rein£orces his declaration: "It may be asserted, without hesitation, that no event is so terribly well adapted to inspire the supremeness of bodily and of mental distress, as is burial before death." In detailing the terrors of the unspeakable, Poe creates a mood of fear and distinct unease in the reader: The unendurable oppression of the lungs - the stifling fumes of the damp earth - the clinging to the death gannents - the rigid embrace of the narrow house - the blackness of the absolute Night - the silence like a sea that overwhelms - the unseen but palpable presence of the Conqueror Worm - these things, with thoughts of the air and grass above, with memory of dear friends who would fly to sava us if but informed of our fate, and with consciousness that of this fate they can never be informed - that our hopeless portion is that of the really dead - these considerations ...carry into the heart, which still palpitates, a degree of appalling and intolerable horror from which the most daring imagination must recoil. We know of nothing so agonizing upon Earth - we can dream of nothing half so hideous in the realms of the nethermost Hel1 (EAP 3: 961). The neurotic narrator reveals that he suffers from catalepsy and fears that he ni11 become a candidate for the live burial that he fears. Ais obsessive desire for prevention causes him to have his "family vault...remodelled" (EAP 3: 965) in such a manner that would prevent any chance of premature burial. Despite such elaborate preparations , the reader is not surprised when the narrator wails, "But, alas l what avails the vigilance against the Destiny of man?" (EAP 3: 966), as the narrator finds himself forced to confront his greatest fear. But the result is a travesty, as his live burial is revealed to be nothing more than his error in awakening in an unfamiliar berth in a small sloop. Yet the occurrence breaks the hold of the obsessive taphephobia which haunts the narratorts mind; the "very excess" of such torture brings with it "an inevitable revulsion" in his spirit. The narrator confesses that his "sou1 acquired tone - acquired temper," as he "went abroad...took vigorous exescise" and "thought upon other subjects than Death." Poe surrenders any universal merit of truth his story provides by casting it as a mere tale of terror, which the narrator himself would consign to the fire: "1 discarded my medical books. 'Euchan' 1 burned. 1 read no llNight Thoughts - no fustian about church-yards - no bugaboo tales - such as this" (EAP 3: 969). The narrator's immersion in the macabre leaves him as prone to his phobia as the reading of superstitious books leaves his counterpart in "The Sphinxw prone to delusion (EAP 3 : 1247 ) . The simple dismissal of such works causes his catalepsy to vanish.
G. R. Thompson hails Poe's story as one of the clearest examples of his use of Gothic irony; he notes such techniques as the comical ~ndercutting'~f ollowing the climactic description of what the narrator believes to be his prernature burial: l@Hillol Hillo, therel " (EAP 3: 968). With a multiple satiric irony, the narrator dissolves the terror he has created throughout the story, but he leaves the reader to entertain the ghastly possibilities he has suggested. In addition, the sincerity of the narrator's conversion suggests a parodying of didactic magazine fiction, which Poe denounces as "the heresy of The Didactic," most notably in his posthumously published essay, "The Poetic Principlew (1850)." Lastly, Poe's return to his macabre theme in his final paragraph jars with the jaunty tone he has just achieved : Alas! the grim legion of sepulchral terrors cannot be regarded as altogether fanciful - but like the Demons in whose Company Afrasiab made his voyage down the Oxus, they must sleep, or they will devour us - they must be suffered to slumber, or we perish (EAP 3: 969). With such a warning not ta disturb the demons of the mind, Poe leaves an equivocal hint of psychological and supernatural ambiguity, from which the reader may entertain what Thompson tenns "the serious possibilities of the absurd situati~n."'~ Poe's theme of premature burials had also been used by such Gothic novelists as Lewis and ~aturin. But while the
mere description of such incidents sufficed to create terror in the English Gothic novels, Poe internalized the dread of
taphephobia, filtering it through the nervous anxieties of his first-person narrators. His first use of the theme was satirical. The subtitle of "Loss of Breath" (1835) - "A Tale Neither in Nor Out of 'Blackwood8" - signifies Poe's parodic intent. In this revision of "A Decided Loss, " a story from 1832, Poe explores the macabre suggestion that consciousness continues after death. The narrator, Lackobreath, relates his feelings as he falls prey to various indignities, culminating in his interment after being hanged. In an excised passage, Poe describes the unpleasantness of consciousness after death with macabre humour. When Lackobreath is interred in the
vault, ha decides to accept his fate: It was probable that many months might elapse before the doors of the tomb would be again unbarred - and even should 1 survive until that period, what means could I have more than at present, of making known my situation or of escaping from the coffin? I resigned myself, therefore, with much tranquillity to my fate, and fell, after many hours, into a deep and deathlike sleep (EAP 2: 81). Recovering his power of motion, Lackobreath8s emotion is one of "ennui," rather than terror, on account of the public vault being "dreadfully dreary and dmp. " The parodying of 217 sensation fiction removes a great deal of the terror implicit in his situation; Lackobreath describes how he relieves his
boredom: "By way of amusement, 1 felt my way among the numerous coffins ranged in order around." As he moves Yhem dom, one by one, " and breaks open their lids, Lackobreath indulges "in speculations about the mortality within." David
Ketterer argues that the story "defeats interpretation," as it
exhibits a dream's surrealist logic. " Whether Lackobreath
is "tumbling over a corpse" (EAP 2: 70) or dragging
"spitefully from its receptacle" another body, over whom he soliloquizes while applying his "thumb and fore-finger to its nose.. .causing it to assume a sitting position upon the groundw (EAP 2: 71), Poe's satiric depiction of such excesses provokes a dry mirth rather than a dry throat in the reader.
By the time he wrote his story, "The Fall of the Bouse of Usher" in 1839, Poe had already presented a woman susceptible to a death-like epileptic trance with Berenice, and a possibly similar case with Lady Rowena Trevanion, of Tremaine. Madeline Usher succeeds in wreaking her revenge on her brother, who warns the narrator, "We have put her living in the tombl" (EAP 2: 416). Although the narrator and Roderick
"replaced and screwed dom the lid" of her coffin and "secured the door of ironw (EAP 2: 410) which trapped her "within the donjon" (EAP 2 : 4 11) , she is able to escape. With "blood upon her white robes, and the evidence of some bitter struggle upon every portion of her emaciated frame," Madeline is still able 2 18 to crush Roderick by falling "heavily inward" (EAP 2: 416) upon him. That she is able to escape at al1 is due to Roderick's decision to preserve her "for a fortnight" prior to her final interment "in one of the numerous vaults" of the
house. He tells the naxrator that he arrived at his decision £rom the character of her malady, the advice of doctors, and the remoteness of the family plot. Roderickfs apparent good
intentions would have been ill-rewarded by Madeline's rage, were it not for his questionable decision to fasten her coffin lid and secure the iron door, especially given his initial concern about her catalepsy. Similarly, the narratorfs premature interment of "The Black Catw consigns him "to the hangman," as his wail of despair echoes Roderick Usher: "1 had walled the monster up within the tomb!" (EAP 3: 859). In the story, "Some Words with a Mummy" (1845), Poe depicts the resurrection, via electricity, of an Egyptian mummy, Count Allamistakeo. The
Count relates, in a casual manner, that he "feil into catalepsy" and was embalmed by his "best friends," who
wconsidered" that he "was either dead or should bew (EAP 3: 1187). In his last use of a taphephobic theme, in 'The Cask of Amontillado" (1846), Poe filters the terror of live burial through the narration of the murderer, rather than the victim. From the vantage point of fifty years after the fact, Montresor is far more concerned with the cleverness with which he executed the perfect crime, rather than on the suffocating 219 fear that gripped Fortunato. If his victim expires bef ore the last stone is plastered into position, then Montresor's revenge is somewhat robbed of its edge. But if Fortunato8s silence indicates merely a temporary physical collapse, then the fate which awaits him even appears to cause Montresor's heart to grow "sickm(EN 3: 1263) . The final jingling of the bells toll for Fortunato, their merriment transformed into a knell, a theme Poe would elaborate in one of his last poems, "The Bells. " Poe's depiction of unbalanced mental states, through such themes as madness, revenge, mournful obsession, and phobias, remains consistently within the tradition of the uncanny in eschewing the supernatural. Poe creates "terror...of the soul" by filtering violence, obsession, and fear through the minds of unxeliable narrators. This psychological internalizing creates terrors with an equivocal ambiguity, which leaves only a hint of the supernatural for readers who are so inclined. Perhaps the most famous example of this borderline flirtation with supernaturalism is "Ligeia." As previously stated, although it appears that Ligeia has inhabited the body of Rowena through supernatural means, the climactic events of this story are filtered through a particularly unreliable narrator who is addicted to opium. Indeed, the resurrected Ligeia may be merely the revived
Rowena escaping the bonds of catalepsy. Such an equivocal ending allows contemporary readers to savour the thrills 220 attendant upon supernatural machinery while savouring the method of an uncanny tale grounded in rationalism. The following few instances in which Poe appears to invoke
supernatural machinery may be viewed as exceptions, since they are primarily satires, rather than tales of terror.
Poe satirized the psychological sensation fiction popularized in Blackwood's Edinburah Maqazine, founded in 1817, in which protagonists proceeded to analyze their
sensations after being ensnared in fantastic predicaments .77 In his story, "Aow to Write a Blackwood Article" (1838), Poe describes some of his own techniques in the creation of terror
fiction. Mr. Blackwood attempts to instruct his foolish pupil, the Signora Psyche Zenobia: "Should you ever be drowned or hung, be sure and make a note of your sensations - they will be worth to you ten guineas a sheet" (EAP 2: 340). Blackwood continues by stressing the importance of choosing the right tone of narration, as well as the correct use of similes and foreign phrases. But Zenobiats attempt at sensation fiction, "A Predicament," is humourous rather than horrifie, as she loses her eyes, but not her vision, and loses her head, but remains alive. While Saliba sees Zenobia as a grotesque personification of Poe's imagination, which is why she is able to survive her bizarre mis ad venture^,'^ Reynolds concludes that "A Predicamentw is "a zany caricature of the irrational stylew which Poe terms the "tone heterogeneous." This " judicious mixture.. .of al1 the other tones in the 221 world..is consequently made up of everything deep, great, odd, piquant, pertinent, and pretty" (EAP 2: 342-43). In other words, this is a tone characterized by a lack of firm control by the author, £rom which thematic absurdity and stylistic chaos erupt .19 Poe's use of satire found an early expression in
"Metzengerstein," the first of his acknowledged stories to be printed, in 1832. Four years later, Poe gave it the subtitle, "A Tale in Imitation of the German," signifying the story as a burlesque from the beginning. This satire of Gothic conventions depicts the apparent reincarnation of the old
Wilhelm, Count Beriifitzing into a horse, which brings about the doom of his nemesis, Frederick, Baron Metzengerstein. Mabbott notes the probability that early readers would have found the names humourous in themselves , signalling Poe ' s satirical intent. The narrator describes the young baron's indulgences in "shameful debaucheries - flagrant treacheries - unheard-of atrocitiesw and brands him with "the remorseless fangs of a petty Caligula" (EAP 2: 21) ." The reader surnises that such villainy will receive a just reward by the conclusion; theref ore, the dramatic interest resides in how such retribution will be given. Poe's flirts with the supernatural in his first published story, which is related through a shadowy narrator whose choice of words is often ludicrous, as Saliba notes. Apparently suffering from the spectacle he witnessed, he differs from Poe's later narrators 222 in his lack of fear or anxiety, his apparent insanity seeming to insulate him from emotional strain. Saliba concludes that
Poe elected to drape this early story in supernatural machinery because he had not yet learned how to appeal to the reader's unconscious fears. Poe shows that the story is the Baron's own nightmare, so that the reader is not forced to accept the existence of metemp~ychosis.~~ Maurice Lévy declares "Metzengerstein" to be "nearly a perfect Gothic story," due to the obscure prophecy on which the plot turns, in addition to "the central motif" of "the animated tapestry," which Lévy notes was a popular device "from the first novels" of Charlotte Smith to ~aturin.'~ Poe had intended his narrator to be one of eleven in "a mere Junto of Dunderheadism" (EU 2: 203), each contributing a story to a projected collection, Tales of the Folio Club. The narratorts intrusive commentary suggests the absurd style and conventions of the German tales of terror, as his faulty understanding tends to exaggerate events through numerous ironic and slightly comic twistsme4 George E. Baggerty notes that Poe "began his Gothic enterprise in a mood of mockery and c~nternpt."~~With such a satirical context, the supernatural element of metempsychosis is not utilized to create terror; rather, it is only another piece of Gothic machinery to be burlesqued "in Imitation of the German." On the surface, Poe's story, "MS. Found in a Bottle" (l833), appears to be the one exception to his avoidance of the supernatural in terror fiction which does not appear to be satirical. The story involves the legend of the Flying Dutchman, the ghost ship doomed to sail forever which was dreaded by those who saw it as a harbinger of il1 omen. The narrator of the story relates how he survived a storm which destroyed his ship's crew, while travelling in the south seas. When what appears to be a ghost ship crashes into his vessel, he manages to board the eerie boat, but is ignored by its apathetic crew. The narrator's melancholic reaction to his desperate plight conveys utter hopelessness, as Poe elicits the terror implicit in his despair-ridden conclusion: But little time will be left me to ponder upon my destiny! The circles rapidly grow small - we are plunging madly within the grasp of the whirlpool - and amid a roaring, and bellowing, and thundering of ocean and of tempest, the ship is quivering - oh Godl and -- going dom! (EAP 2: 146).
Charles E. May notes that the issue of genre is crucial in determining how to approach Poe's stories. In this work, the narrator appears to be reliable, since he is a skeptic rather than a visionary. Thus, the question arises as to whether he actually witnesses the ghost ship. Yet, a rational answer is available in the narratorfs devouring of a "small quantity of jaggeree, procured with great difficulty from the forecastlew (EAP 2: 138) over five days, a meal which he shares with a superstitious Swede. Since opium has been stored in a clumsy mannes next to this coarse sugar (EAP 2: 136), the inference that the narrator has been ingesting a hallucinogen dispels the supernatural 224 contrivance. The narrator projects the ghost ship from his imagination: its wood is porous because it is not solid matter at all, but the fancy of the deluded ~pium-eater.~~ But it should also be remembered that this contest-winning story was intended as another tale of the Folio Club, presumably narrated by "Mr. Solomon Seadrift who had every appearance of a fish," just as the narrator of wMetzengerstein" may be discesned as "Mr. Horribile DictÛw (EAP 2 : 205 ) . Thus, the narrator may be presumed to have survived his adventure, as the veracity of his finding the narrative in a bottle is brought into question by the satiric nature of the rest of the Folio Club narratives. The use of apparent supernatural machinery may be credited to its being a very early story. It is instructive that Poe did not return to such outright abuses of rationalism in the future, without providing an equivocal explanation for such uncanny phenornena. G. R. Thompson notes that Poe's career is "the history of his simultaneous exploration of the fearful and the ridiculous." Since Poe began his career as a satirist, his only real shift was his increased artistic and philosophical irony." Therefore, Poe's use of a supernatural element such as diablerie may be viewed as his writing tales of black humour, rather than dark terror. In such satires as "The Duc de l'ûmelettew (1832); "The Bargain Lostw (written in 1832, published in 1835; revised as "Bon Bonw ) ; "The Devil in the Belfryn (1839); and "lever Bet Your Headw (1841; revised as 225
"Never Bet the Devil Your Head. A Tale with a Moral"), Poe included a diabolic character, whose supernatural origin has no reason to be contested. "The Devil in the Belfry" was subtitled "An Extravaganza" in its f irst publication, which underscored its elements of whimsicality. In order to satirize the notion of progress in his story, "Some Words with a Mummy ( 1845 ) , Poe invokes the supernatural, which mirrors the theme of another story published later the same year, "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar, " in terms of a conversation between the living and someone who is not quite dead. Additional supernatural elements may be detected in Poe's three Platonic dialogues which detail the conversations of blessed spirits in Heaven: "The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion" (1839); "The Colloquy of Monos and Una" (1841); and "The Power of Words" (1845). But, even more than his satirical stories, these works abjure terror in favour of speculative notions of the afterlife. In his review of Hawthorne's tales in Godev' s Lady8s Book for November, 1847, Poe expressed a distaste for allegory: "In defence of allegory ...these is scarcely one respectable word to be said. "Og But as a metaphor for the supernatural, Poe found allegory to be a useful tool. In "Shadow. - A Parable" (1835) and its companion piece, "Silence - A Fable" ( 1838) , both presumably written about 1832, Poe uses supernatural machinery to underscore the melancholy nature of his theme. The otherworldly Shadow, as well as the Demon in 226 "Silence," appear to the narrators to convey the abstract ideas of death and isolation. While such themes offer ample
scope for terror, the allegoric approach of the works tends to distance the reader from any grounding in reality, which would make the introduction of the supernatural terrifying. To cite
the drunkenness of the narrator of "Shadow, " as a means of calling his story into question, would be to miss the point, as the tone is of greater importance than its literal
credibility. The stories were written, and should be read, as
a "parable" and a "fable." Both short tales were presumably
intended as the last of the Tales of the Folio Club, and, as such, exhibit the qualities for which they were composed, being "erudite and witty," offering "instruction...and
amusement" (EAP 2: 204). As with the personification of death in "Shadow," Poe personifies the plague in his story, "The Masque of the Red Death" (1842). This allegory appears to be a direct parable about the inability to escape death, but, as Charles E. May notes, the real complexity lies in the mixture of the temporal and the spatial, as the real enemy is revealed to be not the plague but time itself. Prince Prospero can banish the pestilence from his castellated abbey, but the notion of time is embodied in the palace itself as the seven rooms ranging from east to west may be seen as Shakespeare's "Seven Ages of Man," since Poe invokes The Ternoest in the name of his protagoniste When time stops, as "the life of the ebony dock went out with that of the last of 227 the gayw (EAP 2 : 677), Prospero and his masqueraders fa11 prey to their mortality. Thus, the persmification of the plaque, although used in a tale of terror, remains allegorical rather than supernatural; the fairy-tale quality of the narrative
lacks the grounding in realism with which terror could be created by the use of supernatural machinery. While Poe triumphed in many fields of letters, it is his
short stories and poems which have won him enduring popular praise, in particular, the short stories which deal with the uncanny. While Poe's Latinate style seems sometimes more convoluted than Brockden Brown's, the same apology may be made: psychological explorations attain a higher degree of effect depending on the floridity of the prose. While Poe's villains follow Brown's in having a lesser stature than those of the English Gothic novelists, Poe humanizes them. Poe's villains reveal their crimes through the use of first-person narration; their unbalanced mental states are manif ested in insanity or a monomaniacal thirst for revenge. George E. Haggerty notes that even though the reader realizes "that the narrators are mad," it is nearly impossible to resist "the horrifying force of what in their madness they relate. " In this respect, Haggerty declares Poe to be "perhaps the first tale-writer to demonstrate the affective power of paranoia sa brilliantly ."" Paul A. Newlin distinguishes Poe's intent behind his use of Gothic elements as being "solely for a unity of effect," which would "heighten the readers' sensory 228 perceptions." In this, he differs from Hawthorne, whose use of Gothic elements "was not directed so much at the senses as at the conscience. w92 Poe also shows the potential for terror with unbalanced characters whose endless brooding is caused by mournful obsession or an absurd oversensitivity to chimerical phobias, such as live burial, which have relatively little chance of occurring. However, Poe's narrative structure belies such absurdity; he makes the unbelievable credible by stressing the terrors implicit in such an unfortunate act as a premature burial. Through the use of psychological realism, Poe creates successful character portraits which depict the dangers capable of being created by the human mind. Such descriptions internalized the trappings of Gothicism further than Brown. Poe's illustration through first-person narratives of the apparently contagious nature of unbalanced mental states provides a warning about this most universal of dangers, as it reinforces the reader's awareness of the fragile nature of the mind. This was Poefs greatest achievement in terror fiction: he distilled the machinery of European Gothic fiction through a psychological internalization and showed that the potential chaos of Gothic landscapes existed within the mind of his reader. Endnotes
enne ne th Silverman, introduction, New Essavs on Poe's Maior Tales, ed. Silverman (Cambridge, England: Cambridge UP, 1993) 1.
*~oeattained this goal only briefly, when he became the owner and editor of The Broadwav Journal on October 24, 1845, a position he held until the magazine expired on January 3, 1846. The periodical collapsed because of Poe's inability to repay the loans he had assumed to purchase his partners' interests. Kenneth Silverman, Edqar A. Poe: Mournful and
Never-endinq Remembrance (New York: EIarperCollins Publishers, 1991) 271, 277.
3~ilverman,introduction, New Esçavs 19-2 0.
'~dc~arAllan Poe, "Nathanid Hawthorne, " Essavs and Reviews, Library of America Edition, ed. G. R. Thompson (New York: Viking P, 1984) 571-73.
5~homaçOllive Mabbott, Collected Works of Edqar Allan Poe 2: 473. Mabbott notes that the terms "grotesque" and "arabesquew refer to decorative motifs; the former combines plants, animals, and humans, while the latter uses only flowers and calligraphy. Arthur Hobson Quinn, in Edsar Allan
Poe: A Critical Bioqraphy (New York: Appleton-Century- Crofts, 1941) 289, notes that Poe took the tems from Sir Walter Scott's essay, "On the Supernatural in Fictitious 230
Composition..." (1827). Go R. Thompson goes to great lengths to analyze "grotesqueN and "arabesquew in Poe's Fiction:
Romantic Ironv in the Gothic Tales (Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1973) 105-38, arguing that both terms "suggest the struggle
to understand the incomprehensible" ( 109 ) , and represent a "Romantic Irony" in the diversity of their subjects (138).
6~homasS. Hansen, with Burton R. Pollin, The German Face
of Edqar Allan Poe: A Studv of Literary References in Bis Works (Columbia, South Carolina: Camden House, 1995) 15-16.
'PO=, "Marginalia, " Essavs and Reviews 1426.
*RW. William Pargeter, Observations on Maniacal
Disorders, ed. Stanley W. Jackson (1792; London and New York: Routledge, 1988) 47.
"~tephen Peithman, ed., The Annotated Edqar Allan Poe
(Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, 1981) 135 n.3.
"B. D. Tucker, " 'The Tell-Tale Heart ' and the 'Evil Eye, "'
The Southern Literarv Journal 13.2 (Spring 1981 ) : 95.
120avid S. Reynolds, Beneath the American Renaissance : The
Subversive Imacrination in the Aae of Emerson and Melville (New
York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1988) 231-33.
14~larence Wilbur Taber, Taber 's Cvclo~edic Medical
Dictionarv. includina A Dioest of Medical Subiects: Medicine. 231 Surqerv, Nursinq, Dietetics , Physical Therapv , rev. 6th ad.
(Philadelphia: F. A. Davis Company, 1955) H-46.
15~abbott3 : 789.
16~ilverman,New Essavs 13-14.
"~avid S. Reynolds cites the mrder trial of Peter Robinson in 1841, as well as the murder trial of the Knapp brothers in 1830. Reynolds 193, 221-22, 232.
18nen Frieden, "Poe's Narrative Monologues, " The Tales of Poe, ed. Harold Bloom (New York, New Haven, and Philadelphia:
Chelsea Aouse Publishers, 1987 ) 14 1.
lgsybil Wületich-Brinberg, Poe: The Rationale of the Uncannv (New York: Peter Lang, 1988) 216.
20~hristopherBenfey, "Poe and the Unreadable: 'The Black
Cat ' and 'The Tell-Tale Heart, '" New Essays on Poe's Major Tales 38.
"~avid Brion Davis, Homicide in American Fiction, 1798-
1860: A Studv in Social Values (Ithaca, New York: Corne11 UP, 1957) 109-10.
22~abbott2: 521.
23~eynolds246.
*'1saac Ray, A Treatise on the Medical Jurisprudence of 232 Insanitv, ed. Winifred Overholser (1838; Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard UP, 1962) 304.
27~lanAxelrod, Charles Brockden Brown: An American Tale
(Austin: U of Texas P, 1983) 21.
28~lizabeth Phillips, Edsar Allan Poe, An Arnerican Imaqination: Three Essavs (Port Washington and London: Kennikat P, 1979) 133.
*'~oth Ray and Rush offered possible sources for Poe's story. Ray describes an impetuous man who became enraged by "opposition or resistance," and who killed any animal which of fended him (Ray, 132) . Rush relates an account of a cat poisoner who suffered from a " 'perversion of the moral faculty' which seduces a sense to act with it. " Benjamin Rush, Six Introductorv Lectures to Courses of Lectures upon the Institutes and Practices of Medicine, Delivered in the Universitv of Pennsvlvania (Philadelphia: 1801) 440.
30~rieden142.
31~bid.142-43.
32~.Gerald Kennedy, "Phantasms of Death in Poe's Fiction, "
The Tales of Poe 122,
33~arry Levin, The Power of Blackness: Hawthorne, Poe.
Melville (New York: Alfred Am Knopf, 1958) 121-22.
34~ouiseJ. Kaplan, "The Perverse Strategy in 'The Fa11 of the House of Usher,'" New Essavs on Poe's Major Tales 54. 233
35~eynolds, "Poe's Art of Transformation: 'The Cask of
Amontillado' in Its Cultural Context," New Essays on Poe's Major Tales 107.
36~alterStepp, "The Ironic Double in Poe's 'The Cask of Amontillado,'" Studies in Short Fiction 13.4 (Fa11 1976): 448.
37~ricMottram, "Law, Lawlessness, and Philosophy in Edgar Allan Poe," Edaar Allan Poe: The Desiqn of Order, ed. Robert E. Lee (London: Vision, 1987) 160.
38~ho~pson13-14.
39~ületich-~rinberg20 1-03.
41~ichardP. Benton, "Poets 'The Cask' and the 'White Webwork Which Gleams, "' Studies in Short Fiction 28.2 (Spring 1991): 190.
42~ichardWilbur, "The Bouse of Poe, " Poe: A Collection of
Critical Essavs, ed. Robert Regan (Englewood Cliff s, New
Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1967 ) 117.
44~eynolds,"Poe's Art of Transi ormation.. ." 106-07.
45~oe,"The Philosophy of Composition, " Essavs and Reviews 19.
46~oe,"To Philip Pendletan Cooke, ' 21 Sept. 1839, letter 234 in The Letters of Edqar Allan Poe, ed. John Ward Ostrom, rev. ed. vol. 1 (New York: Gordian Pt 1966) 118 (2 vols.).
47~avidR. Saliba, A Psvcholoav of Fear: The Niahtrnare Formula of Edqar Alian Poe (Lanham, Maryland: UP of America, 1980) 145.
48~oyP. Basler, "The Interpretation of 'Ligeia, ' " Poe: A Collection of Critical Essavs, ed. Robert Regan (1948; Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1967) 61.
'OD. K. Lawrence, Studies in Classic American Literature (New York: Thomas Seltzer, 1923) 101.
51~.Ramakrishna, Ex~lorations in Poe (Delhi: Academic Foundation, 1992) 26.
52~.R. Thompson, " 'Proper Evidences of Madness ' : American Gothic and the Interpretation of 'Ligeia' , ESQ: A Journal of the American Renaissance 18.66 (1972): 36.
53~aliba151.
55~dwardB. Davidson, Poe: A Critical Study (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard UP, 1957) 77.
56~ennedy,"Poe, 'Ligeia, ' and the Problem of Dying Women, " New Essavs on Poe's Maior Tales 121.
57~asler58. ''poe, "To T. W. White," 30 Apr. 1835, letter in The
Letters of Edqar Allan Poe 1: 57.
60~alBlythe and Charlie Sweet, "Poe's Satiric Use of
Vampirism in 'Berenice, ' " Poe Studies 14.2 (December 1981 ) :
24.
"~ületich-~rinber~133.
62~aliba130.
63~ichaelLe Burduck, Grim Phantasms: Fear in Poe's Short Fiction (New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1992) 59-
60.
64~bid.- 63-64, 66.
%harles E. May, Edgar Allan Poe: A Studv of the Short Fiction (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1991) 53.
67~avidKetterer, The Rationale of Deceotion in Poe (Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State UP, 1979) 199-200.
68~ennedy,"Poe, 'Ligeia,' and the Problem of Dying Women" 126-27.
69~oanDayan, Fables of Mind: An Inauirv Into Poe's
Fiction (New York and Oxford: Oxford UP, 1987) 222-23.
''~eithman 584 n. 34.
"~bbott 3: 954. 72~.T. Bandy , "A Source of Poe's The Premature Burial, "' American Literature 19.2 (April 1947): 167.
Poe's Fiction 14-15.
Poetic Principle," Essavs and Reviews 75.
Pce 's Fiction
77~hompson,Poe's Fiction
''~lthou~h he is described as being only fifteen pars of age in the first four published texts, Poe did not increase his age to eighteen until a much later revision; thus, his youth evokes comparison not just with Caligula, but also with the atrocities of the later emperor, Heliogabalus. Poe alludes to this latter tyrant in "Epimanes," "William Wilson," and "Mellonta Tauta."
s aur ri ce Lévy, "Poe and the Gothic Tradition," ESQ: A Journal of the American Renaissance 18.66 (1972): 27.
84~hoxnpson58.
'%eorge E . Haggerty , Gothic Fiction/Gothic Fom (University Park and London: Pennsylvania State UP, 1989) 87~hompson,Poe ' s Fiction 67.
**poeOs use of a resurrected Egyptian m-y was not the first use of such a device. Jane Webb (1807-1858) made it the theme of her novel, The Mummv! (London: 1827 ) , which had only one reprint, in 1872. Originally intended as a short story, this obscure work was expanded to three volumes at publisher Henry Colburn's request. Peter Haining, ed., The Mmv: Stories of the Livinq Cor~se (London: Severn House Publishers, 1988) 1-2.
*'poe, "Nathaniel Hawthorne, " Essavs and Reviews 582.
90~ay103.
'l~a~~ert~105.
''paul A. Newlin, " 'Vague Shapes of the Borderland' : The Place of the Uncanny in Hawthorne's Gothic Fiction," ESQ: A Journal of the Arnerican Renaissance 18.66 (1972): 84. Chanter 4: Brown and Poe - The Relationship
Charles Brockden Brown and Edgar Allan Poe both reject the supernatural in their terror fiction. Brown uses pseudo- scientific explanations to allay the reader's doubts, as with the dramatizing of spontaneous combustion in Wieland. In contrast, Poe filters the supernatural through the narrator's mind; the metempsychosis of "Ligeia" is quite impossible in any rational context. This rejection of the supernatural contributes a greater degree of realism to their fiction.
Both authors depict criminal scenes of murder and mayhem. But the violence implicit in their fiction - whether from Wieland's brutal massacres or the narrator's dismemberment of his victim in "The Tell-Tale Eieart - originates from a non- supernatural agent, which grounds their tales in reality.
Brown rejects the European Gothic trappings of Walpole and Lewis in favour of the psychological approach favoured by Godwin, and is particularly interested in the unf orseen consequences of his characters' actions. He explores these themes amid a background of phenomena which were not entirely dismissed by contemporary science. Poe goes further than Brown in creating more internalized probings that examine the diseased psychology of his characters, since he is not so much interested in unforeseen consequences as in realistically depicting unbalanced mental states. A comparison of the devices used by both authors, such as ventriloquism, madness, catalepsy, somnambulism, mesmerism, and pestilence, demonstrates that realism through the rejection of the supernatural remains the predominant factor in their work.
Such themes allow Brown and Poe to maintain an atmosphere of "the fantastic-uncanny," which shift from Radcliffean explanations to a more equivocal strain of the Gothic, in which ambiguity plays a greater role. Through such pseudo- scientific devices and medical conditions, Brown and Poe create terror of the sou1 while re jecting supernatural machinery . Poe's references to Brown are few, but laudatory.'
Commenting upon Massimo D'Azeglio's The Challenqe- of Berletta, Poe found it defective in having little of what we understand by the "autorial [sic] comment" - that which adds so deep a charm to the novels of Scott, of Bulwer, or D'Israeli - more especially to the works of Godwin and Brockden Brown. Reviewing "Grayling, or Murder will Out," a short story by
William Gilmore Shs, Poe found it "detailed throughout with a degree of artistic skill which has no parallel among American story-tellers since the epoch of Brockden Brown."'
In November, 1843, in a review in Graham's Maqazine of Cooper's Wvandotté. or the Hutted Knoll, Poe placed Brown among "American writers of the less generally circulated, but more worthy and more artistical fictions. " Those in this category included John Neal, Simms, and Hawthorne, while Poe placed Cooper "at the head of the more popular divisionw of 240 authors.' In December, 1844, in a "Marginalia" from the Democratic Review, Poe praised Simms as "immeasurably the best writer of fiction in America, " "leaving out of question
Brockden Brown and Hawthorne (who are each a genus) ....li 5 Poe's view of Brown as "a genus" distinguishes him not only from his turn-of-the-century contemporaries, but even from later writers such as Hawthorne, as that rarified example cf an author who stands alone without peer, just as Poe himself would be judged by later admirers. Although they wrote decades apart, both of these early American authors transform European Gothic conventions, primarily through internalization. Brown uses American settings; although the events of Wieland occur on a remote estate, he depicts Philadelphia as an American nightmare in Ormond and Arthur Merwn, as the plague replaces liberty as the driving principle of this heart of republicanism. Shirley Samuels notes that the coincidence of the yellow fever epidemic in the same year as the Reign of Terror reinforces the Jacobin threat, as French refugees filled the city. The fear of contagion "proved rhetorically effective in describing the threat to the institution of church and state perceived in deism and in Jacobin democracy," which was viewed as a contagious "disease" imported f rom France. In contrast, to cite his poem "Dream-Land," Poe's stories remain "Out of Space - out of Thew (EAP 1: 344) . While Brown uses the Gothic landscape of the Nowalk wilderness as a metaphor for the 241 mental disorder of Clithero Edny and Edgar Huntly, the psychological landscape of the internalized narrative describes the mental decay of the narrator in "The Tell-Tale Heart ." Both authors' emphasis on such psychological internalizations distinguishes them from their European predecessors. By grounding their stories in realism, Brown and Poe make their terror fiction al1 the more terrifying. Brown and Poe employ uncommon themes as substitutes for the supernatural. Perhaps the most unusual of these devices is ventriloquism, which off ered a new motif for the uncanny in literature. The practice has f ascinated people for centuries because of its seemingly successful violation of a natural law; archaeological evidence of its use even exists in ancient Egypt and 1sraeL7 Throughout the Medieval period, ventriloquism was denounced in theological works as witchcraft, largely because of the Biblical story of the witch of Endor. Brown directs his reader to M. de le Chapelle's book, Le Ventriloque ou LrEnqastrimvthe (1772), which was the first non-theological work on the subject. Chapelle observes that the ventriloquial illusion is aided immensely by the power of suggestion, since those people who consulted ventriloquistic diviners already believed in their supernatural ability . Such gullibility lends itself to deception, vocal or othewise,' and it is the gullibility of such characters that leads to their downfall in the fiction of Brown and Poe. Although both authors depict characters, in 242 Wieland and "Thou Art the Man," who use ventriloquial abilities to create events which appear supernatural, the prirnary difference between the authors resides in their characters' motivations. Poe's narrator uses his talent to detect the murderer, while Carwin ventriloquizes to avoid detection. Carwin is a rogue seized by "some daemon of mischief" (CBB 1: 201), while Poe's narrator is an amateur sleuth using his power to trap a criminal. Brown uses ventriloquism to show its capacity for mischief, which leads to murder as an unintended consequence. Poe ' s narrator deliberately uses the device to detect a murderer who deserves the fatal shock produced by the ventriloquial effect. Carwin does not know by what name to cal1 his power. In a footnote, Brown states, "Biloquium, or ventrilocution ...is, perhaps, given by nature, but is doubtless improvable, if not acquirable, by art" (CBB 1: l98n). Carwin confesses to Clara how he submitted to the temptation of using his power for gain : For a time the possession of so patent and stupendous an endowment elated me with pride. Unfortif ied by principle, subjected to poverty, stimulated by headlong passions, 1 made this powerful engine subservient to the supply of my wants, and the gratification of my vanity (CBB 1: 198-99). Brown demonstrates how the first two uses of ventriloquism by Carwin leave their unintended mark on Wieland. Although Carwin uses his power only to evade detection, his apparently supernatural injunction, "Stop, go no further. There is danger in your pathw (CBB 1: 33), triggers the unravelling of 243 Wieland's mind. Carwin's later pronouncement that Pleyel's beloved has died gives Wieland additional proof of paranormal activity. While Carwin confesses his motives were mischievous rather than malicious, he continues to break his resolution not to use ventriloquism; he rationalizes that he "was destined perpetually to violate my resolutions. By some perverse fate, 1 was led into circumstances in which the exertion of my powers was the sole or the best means of escape" (CBB 1: 206 ) . Carwin admits to possessing a "passion for mystery, and a species of imposture, which 1 deemed harmlessw (CBB 1: 201), the traits of a practical joker who is unable to resist temptation, while knowing that such interference can produce unforeseen consequences.
Carwin never admits to himself that he is complicit, even though unintentionally, in the crimes. He continues to argue with Clara that while his morals "will appear to you far from rigid, yet my conduct will f al1 short of your suspicions" (CBB 1: 205 ) . Although Carwin denies using his power for evil, Wieland's fanatical delusion causes him to hear a more sinister voice after Carwin's knavery plants the phenornenon of a supernatural voice in his unstable mind. While Alan Axelrod contends that Carwin may have prompted Wieland to rn~rder,~ notwithstanding his disavowal of any such action, the voice Wieland hears which prompts him to murder his wife and then his children is preceded by the appearance of "a fiery streamN and "a ray" (CBB 1: 167, 173) . Such lights are reminiscent of 244 the fate which befell Wieland's father, over which the son long brooded. Such phenornena would be beyond the power of Cawin; therefore, the murderous voice is the auditory component of Wieland's sensory delusion, not Carwin's. The acts of ventriloquism which Carwin performs are largely those of a rogue who relishes a power that appears ta set him above his fellow men. Ironically, Carwin's use of his talent was his downfall, as he reveals in the "Mernoirs of Carwin." Ludloe's annoyance with Camin's f ailure to reveal his talent leads to the ventriloquist being hunted across the Atlantic, as he discovers "that the intervention of an ocean was insu£f icient for my security" (CBB 1: 211) . In Wieland, Brown depicts the moral corruption produced through the abuse of such an unusual power, as Carwin's irresponsibility brings misfortune to others.
Poe's "Thou Art the Man" (1844) is a detective tale in which the narrator ensnares the murderer with the assistance of ventriloquism. Not only does this story mark the first use of the theme in which the least likely suspect is revealed to be the criminal, but it is also the first comic detective tale, l" as it seems to be almost a parody of Poe's ratiocinative tales." Poe injects an element of dark comedy amid the terror of the climax, in the blackly humourous spectacle of the corpse of the wealthy Barnabas Shuttleworthy springing out of a wine box to confront his murderer, his "bosom friend.. .Old Charley Goadfelloww (EAP 3: 1044) . In the climax of the story, the narrator initiates his ventriloquial act with the finesse of a magician performing a feat of dexterity:
Being then requested to force open the lid, 1 complied, of course, "with an infinite deal of pleasure." 1 inserted a chisel, and giving it a few slight taps with a hammer, the top of the box flew suddenly and violently off, and, at the same instant, there sprang up into a sitting position, directly facing the host, the bruised, bloody and nearly putrid corpse of the murdered Mr. Shuttleworthy himself. It gazed for a few moments, fixedly and sorrowfully, with its decaying and lack- lustre eyes, full into the countenance of Mr. Goodfellow; uttered slowly, but clearly and impressively, the words - "Thou art the man! " and then, falling over the side of the chest as if thoroughly satisfied, stretched out its limbs quiveringly upon the table (EAP 3: 1057).
In effect, the narrator handles the corpse of the late Shuttleworthy as if it were a ventriloquist's prop dummy, and with considerably less respect. This detectival narrator leaves his explanation of how he engineered the event until the denouement, along with the explanation of how he solved the mystery. Ais use of ventriloquism is the crucial factor which appears to allow the victim to accuse his killer front beyond the grave:
For the words which 1 intended the corpse to speak, 1 confidently depended upon my ventriloquial abilities; for their effect, 1 counted upon the conscience of the murderous wretch (EAP 3: 1059). Like Carwin, Poe's gloating narrator exhibits the same spirit of mischief, as he begins his narrative with a boast of how he reformed the entire town through his "miracleN: 1 will expound to you - as 1 alone can - the secret of the enginery that ef f ected the Rattleborough miracle - the one, the true, the admitted, the undisputed, the indisputable miracle, which put a definite end to infidelity among the Rattleburghers, and converted to the orthodoxy of the grandames al1 the carnal-minded who had ventured to be skeptical before (EAP 3: 1044).
The narrator's tone resembles that of a carnival barker or sideshow magician, and reinforces the theatricality of his ventriloquism. He has no intention of explaining the miracle to his fellow citizens; he tells the story to the leader with the theatrical introduction, "1 will now play the OEdipus to the Rattleborough enigma" (EAP 3: 1044). However, his mischievousness is detected only in retrospect; his ventriloquism is merely another device to assist the detective in his pursuit of justice and lacks the irresponsibility of Carwin ' s actions. The pseudo-science of ventriloquism provides Brown and Poe with a convenient contrivance to explain the supernatural. What seems to be the presence of celestial voices in Wieland and the intonations of a reanimated corpse in "Thou Art the Man" have cataclysmic effects on their listeners. Wieland slips oves the precipice of reality and begins to hear voices in his head, while Goodfellow collapses in mortal terror and confesses his crime with the same rapidity as Poe's narrator in "The Imp of the Perverse." Although both authors exploit the potential for terror caused by the practice, their rationales for its use differ. For Brown, ventriloquism provides a device which illustrates the dangers of unforeseen consequences from apparently harmless acts. For Poe, it merely provides the basis for an elaborate hoax. If Clara Wieland had intended her narrative to produce any moral reformation, such a lesson is seen only in retrospect at the conclusion :
If Wieland had framed juster notions of moral duty, and of the divine attributes; or if 1 had been qifted with ordinary equanimity or f oresight , the double-tongued deceiver would have been baffled and repelled (CBB 1: 244). Ironically, the moral reformation of an entire community was effected by Poe's narrator through deceit, which demonstrates that morality can be legislated more easily by fear than by statute.
As with ventriloquism, Brown and Poe approach the theme of madness in quite different ways, through external and interna1 sources of terror respectively. Brown depicts the excesses inherent in religious fanaticism in Wieland from Clara's viewpoint. To her, Theodore's active fanaticism is a greater terror than her fathergs grim, yet passive, state of mind. In contrast, Poe analyzes the problems endemic to psychosis £rom a first-person viewpoint in such stories as "The Tell-Tale Heart." Although Brown offers an explanation for Wieland's insanity through the motivation of religious enthusiasm, Poe ' s narrator appears to have been always insane. Brown's use of insanity spurred by religious mania was a theme which was not too uncommon among society in general. An English physician, the Reverend William Pargeter, wrote in 1792: . ..Fanatichm is a very common cause of Madness. Most of the Maniacal cases that ever came under my observation, proceeded from religious enthusiasm; and 1 have heard it remarked by an eminent physician, that almost al1 the insane patients, which occurred to him at one of the largest hospitals in the metropolis, had been deprived of their reason, by such strange infatuation. The doctrines of the Methodists have a greater tendency than those of any other sect, to produce the most deplorable effects on the human understanding. The brain is perplexed- - in the mazes of mystery, and the imagination overpowered by the tremendous description of future torments."
With such a prevalence of religious fanaticism ovet other fonns of rnadness, Brown's treatment of a curent sociological issue in his depiction of an overenthusiastic enthusiast offered a warning to his readers of the dangers of obsessive brooding and missionary zeal. George Snell posits a rather far-fetched argument that Wieland's exaltation after killing his wife foreshadows "the macabre love-in-death themes" of "Ligeia" and "Morella."13
Rather, it foreshadows the gloating of Poe's killer who continues to hear the beating of "The Tell-Tale Beart ." David L. Butler notes the similarity between the strained, tense, and chaotic language Wieland uses to describe his actions and the halting, feverish prose used by Poe's narratodd
Wieland's sudden remorse after the killing of his wife is halted by a serenity gained from having followed orders: I will not dwell upon my lapse into desperate and outrageous sorrow. The breath of heaven that sustained me was withdrawn, and 1 sunk into mere man. I leaped £rom the floor: 1 dashed my head against the wall: 1 uttered screams of horror: 1 panted after tonnent and pain. Eternal f ire, and the bickerings of hell, compared with what 1 felt, were music and a bed of roses,
Wieland's misery finds relief in the fanaticisrn which was its origin: "1 thank my Gad that this degeneracy was transient, that he deigned once more to raise me aloft. 1 thought upon
what I had done as a sacrifice to duty, and was calm" (CBB 1:
173). In "The Tell-Tale Heart," the narrator undergoes a
similar frenzy of activity when his conscience confronts him with his crime: No doubt 1 now grew very pale; - but 1 talked more f luently, and with a heightened voice. Yet the sound increased - and what could I do?w..I gasped for breath - and yet the off icers heard it not . 1 talked more quickly - more vehemently; but the noise steadily increased. I arose and argued about trifles, in a high key and with violent gesticulations; but the noise steadily increased. .. .I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides, as if excited to fury by the observations of the men.. .I foamed - 1 raved - 1 sworeî 1 swung the chair upon which 1 had been sitting, and grated it upon the boards... (EAP 3: 797).
The difierence appears in Poe's use of a subconscious confrontation; where Wieland is devastated by the sight of his
atrocity, Poe's narrator is unhinged by the noise of a heartbeat.
Yet, near the end of Wieland's confession, after he has
regained his composure, his speech becomes more refined: My tale has been told. My motives have been truly stated. If my judges are unable to discuss the purity of my intentions, or to credit the statement of them, which I have just made; if they see not that my deed was enjoined by heaven, that obedience was the test of perfect virtue, and the extinction of selfishness and error, they must pronounce me a murderer (CBB 1: 176).
Similarly, the narrator of "The Imp of the Perverse" of fers an abstruse philosophical apology for his perverseness with scientific detachment, as he explains his actions from a prison on the eve of his execution:
Induction, à posteriori, would have brought phrenology to 250 admit, as an innate and primitive principle of human action, a paradoxical something, which we may cal1 -perverseness, for want of a more characteristic term. In the sense 1 intend, it is, in fact, a mobile without motive, a motive not motivirt (EAP 3: 1220). Although this narrator appears well in control of his faculties, at the end of his narrative, he relates how he "bounded like a madman through the crowded thoroughfares."
When cornered, he "gasped for breath," as he "experienced al1 the pangs of suffocation," and became "blind, and deaf, and giddyw (EAP 3: 1226). In contrast to Poe's depiction of insanity as an unbalanced mental state, Brown's portrayal of religious fanaticism offers a warning to his contemporary and modern readers about the dangers of obsessive enthusiasm. Wieland casts himself as a latter-day Abraham tested by an inscrutable Providence, as he rejects the liberty of free will and resigns himself to the status of a mere pawn in an incomprehensible garne. While a test of his faith would appear to be the motivating factor for this trial, the murders Wieland comrnits show that his apparent orders lack the forgiving nature implicit in such a request, as in the comand to Abraham. For Wieland, the action is everything; the command to sacrifice gains control of his mind and obviates any counter command based on compassion. If ~ielandhad reflected sanely upon the meaning to be drawn from Abraham's selflessness, the test of faith by a compassionate deity would have been self-evident. However, the god of Wieland 's internalized, brooding religion shows no compassion. The senior Wieland's reticence in accomplishing the same mission appears to have wrought his doom; thus, Wieland slays his family not only to bring them to a better world, but to Save himself from the perdition to which spontaneous combustion seems to have cast his hesitant father. As long as Wieland performs a divine command, he absolves himself from personal responsibility: "My wife and my babes have gone before. Happy wretches! 1 have sent you to repose, and ought not to linger behind." His apology for his actions is unwittingly smug: "1 am pure £rom al1 stain. 1 believed that my God was my mover!" Wieland rationalizes his crimes in terms of obedience and denies the failure of his senses, which would lead to the conclusion that he was insane. While the matter rests with the issue of judgment, he feels he is on firm ground:
1 have done my duty, and surely there is merit in having sacrificed to that, al1 that is dear to the heart of man. If a devil has deceived me, he came in the habit of an angel. If 1 erred, it was not my judgment that deceived me, but my senses. In thy sight, being of beingsl 1 am still pure. Still will 1 look for my reward in thy justice! (CBB 1: 224). Carwin's comand to spare Clara comes as a shock to the deluded Wieland:
Man of errorsl cease to cherish thy delusion: not heaven or hell, but thy senses have misled thee to commit these acts. Shake off thy phrenzy, and ascend into rational and human. Be lunatic no longer (CBB 1: 230). Carwin's observation that Wieland's madness is cherished reveals how the latter embraces his deluçion as an escape from the realization of his situation. In his source for "~ania Mutabilis," Erasmus Darwin's Zoonomia, to which Brown refers
in a footnote (CBB 1: Ug), Darwin notes that the delusion "produces pleasurable sensations, as in personal vanity or religious enthusiasm. " Therefore, it is "almost a pity to
snatch [them] from [their] fool's paradise, and reduce [ them] again to the common lot of humanity. ...ri 15 Carwin ' s last few words underscore the malevolence of Wieland's deity . While Carwin appears as a voice of conscientious reason, to Wieland's mind, it seems that his god is taunting him directly for being such a good puppet. In order to "be lunatic no longer," Wieland must acknowledge that he has been insane.
Yet, the issue is further complicated by the voices existing at all, a fact Wieland ignores as the weight of his conscience bears down upon him. If he analyzed the matter without discovering Carwin's intrigue, Wieland would conclude either that this last order emanates from the true divine voice while the previous commands were uttered by an imposter, or that the universe is but a plaything of an ambivalent omniscience. Poe captures the issue succinctly in a "Dactylic Coupletw of 1846:
Can it be fancied that Deity ever vindictively Made in his image a mannikin merely to madden it?16
When he realizes his error, Wieland is "transformed at once into the man of sorrows!" (CBB 1: 230), a somewhat blasphemous cornparison, which calls into question Clara's vision of events in her narrative, as his suicide expiates no one's sins. Brown uses Clara to describe Wieland's realization scene in a 253 realistic, external manner to the reader. He undergoes a final transformation from a state of complete lassitude, as he sits "upon the floor, motionless in al1 his limbs, with his eyes glazed and fixed; a monument of woe," to suicida1 frenzy, as "a spirit of tempestuous but undesigning activity seized him." To her terror, Clara realizes that the cure is worse than the disease, as she sees Wieland tear himself apart emotionally: "Oh that thy phrenzy had never been cured! that thy madness, with its blissful visions, would return!" When
"an avenue to escape presented itself" in the shape of Clara's knife, Wieland plunges "it to the hilt in his neck" (CBB 1: 231). Besides both authors' depictions of mania, whether under the guise of fanaticism or psychosis, Brown and Poe also exploit the non-supernatural terrors inherent in a loss of physical control. Just as Brown and Poe described the actions of madmen to create fear in their readers, they also turned to another disease which had the potential for even greater terror. In their depictions of cases of catalepsy, both authors dwell upon the dangers which the disease presents to the patient, namely, the belief of others that the patient has died, which leads to a hasty internent. If a cataleptic trance befell a victim while among strangers, he was thrown to the mercy of chance as to whether he would escape being buried alive. With the dubious quality of contemporary medical care, the odds of such an erroneous diagnosis were not that 254 uncornmon. J. Gerald Kennedy illustrates that living
inhumation did not erupt as an explicit threat in literary consciousness until the eighteenth century, when surgeons
learned of its occurrence through corpses procured for dissection and convicted grave robbers related countless
similar tales." Thomas Ollive Mabbott notes that while no specific literary source has been found for "The Premature
Burial," Poe most likely knew of stories of such cases. Mabbott relates the tradition of a prominent early nineteenth- century Virginia woman who, after she had apparently died, was rescued from her vault by a servant who heard her move." In addition, Arthur Aobson Quinn notes that Poe's incidental sources were culled from his own readir~g;'~Poe refers to
"The Buried Alive," an anonymous first-person narrative printed in Blackwoodfs (October, 1821), in "How to Write a Blackwood Article," his satire of sensational fiction: "You would have sworn that the writer had been born and brought up in a coffin" (EAP 2: 339). Brown's first use of a premature burial is in a fragment
£rom 1798, "A Lesson on Sensibility." The title of this brief work airrors the disease itself, as one medical dictionary defines catalepsy as "a neurosis characterized by a loss of sensibility ....iv 20 The fragment relates a variation on the theme of Romeo and Juliet, as the young Archibald is kept from marrying his beloved, Miss Butler, through the machinations of her family. When her corpse is discovered on her wedding day to a new fiancé approved by her family, Brown's omniscient narrator avoids denoting her symptoms as cataleptic: Whether some sudden or unforeseen stroke had overtaken her; or, whether she was the author of her own death could never be certainly determined. On the whole the latter opinion was most probable.21
When he hears of her death, Archibald returns to Europe from the West Indies and persuades the family "with the energy of frenzy" to view her corpse for a final time. Brown concludes
his tale with a surprise ending,
The solemn period of midnight was selected. The vault was opened in the presence of the desperate lover and some of the family of the deceased. They descended the stair-case: 1 shudder to describe the object that saluted their sight. They beheld the lady, not decently reposing in her coffin, and shrouded with a snow-white mantle, but, - naked, ghastly, stretched on the floor at the foot of the stair-case, with indubitable tokens of having died, a second time, a victim to terror and famine. It is not to be wondered at, that a spectacle like this plunged the unhappy lover into a frenzy the most outrageous. He was torn £rom the spot and speedily delivered to the care of his friend~.~~ While the possibility exists that her death-like slumber might have been self-induced, as in the Shakespearean model, the text gives no indication that she intended to meet with
Archibald, especially since she was informed of his having been untrue to her affections. Catalepsy remains the only viable explanation for her comatose condition and subsequent revival . Brown revised the story in 1809 into an even briefer work, "Insanity: A Fragment, " as part of an essay series, "The Scribbler." In the revision, Brown gives the narrative 256 another surprise ending, as the entire live burial is revealed to have been a delusion of the mad Archibald. The story is related by Sally Ellen, a cousin of the rnadman, who contends that Archibald's "sensibility had become diseased by an assiduous study of those romancers and poets who make love the basis of their fictions . Her husband and William, "the scribbler," the protagonist of Brown's series, disagree with her theory; the latter notes, "1 cannot perceive how any course of reading could possibly lead any mind so far astray .w24 Michael Davitt Bell notes that Brown admired Hugh Blair, who, as early as 1787, argued that novels were seductive. According to Blair, in his Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres (1783), imaginative literature is more characteristic of primitive societies than of modern ones. Bell illustrates that Carwin unhinges Wieland in the same sense "in which moralists , including Brown, f eared that fiction would unsettle the mental balance of novel- reader~."*~Yet this therne of dangerous literature was later used satirically by Poe in "The Premature Burial," a story in which a cataleptic narrator broods over macabre works. Just as Archibald was driven to insanity through an overindulgence in sentimental literature, Poe's narrator manages to banish his catalepsy when he discards his interest in books which linger on the theme of death: "From that mernorable night, 1 dismissed forever my charnal apprehensions, and with them vanished the cataleptic disorder, of which, perhaps, they had been less the conseqvence than the cause" (EAP 3: 969). The narrator's writing of his experience manifests a repetition mechanism, as J. Gerald Kennedy argues. Through this re-
enacting of his fate he is enabled to relieve its psychic weight, as in the case of the Ancient ~ariner.'~ The
equation of the creation of a death-like state through constant meditation upon death gives catalepsy a terrifying stature, as a compulsive reader may bring a cataleptic condition upon himself . But the satirical element is implicit when Poe draws the reader's attention to "...bugaboo tales - such as this" (EAP 3: 969). Brown's other instance of premature burial, in Arthur
Merwn, does not specifically involve catalepsy, as Brown depicts a victim of the yellow fever who was placed in his coffin while he was still breathing. Mervyn escapes the same fate when he is mistaken for a plague victim and alrnost buried alive, but he has only been knocked unconscious. in contrast,
before "The Premature Burial," Poe had employed instances of living inhumation stemming £rom an epileptic, rather than cataleptic, trance in "Loss of Breathw and "Berenice.' The lady Madeline's condition in "The Fa11 of the House of Usher" is designated as having ...long baffled the ski11 of her physicians. A settled apathy, a gradua1 wasting away of the person, and f requent although transient a£f ections of a partially cataleptical character, were the unusual diagnosis (EAP 2: 404). Madeline's cataleptic condition differs from that of the 258 narrator of "The Premature Burial" in her "wasting away. " When she emerges £rom her tomb, she somehow manages to open the iron door of her vault, the "immense weight" (EAP 2: 410) of which would require superhuman strength to move. Unlike
Miss Butler, her counterpart in Brown's "A Lesson on Sensibility," Madeline is able to accomplish this feat, which demonstrates the power of her will in seeking to confront Roderick for entombing her.
Kennedy argues that Poe views living inhumation as equivalent to death itself, not just because those buried alive had little chance of escaping their predicament, but also because he believes in the extension of consciousness beyond death." To both Brown and Poe, catalepsy is a terrifying motif because it leads to living inhumation. Yet while Poe dwells on the subject at length, and depicts the terrors of premature burial as those of intense isolation, claustrophobie enclosure, and utter helplessne~s,~~Brown approaches it in a more detached manner. Lacking Poe's obsession with the subject, Brown depicts living inhumation either as a surprise ending or as a figment of a madrnan's imagination. To Brown, catalepsy is a plot device, not even mentioned by its medical name; to Poe, it represents the doorway to a hell of phobias, a topic possessing a "sacred awe" (EAP 3: 961), in tems of its devastating desolation.
The state of living death in which a victim of a cataleptic trance appears to lie resembles the same loss of 259 physical control and subsequent amnesia that Brown's characters undergo through somnambulisrn and Poe's achieve under mesmerism. But whereas sornnambulists maintain a subconscious control of their body, patients under mesmerism remain under the agency of the mesmerist. Brown's treatment of somnambulism, a condition which Sydney J. Krause notes was universally considered a sign of infirmity, '' provides a vehicle through which to explore this abnormal state. In
Brown's Edcrar Huntly, both Huntly and Clithero Edny are somnambulists. The novel's subtitle, Mernoirs of a Sleep- Walker, stresses the importance of somnambulism to the plot, as Brown portrays how his protagonist's obsession with another character's somnambulism produces the same effect in him. Thus, the practice can be viewed in terms of cause and ef f ect . Just as Shirley Samuels describes the fear of the plaque in
Arthur Mervyn's Philadelphia as a metaphor for the fear of contagion from Jacobin ideas, Brown shows how sleepwalking can be as contagious to an obsessive mind as catalepsy is to Poe's narrator of "The Premature Burial," who appears to have derived his condition from reading sensational fiction.
Huntly sees Edny for the first time in a somnambulistic trance, as he digs the earth beneath an elm tree where
Huntiyts friend had been killed. As Edny is stricken with grief, Huntly assumes he had something to do with the murder: "The incapacity of sound sleep denotes a mind sorely wounded.
It is thus that atrocious criainals denote the possession of some dreadful secret" (CBB 4 : 13) . Huntly becomes so obsessed with Edny after seeing him in a trame, that he soon falls into the same disturbed slumber pattern. David Lee Clark first noted a passage in Buntlv as a source for Poe 's "The Pit and the Pendulumm ( 1842 ) ." Ais sleep-walking has driven Huntly into the dreary isolation of a Stygian cave :
Methought 1 was the victim of some tyrant who had thrust me into a dungeon of his fortress, and left me no power to determine whether he intended 1 should perish with famine, or linger out a long life in hopeless imprisonment: Whether the day was shut out by insuperable walls, or the darkness that surrounded me, was owing to the night and to the smallness of those cranies through which day-light was to be admitted, 1 conjectured in vain (CBB 4: 161-62).
Sornnambulism has been the physical manifestation of Buntiy's descent into madness. Although it is not revealed until the end of the novel, Huntly begins to sleep-walk when he hides his f riend's letters instead of destroying them. This compulsive behaviour, mirrored by his greater compulsion in trying to cure Edny of his madness, leads to greater confusion when circumstances deprive Huntly of enough money to marry and maintain support of his sisters. Bis awakening in the pit of the cave in Chapter 16 occurs directly after this financial turn of a£fairs, jarring the reader to the same extent that it confuses Huntly. Bis reawakening in the cave signals a type of symbolic death and rebirth, which marks the end of his somnambulism and the beginning of his return to sanity."
Norman S. Grabo posits that since Brown appears to use somnambulism as a symbolic representation of the secret, involuntary springs of al1 human conduct, then there is little hope for civilization." When Huntly realizes that Edny is not responsible for his actions, as Edny's burial of his patroness' papers mirrors Auntly's burial of his friend's letters, Huntly reflects that ...both acts had been performed during sleep. The deed was neither prompted by the will, nor noticed by the senses of him, by whom it was done. Disastrous and humiliating is the state of man! By his own hands, is constructed the mass of rnisery and error in which his steps are forever invclved (CBB 4: 278).
Such a pessimistic outlook is consistent with the overall tone of the novel. In making somnambulism his novel's focal point, Brown suggests that social and moral disorder is a medical problern, and points to the surgeon as a possible saviour of society. Brown's friend, Dr. Elihu Hubbard Smith, served as a mode1 of mature wisdom, as do such characters as Clara Wieland's physician uncle, Mr. Cambridge, and Mervyn's saviour, Dr. Stevens. But such is not the case with Huntly's f riend and physician, Sarsefield, who is too personally involved to maintain the high professional qualities demanded of his colleagues. While he does not ref lect the values of the hospital staff in Mervyn, nevertheless, Sarsefield can offer no cure for Huntly's somnambulism; Edny is even refused aid by the doctod4 Edny's somnambulism ceases with his other agonies when he drowns himself. In contrast, Huntly appears to cure himself of his sleepwalking habit after his conquest of wilderness perils. Donald A. Ringe argues that Huntiy's somnambulism climaxes his descent into madness, while
his return to sanity is a gradua1 process, which is completely accomplished only at the end of the nove13' when he realizes,
"Clithero is a maniac. This truth cannot be concealed." Huntiy finally surrenders any hope of bringing Edny back to rationality through his "impulse of misguided ...but powerful benevolence" (CBB 4: 290). This impulse to aid someone clearly beyond the reach of
rationality mirrors Arthur Mervyn's intrusions into other
people's affairs. But while Huntly's obsessive desire to help
Edny appears to lack any self-interest, Mervyn's affkùation that his actions stem only from the furtherance of good will
runs counter to appearances. The truth of such declarations
is belied by Mervyn's sleepwalking at the end of the novel.
In the last chapter of Arthur Merwn...Second Part, published
after Auntly in 1800, the uneasiness of Mervyn's subconscious with his Machiavel-lian success forces him into somn~ulism.
Aaving left the indigent Eliza Hadwin for the wealthy older widow, Mrs. Achsa Fielding, Mervyn seems to be plagued with
the same demons as Macbeth: "1 was roused as by a divine voice, that said: - 'Sleep no more: Mervyn shall sleep no more"' (CBB 3: 436). The sleeping Mervyn meets his own death in his dream, as he is stabbed through the heart by the late
Mir. Fielding while seeking entrance into his widow's house.
But the testimony of Eliza, who heard a violent ringing of the bell, along with that of his doctor's wife, who thought she heard the street-door open and close, confirm in his mind that
he had been sleepwalking: "1 have little doubt, that, in my
feverish and troubled sleep, 1 actually went forth, posted to the house of Mrs. Fielding, rung for admission, and shortly
after, returned to my own apartment " (CBB 3 : 438 ) . Brown
closes his novel on an ambiguous note; although Mervyn's rise to fortune appears complete, his subconscious guilt over the means by which he attained his success threatens to cloud his future marital bliss. Brown also used the theme of sleep-walking in the
unsigned story, "Somnambulism. A Fragment" ( 1805 ) ," which
was probably written before Edsar Huntlv, and might even have been a false start for the novel." When the narrator,
Althorpe, is unable to stop the departure of Constantia Davis and her father, he becomes distraught. Unable to articulate his fears, Althorpe is overpowered by some nameless dread:
The evil that was menaced was terrible.. ,.I was breathless with fear of some unknown and terrible disaster that awaited them...what was this groundless and ridiculous persuasion that governed me? Bad 1 profited nothing by experience of the effects of similar rollies? Was I never to attend to the lessons of sobriety and truth? How ignominious to be thus the slave of a fortuitous and inexplicable impulse! To be the victim of terrors more chimerical, than those which haunt the dreams of idiots and children! They can describe clearly, and attribute a real existence to the object of their terrors. Not so can I.38 Although she is betrothed to another, Althorpe has fallen
hopelessly in love with her; he later dreams that he kills an
assassin who murders Constantia on the road at night. When it
is revealed that she has been shot, Althorpe and his uncle 264 blame themselves for not warning the Davises about a deformed, simple-minded prankster, Nick Bandyside, whom they suspect. Brown never refers to sleep-walking in the narrative, but in the title and opening extract he gives a due to the mystery, perhaps the first Arnerican story involving detection, a precursor to the invention of the detective-fiction genre by
Poe in "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" by more than thirty- £ive years.3g The opening extract £rom The Vienna Gazette, a source which has never been located," synopsizes Brown's plot and concludes that the assassin was the sleep-walking youth enamoured of his victim. If self-knowledge is the key to wisdom, Althorpe's condition places him in a state of constant confusion, as he follows in the path of the protagonist of Brown's lost first novel, Skv-Walk, the subtitle of which was The Man Unknown to Hirnself.
Brown's use of somnambulisrn finds its parallel in Poe's use of mesmerism. While cataleptics and somnambulists share a loss of conscious physical control, those under a meçmeric trance evince more closely the traits of a zombie, someone under the control of another's menkal power. Cataleptics appear to exist in a type of living death while in a trance .4' Another medical definition of catalepsy is "muscular rigidity occurring under hypnosis . What eventually transformed into hypnosis began as the pseudo- science of Mesmerisrn, initiated by Dr. Franz Anton Mesmer, who captivated Paris from 1778 until an investiqative commission declared his practices fraudulent in 17 84 43 Mesmer distinguishes between animal magnetism and "cri~icalsleep," that is, induced or magnetic somnambulism. In 1799, Mesmer notes in a "~issertation...on His Disc~v&ries"that " . . .somnanzbulism has been con£used with magnetism. " He explains that the
...cornpleteness of this critical sleep varies accciding to the progress and duration of the crisis, as well as the character, tempesament, and the habits of the subjects involved; but it varies, oddly, according to a type of education which can be given to them in this state, and by the manner in which their faculties are directed. These subjects can, in this respect, be compared to a telescope, in which the effects Vary in accordance with the way it is adjustedO4'
As opposed to the subconsciously motivated sleep-walker, Mesmer induced a somnambulistic state in his patient, in which the latter wcïld walk only under the former's direction. Brown may have contributed an unsigned article on "Animal Magnetism" to The Weeklv Maaazine in 1798, which was taken directly from the ~ritannica.~~Poe dealt with the theme in three stories: "A Tale of the Ragged ~ountahs,""Mesmeric
Revelation" (both published in 18441, and "The Facts in the
Case of M. Valdemar" (1845). In "A Tale of the Ragged Mountains," Poe creates a somewhat ambiguous narrative which suggests either that a mesmerist could transfer an historical incident to a patient's memory or that a previous existence could be recalled through hypnosis. 46 The story preserves a supernatural atmosphere, as Dr. Templeton reveals his knowledge of Augustus Bedloefs 266 vision before giving a scientific explanation. Arthur Hobson Quinn praises the equivocal nature of the story, and argues that "the realistic treatment of the supernatural was rarely better done by Poe.w47 Bowever, a close reading of the story reveals that Bedloe's vision was not the result of metempsychosis, but of mesmeric suggestion. Bedloe ' s confusion about how he survived his apparent death is dissipated by Templeton's revelation "that at the very period
in which you fancied these things amid the hills, 1 was engaged in detailing them upon paper here at home" (EAP 3: 949). The high degree of the mesmeric "rapport, or magnetic relation" (EAP 3 : 941) which exists between doctor and patient was suggested earlier by the narrator. Thus, what appears as an Oriental fantasy in Bedloe's vision is revealed to be nothing more than the memory of the doctor imprinted on the tabula rasa of Bedloe's receptive mind. Charles E. May argues that the ending underscores the non-supernatural aspect of the tale, as the mirroring of "Bedlo/OldebN reveals "that Bedloe ' s fantasy journey is motivated by the writing process rather than by supernatural or psychological processes."" In "Mesmeric Reveiation," which appeared a few months later, Poe deals with the theme of communication with the dead, which he would later use in "Some Words with a Mummy" and "Valdemar." Written in the form of one of his Platonic dialogues, the story serves as a vehicle for Poe's discussion of the material nature of the universe and man's relation to 267
God, concepts on which he would expound at great lenqth in his
treatise, Eureka (1848) . When the narrator, P., places the ailing Vankirk into a mesmeric trance, the latter admits that "The mesmeric condition is so near death as to content me" (EAP 3: 1032). After a lengthy conversation, £rom which
Vankirk appears to be reporting conditions from beyond the
grave, such suspicions seem to be confimed. After vankirk dies, P. awakens him from the trance and Vankirk's corpçe has
"al1 the stem rigidity of stone" in "less than a minute" (EM 3: 1040). Poe had praised Chauncey Hare Towrishend's work,
Facts in Mesrnerism.. . ( 1840 ) ," and uses Townsnend's term of "sleep-waker" to describe Vankirk, a term Townshend used to distinguish £rom "the condition" of t'~omnambulisrn, "'O even though only one letter separates it from Brown's "Sleep- Walker. " May posits that "Mesmeric Revelation" could be Poe's ultimate hoax, since it presents metaphysical theories which
seem to have been verified by the dead." Vankirk notes tht
"Abstractions may amuse and exercise, but take no hold on the mind" (EAP 3: lO3l), as only experiential evidence will add the force of conviction. The fiction of such a conclusion only strengthens the irony of such a presentation. Poe's final story of mesmerism is one of his most terrifying. "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar" relates how the mesmerist narrator, P--, freezes his patient at the moment of death. Although Valdemar confesses, "I am deadt'
(EAP 3: 12401, May argues that the impossibility of such an utterance is acceptable only as a metaphor, since to speak £rom the mesmeric state is to speak frorn a similitude of death. When the mesmexist releases him after seven months of a profound trance, Valdemar decays suddenly:
As I rapidly made the mesmeric passes, amid ejaculations of "dead! dead!" absolutely bursting £rom the tongue and not from the lips of the sufferer, his whole frarne at once - within the space of a single minute, or even less, shrunk - crumbled - absolutely rotted swây beneath my hands. Upon the bed, before that whole Company, there lay a nearly liquid mass of loathsome - of detestable putridity (EAP 3: 1243).
The conclusion places the story in the realn of horror, as it produces a feeling of revulsion in the reader, but the suggestion arises that Poe might be transfoming a theme he initially treated philosophically into what Jonathan Auerbach tems "a graphic mockery whose power derives from its impossible literalne~s."~~Jonathan Elmer views the climax as a grotesque distortion of the sentimental deathbed scene,'' as the liquefaction of Valdemar resernbles a parody of the passing of Vankirk, who expired "with a bright smile irradiating al1 his features" (EAP 3: 1040).
Both "Mesmeric Revelation" and "Valdemar" were taken as true accounts by several contemporary readers, a credulity fostered not only by the current resurgence of interest in mesrnerisrn, but also because of Poe's apparent description of an event in which he xas involved. The narrator of both stories is referred to either as "P. " or "P--, " and Mabbott records a witness who relates how Poe, who delighted in hoaxes, "always srniles" when told how much his tales were 269
"believed. w54 Another less obviaus relation to Poe's life lies in the nature of the patient's disease. While Augustus Bedloe suffers from "a long series of neuralgic attacks" (EAP
3: 940), both Vankirk and Valdemar are the victims of a
"pthisis" (EAP 3: 1030, 1234 ) , that is, tuberculosis, the same ailment that would daim Poe's young wife, Virginia, not too long after the publication of these stories. By Poe's time, mesmerism had developed into three schools of thought : the fluidic theory, which posited that a mesmerist could influence a patient at great distances; the mental healing movement, which produced several religious sects; and spiritualism, which broadened Mesmer's theories to incorporate clairvoyance and other parapsychological f aculties. While Dr. Templeton clearly belongs to the first group, Poe's use of the last category in his later two stories allowed him to indulge his penchant for hoa~es.~' An apparently supernatural event is explained scientifically, as Poefs title for the last story reminds the careful reader that he is concerned with "the f acts" rather than f anciful spiritual interpretations. 56 The trances of somnambulistic sleep-walkers and mesmeric "sleep-wakers" were not inherently fatal, but the living death of a cataleptic attack offered its victim only a faint hope of rescue: if the trance ended before the victim was interred, In contrast, the agonizing death agonies produced by plagues provided victims with little chance of rescue. Both authors depict the ravages of plagues, which were made al1 the more 270 terrifying by their historical reality, as even the burgeoning hopes of the early American republic could not counter this f ear, which gripped the Old World for centuries. Contemporary readers were not spared the fears of such plagues; Brown depicts the yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia only a few years after it devastated the city. Yet, whereas Brown maintains a realism which stemmed from his first-hand experience, Poe treats the theme of pestilence in allegorical terms, and usually sets his stories in the ancient or Medieval era. Set during the twilight of Greco-Roman civilization in
Egypt, Poe's brief story, "Shadow. - A Parable" (l835), depicts a plaque in an ancient city of Ptolemais. The story's stature as a companion piece to "Silence - A Fable, which was not published until 1838, suggests that they are satires or parodies of "the Psychological Autobiographists," Buiwer and ~e~uincey.~'Yet the satire is secondary to the seriousnees of the topic. May views the element of parable as a tautology; since Death is the embodiment of al1 deaths, if man were immortal, the Shadow would vanish. Poe's parable illustrates his concept of an abstraction being the unified transformation of specif ic realities. The terror of the situation resides "in the person of young Zoilus," whose corpse lies "enshroudedw as "the genius and the demon of the scene." The narrator, Oinos, feels "that the eyes of the departed were upon me, fl but forces himself "not to perceive the bitterness of their expression.. ." (EAP 2: 190). Only when the personification of Death speaks do the dsunken
revellers start £rom their seats "in horror, and stand trembling, and shuddering, and aghast . .. '@ (EAP 2 : 19 1 ) as they hear the voices of their departed friends. Since Oinos feels
that Zoilus' eyes reflect bitterness, it is probable that he f eels the voices are similarly reproachful for Oinos ' sumival through the plaque, as well as triumphant, since he is about
to join its victims in death. First published in September, 1835, the same month as
"Shadow," Poe's "King Pest. A Tale Containing an Alleqory" is set during the era of Edward III, whose half-century reign witnessed the ravaging of England several times by the Black
~eath." Poe's depiction of the plague-inf ested London districts is his most extensive portrayal of a city under siege by pestilence: The city was in a great measure depopulated - and in those horrible regions, in the vicinity of the Thames, where amid the dark, narrow, and f ilthy lanes and alleys, the Demon of Disease was supposed to have had his nativity, Awe, Terror, and Superstition were alone to be found stalking abroad (EAP 2: 242). The "terror-stricken" populace attribute the looting of those districts under the "Pest-banw to "Pest-spirits, plague- goblins, and fever-demons," and these areas are abandoned to
"gloom, silence, pestilence, and death" (EAP 2: 243). Yet this early work by Poe is another satire, so when Poe's two sailor protagonists blunder into an undertaker's shop they confront six deluded looters who believe themselves to be incarnations of the plague. Poe plays on the word pest/O as
King Pest the First, later recognized as a "stage-player," introduces his physically deformed court:
...Q ueen Pest, our Serene Consort....'His Grace the Arch Duke Pest-Iferous ' - 'His Grace the Duke Pest-Ilentia18 - 'His Grace the Duke Tern-Pest' - and 'Aer Serene Highness the Arch Duchess Ana-Pest8 (EAP 2: 250). The almost-forgotten allegorical component of the story appears in this assembly of figurative "pests," whose prominent facial characteristics - forehead, mouth, nose, cheeks, ears, and eyes - represent types of futility as they waste their sensory powers cavorting among the dead. 61 Such macabre humour reaches either a nadir of bad taste or an ingenious exaggeration, depending on the sentiment of the reader, in Poe's description of drinking wine £rom skulls while seated amid coffins, as a skeleton hanging by one leg serves as a lamp, with "a quantity of ignited charcoalw within "the cranium of this hideous thingu (EAP 2: 248). Poe's later allegory, "The Masque of the Red Death"
( 1842 ) , presents an incarnation of the plague that is far more devastating in its power than its human counterpart, King Pest the Firçt, but it lacks any voice, unlike the personification of death in "Shadow." Although it vanishes when "a throng of the revellers" with "the wild courage of despair" seize "the mummer," they find only "grave cerementsw and a "corpse-like maskM (EAP 2: 676), as the Red Death has no persona with which to enact his fatal purpose. J. Gerald Kennedy sees this discovesy as the portrayal of pure absence, which is also the source of terror for Oinos and his friends in "~hadow."~~ But the Red Death lacks the inclusiveness of the Shadow, who incorporates al1 the voices of the dead. The Red Death is the former's instrument, just as the Four Horsemen, including Death, are given such dread powers as pestilence to accomplish their apocalyptic purpose. Poe's opening paragraph introduces a world bereft of hope, sub ject to a malignant sickness whose characteristics are more swift and terrible than the Black Death: The Red Death had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avatar and its seal - the redness and the horror of blood. There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution. The scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face of the victim, were the pest ban which shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow-men. And the whole seizure, progress and termination of the disease, were the incidents of half an hour. Poe's next sentence is reminiscent of the frame of The Decameron: "But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious" (EAP 2: 670). While it underscores the apathy and lack of empathy of a secluded ruling class with its suffering subjects, it also alludes to the reaction of humanity in general to the plight of the unfortunate. The Prince's masque is only a slightly more upscale version of the debauchery of his presumed contemporaries, King Pest and his entourage. Poe's source was an account by Na P. Willis of a masquerader who impersonated the plague during the Paris cholera epidemic in 1832. This episode has a curious parallel with another work of Poe, "The Sphinxw (1846). Poe set this 274 later story during a similar cholera plague which af f ected New York in 1832, the same year as the Parisian epidemice6' However, in this contemporary use of plaque, the disease is kept in the background, and although "Not a day elapsed which did not bring us news of the decease of some acquaintance" (EAP 3: 1246), Poe uses it primarily to establish the neurotic quality of his narrator.
In contrast to Poe's depictions of plaques in the remote past, Brown's vivid descriptions in Ormond and Arthur Mervvn of the yellow f ever epidemic which ravaged Philadelphia in
1793 wete drawn from his own e~perience,~'whereas Poe was not in New York during the cholera epidemic of 1832.'= Brown left Philadelphia during the epidernic, but contracted the disease five years later, after Merwn had begun its serialization, in another Philadelphia epidemic which claimed the life of his f riend, Dr. Eiihu Hubbard Smith. Unlike Poe's Red Death, the yellow fever progressed slowly over a week or ten days, with fevers, chills, and enervation, culrninating in hemorrhage and bilious vomit. From the first death on August 19, 1793 to the epidemic's stabilization in October, nearly
2500 lives were claimed. 66 AS described previously, Brown depicts how people who deserted their own relatives could not escape their fate, as in the case of the worthless Whiston in
Ormond (CBB 2: 48), and dwells on how the terror of contagion ".. .extednated al1 the sentiments of nature" (CBB 3: 129) in Merwn. Brown relates that the only people who profit from 275 the plague are those hired "at enormous wagesH (CBB 3: 173) to
care for the il1 or remove corpses from residences. The savage and casual brutality of these caretakers is even more terrifying than the plague, as they do not hesitate to bury
patients while they are still living (CBB 3: 140). But, unlike Poe, Brown allows his characters to escape the plague. Just as Brown recovered from the yellow fever, so do Constantia Dudley and Arthur Mervyn; the former survives even without the advantage of a convalescence in the country. Such a restoration to health demonstrates the difference between Brown's and Poe's treatment of plague as a non-supernatural vehicle to create terror. In Brown's realistic portrayal, he allows his characters to recover, but Poe's allegorical characters do not require any such convalescence, as they are secondary to the allegory or parable. Brown and Poe both provide realistic alternatives to the supernatural in their terror fiction. Such devices as ventriloquism, madness, catalepsy, somnambulism, mesmerism, and pestilence provide these authors with vehicles to sustain the quality of "the fantastic-uncanny." The ambiguity created by Brown's pseudo-scientific devices and Poe's unreliable narratives leads to an equivocal acceptance by the reader of events which transcend everyday experience. Yet while Brown investigates the theme of unintended consequences £rom a moral viewpoint, Poe is more concerned in exploring the psychology of his characters through the portrayal of unbalanced mental 276 states. Brown rejects the external trappings of the European Gothic novelists in favour of Godwin's internal, psychological approach. However, the sources of terror in his fiction remain external, whether in the case of Carwin's ventriloquism, the yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia, or Indian attacks. Poe differs by exploring the internal terrors of his characters' minds. When Brown depicts the madness of Wieland and Edny, it is through the narratives of other characters. Poe treats madness from a first-person viewpoint, having his narrators betray their instability through their own suspect narration. This realistic approach grounds their fiction in reality, as Brown and Poe offer alternative sources of terror through the rejection of Gothic supernatural machinery . Endnotes
'~t the end of "American Novel Writing," an unçigned article in the Pittsburgh Literan Examiner for August, 1839, Poe announced, "In our next article under this head we shall comment upon the novels of Charles Brockden Brown." Poe may have begun to write the article, but it was probably never completed. Poe, quoted in The Letters of Edsar Allan Poe, ed.
John Ward Ostrom, rev. ed. vol. 1 (New York: Gordian P, 1966) 117 (2 vols.).
2~oe,Literarv Criticism - Volume V, ed. James A. Harrison
(1902; New York: AMS P, 1965) 224, vol. 12 of The Complete
Works of Edqar Allan Poe, Virginia Edition, 17 vols.
3~oe,The Corndete Works of Edsar Allan Poe 12: 249.
4 Poe, "James Fenimore Cooper," Essays and Reviews, Library of America Edition, ed. G. R. Thompson (New York: Viking P,
1984) 480.
5~oe,"Marginalia, " Essavs and Reviews 1342. Poe delivers a final comment on Brown in an editorial miscellany from The
Broadway Journal of October 11, 1845, Poe notes, "Mr. Simms
"is 'better known' than Brockden Brown." Poe, "Editorial Miscellanies," Essays and Reviews 1083.
%hirley Samuels, "In£idelity and Contagion: The Rhetoric of Revolution," Earlv American Literature 22.2 (Fall, 1937): 190, 189. 277 '~lexander Cowie , "~istorical Essay," Wieland, Bicentennial Edition 1: 325.
'valentin= Vox, 1 Can See Your ~ipsMovincr: The History and Art of Ventrilosuism (Kingswood, Tadworth, Surrey,
England: Kaye & Ward, Ltd., 1981) 25, 29, 41, 44-45.
'~lan Axelrod, Charles Brockden Brown: An American Tale
(Austin: U of Texas P, 1983) 88.
'O~abbott 3: 1042.
"~avid Ketterer, The Rationale of Deception in Poe (Baton
Rouge and London: Louisiana State UP, 1979) 250.
12~ev. William Pargeter, Observations on Maniacal
Disorders, ed. Stanley W. Jackson (1792; London and New York:
Routledge, 1988) 31.
13~eorgeSnell, The Sha~ersof American Fiction. 1798-1947
(New York: E. P. Dutton 8 Co., 1947) 39.
14~avidL. Butler, Dissectina A Ruman Heart: A Study of
Style in the Novels of Charles Brockden Brown (Washington,
D.C.: UP of America, 1978) 42.
lS~rasrnusDarwin, Zoonomia: or, the Laws of Oraanic Life vol. 1 (Philadelphia: 1797) 444 (2 vols.).
16poe, "Dactylic Couplet, " The Unknown Poe: an antholocnr of fuaitive writinqs by Edrrar Alian Poe, ed. Raymond Foye (San
Francisco: City Lights Books, 1980) 29. l7 J . Gerald Kennedy, Poe. Death, and the Life of Writinq (New Haven and London: Yale UP, 1987) 35-36.
18~abbott3 : 953-54 .
"~rthur Hobson Quinn, Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical
Biocrraphy (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1941) 41811.
20~larence Wilbur Tabar, Taber s Cvclopedic Medical
~ictionarv. includinq A Disest of Medical Subiects: Medicine.
Suraerv. ~ursinq. Dietetics. Phvsical- Therapy, rev. 6th ed. (Philadelphia: F. A. Davis Company, 1955) C-21.
21~harles Brockden Brown, "A Lesson on Sensibility, '' Somnambulism and Other Stories, ed. Alfred Weber (Frankfurt am Main: Veriag Peter Lang, 1987) 110.
22~bid.- 111.
23~rown, "Insanity: A Fragment, " Somnambulism and Other Stories 181.
24~bid.- 184.
2s~ichael Davitt Bell, " 'The Double-Tongued Deceiver ' : Sincerity and Duplicity in the Novels of Charles Brockden
Brown," Earlv American Literature 9.2 (Fall 1974): 145-47.
*'~enned~, Poe. Death, and the Life of Writinq 55.
*'1bid.- 53.
'%bid.- 58.
29~ydney S. Krauee, "Historical Essay ," Edqar Huntlv, Bicentennial Edition 4: 336.
31~avidLee Clark, "The Sources of Poe's 'The Pit and the Pendulum,'" Modern Lanquase Notes 44.6 (June 1929): 354.
32~onald A. Ringe, Charles Brockden Brown, rev. ed. (Boston: Rvayne Publishers, Inc., 1991) 78.
33~ormanS. Grabo, introduction, Edsar Eiuntlv Or, Memoirs of a Sleep-Walker, by Charles Brockden Brown, ed. Grabo (New
York and London: Penguin Books, 1988) xxi-xxii.
35~inge,Charles Brockden Brown 78.
36~snoted previously, this story was ascribed to Brown by Alfred Weber in 1963. Ringe 130 n.12.
37~harlesE. Bennett, "The Charles Brockden Brown Canon," diss., U of North Carolina, 1974, 209.
38~rown,"Somnambulism, " Somnambulism and Other Stories 9-
39~lfred Weber, introduction, Somnambulism and Other Stories xiii.
41~hemesmeric ability to induce catalepsy was described shortly after Poe's death: ...results were obtained ...naniely, insensibilityto pain, and a sort of somambulic wakeful dreaming. The only difference yet perceptible between the effects of ether and those resulting £rom hypnotizing, or mesmerising, was, that by the latter mode the limbs could be nade rigid, - cataleptic, as it is called, - while no such rigidity could be induced after the inhalation of the ether . Joseph W. Haddock, Somnolism and Psycheism ( 1851; New York: Arno P, 1975) 88.
* 3~lthough a French Royal Commission cast Mesmer into disgrace in 1784, a cornittee of the French Royal Academy of
Sciences in 1831 superseded that report by verifying some of his findings. Among their conclusions was that a mesmerist . ..can not only act upon the magnetised person, but even place him in a complete state of somnambulism, and bring him out of it without his knowledge, out of his sight at a certain distance, and with doors intervening.
J. C. Colquhoun, Re~ortof the Ex~erimentson Animal Macrnetism (1833; New York: Arno P, 1975) 195.
44~ranzAnton Mesmer, "Dissertation by F. A. Mesmer, Doctor of Medicine, on His Discoveries, " Mesmerism: A Translation of the Oriainal Medical and Scientific Writinqs of F. A. Mesmer,
M.D., ed. 6 trans. George J. Bloch (Los Altos, CA: William Kaufmann, 1980) 114, 91n, 124.
''stephen Peithman, ed., The Annotated Edcrar Ailan Poe
(Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, 1981) 591. 48~harlesE. May, Edsar Allan Poe: A Studv of the Short Fiction (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1991) 49.
50~ownshendsubstitutes the term "Mesmeric Sleepwaking" for "Induced Somnambuli~rn,~on the ground "that Somnambulism, strictly speaking, was not always, nor necessarily, an ad junct
of the condition 1 wished to describe." Be plaises the beneficent educational powers of the science: By mesmerism we best dissect man, whether mentally or physically; and, if ever the vital influences are to be understood, it is not by anatomizing the dead or by torturing the living, but by observation of our fellow- beings when in the state we cal1 mesmeric. Rev. Chauncey Hare Townshend, Facts in Mesmerism With Reasons for a Dis~assionateInauirv Into It (1840; New York: Da Capo P, 1982) vit 117.
52~onathan Auerbach, "Poe ' s Other Double : The Reader in the Fiction," Criticism 24.4 (Fall 1982): 354.
53~onathan Elmer, "Terminate or Liquidate? Poe, Sensationalism, and the Sentimental Tradition," The American Face of Edsar Allan Poe, ed. Shawn Rosenheim and Stephen Rachman (Balthore and London: Johns Hopkins UP, 1995) 116.
''Idaria M. Tatar, Spellbound: Studies on Mesmerism and 283
Literature (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton UP, 1978) 198.
57~abbott2: 187.
58~ay60.
60~.Cm Saxena, Edsar Allan Poe: A Critical Studv of Bis
Tales (Ram Nagar, New Delhi, India: S. Chand & Company Ltd., 1978) 66.
62~.Gerald Kennedy, "Phantasrns of Death in Poe 's Fiction, "
The Tales of Poe, ed. Harold Bloom (New York, New Haven, and Philadelphia: Chelsea Bouse Publishers, 1987) 121, 119.
63~abbott2: 668, 3: 1251 n.1.
64~rabo,"Aistorical Essay, " Arthur Merwn, Bicentennial Edition 3: 449 n.2.
65~wightThomas and David K. Jackson, The Poe Log: A
Documentarv Life of Edciar Alian Poe, 1809-1849 (Boston: G. K.
Hall 6 Co., 1987) 125-28.
66~rabo,"Historical Essay ," Arthur Mervvn 3 : 447-48. Conclusion
The manner in which Brown and Poe were viewed by later critics illustrates their impact on later generations.
Brown's fame and influence grew until, by 1850, he was widely read in America and England, as well as translated into French and German.' According to Thomas Love Peacock, Percy Shelley had read Brown with intense pleasure and profit by 1815. Brown's novels were among the books "which took the deepest root in his interior mind.. .and nothing so blended itself with the structure of his mind as the creations of ~rown."~One critic postulates that a passage in Wieland influenced
...had 1 not rashly set in motion a machine, over whose progress 1 had no controul, and which experience had shewn me was infinite in power? Every day might add to the catalogue of horrors of which this was the source, and a seasonable disclosure of the truth might prevent numberless ills (CBB 1: 215-16). Keats, urged by Hazlitt to read Brown, found Wieland a "very powerful" book. Keats described Brown's first novel as: " .. . something like Godwin. Between Schiller and Godwin. . ..More clever in plot and incident than Godwin. " Keats pronounced Brown "a strange american [sic] scion of the German trunk," and admired his "powerful genius" and "accomplish'd horrors ."' Hazlitt viewed Brown as " . .. an inventor, but without materials. His strength and his efforts are convulsive throes - his works are a banquet of horrors."'
Sir Walter Scott deplores the fact that Brown's "wonderful 284 powers" had not been expanded on a more "wholesome" species of writing;' nevertheless, he borrowed the names of two of Brown's characters for his novel, Guv Mannerinq. Even Godwin referred to Brown as "a person, certainly of distinguished genius," and claimed Wieland as the source which first led hirn "to look with an eye of favour upon the subject" of a
"sleeping-waking principal personage,"' in the preface to his novel, Mandeville. A Tale of the Seventeenth Centurv in Ensland (1817).'
John Neal calls Brown "the Godwin of Arneri~a."~ Richard
Henry Dana, Sr. finds gloominess to be such a character of
Brown's genius that "There is woe behind us, and woe before us." But, although Dana criticizes hirn for stylistic fauits, he reverences Brown's genius with affection. '' James Fenimore Cooper, who would be dubbed "the American Scott," although making game of Edsar Huntlv, praises Wieiand:
I remember to have read one of his books (Wieland) when a boy, and 1 take it to be a never-failing evidence of genius, that, amid a thousand similar pictures which have succeeded, the images it has left, still stand distinct and prominent in my recollection. This author ...enjoys a high reputation among his country-men, whose opinions are sufficiently impartial, since he flattered no particular prejudice of the nation in any of his works . Even Rufus Griswold, Poe's Salieri, remarked favourably on
Brown's explanations of the supernatural: "...I can perceive nothing unnatural or improbable in this work, nor do 1 think that a key to its mysteries renders it in any degree uninteresting."" As the first American novelist and terror 286 writer, Brown found f avour with such later Ilmerican masters of the macabre as Poe, Hawthorne, and Fitz-James O' %rien," although Hawthorne's praise was somewhat satiric. Hawthorne assigns Brown to "an obscure and shadowy niche" among the busts of literary giants in his story, "The Hall of Fantasy"
(1843). In 1845, Hawthorne reinforced this categorization in "P 's Correspondence, " in which the unf ortunate P. , to whose "disordered reason...the past and present are jumbled together ...in a manner often productive of curious results," offers the inverted judgment that "no American writer enjoys a more classic reptation on ~hisside of the water."" In the twentieth century, A. P. Lovecraft paid tribute to Brown, noting that, like Radcliffe, ...he injured his creations by natural explanations; but also like her, he had an uncanny atmospheric power which gives his horrors a frightful vitality as long as they remain unexplained ....Brown's novels involve sorne memorably frightful scenes, and excel even Mrs. Radcliffe ' s in descrijing the operations of the perturbed mind .lS In tems of the history of critical response to Poe's work, only a brie£ outline is necessary to demonstrate how powerfully his uncanny tales dominated his other work. From the point of Poe's death, critical reaction to his works has always suffered from the inability to divest moral judgments on biographical character from his art. While Poe had a reputation as one of the harshest of critics during the later years of his life, he received high praise £rom fellow American writers Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, and Margaret Fuller, even though Poe later made enemies by attacking Longfellow for "plagiari~rn."'~ After Poe's death, the alcoholism which plagued him became the focus for a series of critical attacks which bordered on the criminal. Just two days after his death, his literary executor and erstwhile friend, Rufus Wilmot Griswold, printed a direct attack in an obituary letter signed "Ludwig," sent to the New York Dailv Tribune, which noted that f ew people would mourn, as Poe had hardly any friends. Motivated by vindictive animosity, Griswold falsified letters and defamed Poe's character. His edition of Poe's collected works in 1850 included a "Mernoir" which became the main source for American readers throughout the next decade. Poe's reptation received a black stain from which it never really recovered, as Griswold went so far as to slander Poe's relatives, and related that Poe had a love affair with Maria Clemm, his aunt and mother-in-law. ''
Eowever, critical re-assessment cams £rom overseas, as
Charles Baudelaire brought Poe international recognition with his translations and championing of his work. Although he had inaccurate biographical details , d au del aire ' s poetic description of Poe from 1856 captures the romantic conception of the troubled artist:
.. .for Poe the United States was nothing more than a vast prison which he traversed with the feverish agitation of a being made to breathe a sweeter air ...y ou will not be surprised that for such a man life should have become hell, and that he should have corne to a bad end. You will be astonished that he was able to endure such a long 288
t ime .l8 Two decades later, the Symbolist 2oet Stephane Mallarmé praised the purity of Poe's poetry. Fellow Symbolists, such as Paul Valéry, praised Poe's rationalism, while Decadents, such as Jorge-Karl Huysmans, Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, and
Gabrielle D'Annunzio, along with pre-Surrealists, such as Arthur Rimbaud and Guillaume Apollinaire, adopted the image of the imaginative Poe, rnaster of mystery and horror." In Russia, Fyodor Dostoevsky praised Poe's avoidance of the supernatural: "His work can hardly be labeled as purely fantastic...its fantasticalness is a merely external one."
Dostoevsky notes Poe 's dif ference f rom Hoffmann in this respect, and argues, "Not fantastic should he be called but capricious. And how odd are the vagaries of his fancy and at the same time how a~dacious!"~~
Yet, Poe also had his detractors; despite his boyhood enthusiasrn for Poe, in 1876, Henry James declared that "enthusiasm for Poe is the mark of a decidedly primitive stage of reflection. "" In 1880, Walt whitman noted in his journal that he had difficulties with Poe's ~orks.~~Even as late as
1948, Ta S. Eliot denounced Poe for "slipshod writing" and "puerile thinking," when hiç work is examined in detail; but he conceded that "one cannot be sure that one's own writing has not been influenced by ~oe.'~ In contrast, during Poe's centenary in 1909, both George Bernard Shaw and Edmund Gosse praised Poe in print. Although D. H. Lawrence saw Poe's style as "mechanical, lt he concludes that Poe was " an adventurer into vaults and cellars and horrible underground passages of the human sou1 , "24 In 1926, Edmund Wilson saw Poe as a "bridgett between the Romantic and Symbolist rnovernent~.~~ Poe ' s avoidance of the supernatural in his tales of terror amounted to championing the uncanny over the marvellous, which brought him many admirers. Tribute has been given to Poe by his followers in the macabre tradition. Arthur Machen felt that
"Poe strays £rom the path when he makes melancholy the most fit subject for poetry," and errs "in making art the daughter of sadness." But Machen praises "The Fa11 of the House of
Usher" as "truly natural," as it mirrors "in forms beautiful and terrible the secret and innermost core of man's being."26
H. P. Lovecraft exalted Poe in 1927, and praised ...a master's vision of the terror that stalks about and within us, and the worm that writhes and slavers in the hideously close abyss. Penetrating to every festering horror in the gaily painted mockery called existence... that vision had power to project itself in blackly magical crystallisations and transmutations; till there bloomed in the stexile ~merica of the 'thirties and 'forties such a moon-nourished garden of gorgeous poison fungi as not even the nether slope of Saturn might boast. 2 7
With Poe's entrenchment as a leading writer of the "American
Renaissance" of the mid-nineteenth century, scholarly works continue to thrive, examining and se-examining every aspect of
Poe's writings. Poe's reputation survived the slanders of
Griswold, and Poe has the ultimate revenge. Griswold has no champions; his vituperation has been turned upon himself by posterity, and he is only rernembered in conjunction with Poe, when he is thought of at alla The biographical character elements that Griswold paraded as flaws only help make Poe interesting to modern readers.
While similarities between both authors were first noticed in Poe's lifetime, it was not until the present century that Merican critics obsemed the connection. A French reviewer, E.-De Forgues, made the first cornparison of
Poe to Brown. In what was also the first article to be written on Poe by a Frenchman, in La Revue des Deux Mondes, published on October 15, 1846, Forgues felt Godwin to be Poe's
European source, and rnentioned that Brown might be viewed as his American precursore2e The reference to Godwin shows how effectively Poe had followed his exploration of psychological detail, particularly in tems cf paranoid characters. The first cornparison between Brown and Poe in English was made by an anonymous reviewer of Poe's works in The Edinburqh Review of April, 1858, who traced
his inspiration in a great measure to the writings of Godwin and Charles Brockden Browne [sic]. There is in each the same love of the morbid and improbable; the same frequent straining of the interest; the same tracing, step by step, logically as it were and elaborately, through allits complicated relations, a terrible mystery to its so~rce~~~
While this reviewer criticizes Godwin, Brown, and Poe for dealing with plot intricacies instead of character, his characterization of each author as "morbid" suggests that their fascination with such devices as spontaneous combustion, plague, and premature burial stem from personal temperament. While such morbidity is not surprising in Poe's case, with the unfortunate events of his life, Brown's sombre introspections and absence of humour may have contributed to this fascination with such dark themes, but Brown did not appear to exploit these themes merely for their noveity value. However, the reviewer's misspelling of Brown's Rame rnight be seen as the beginning of his eclipse by Poe, whose farne would continue to grow while Brown f el1 into relative obscuriky. In 1929, ~avid
Lee Clark found a passage in Edsar Huntly as a source for "The
Pit and the Pendulum. " This was followed Ln 1953 by Boyd
Carter's discovery of other incidents in Huntlv which Poe uses
for "A Tale of the Raggod Mountains. '13' More tangential connections have been made between the authors, such as the similarity Alexander Cowie notes between Wieland and "The Fa11 of the Aouse of Usher" in its depiction of a family's destruction, with the exception of Clara, whom Brown leaves to relate the tale.12 The two authors also employ pen-knives as weapons. In Ormond, Constantia Dudley defe~dsherself from the advances of the title villain by killing Onnond with the instrument. Similarly, in "The Black Cat," the narrator gouges out Pluto's eye by the same rneanse3'
Brown and Poe both died Young, having failed to reach financial success through writing. Both authors were also the first in their respective generations to subsist financially solely through their work as professional magazinists. In "A
Few Words About Brainard," an article on American author John 292
G. C. Brainard £rom February, 1842, Poe responds to Sydney Smith's question of 1820, "Who reads an American book?" Poe argues that Fenimore Cooper and James Kirke Paulding achieved their farne by "early occupation of the field," and contends that superior native authors publish fiction daily "without attracting more of comxendation than can be crammed into a hack newspaper paragraph." Poe asks, "...is there any one so prejudiced as not to acknowledge that al1 this is because there is no longer either reason or wit iri the query, - 'Who reads an American book? ' " '" Not only had the status of native literature achieved what would be later termed "the American Renaissance," with Poe a major contributor, but both
Brown and Poe had reinvigorated the Gothic tradition through a greater degree of realism. Brown 's pseudo-scientif ic devices and other external terrors and Poe's internalization of his characters' unbalanced mental states provided a realistic alternative to the supernatural excesses of European
Gothic authors.
While Brown abandoned the uncanny in his last two novels before abandoning fiction altogether, Poe remained faithful to tales of terror, and even left an unfinished story, "The
Light-Bouse," among his papers. Both authors translated the
Gothic trappings of Europe to America and abandoned the terror-inducing machinery of the Old World in favour of pseudo-scientific themes, such as spontaneous combustion, ventriloquism, and mesxrierisrn, along with the terrors implicit 293 in such conditions as mania, catalepsy, somnambulism, and plaques. While Noël Carroll cites Edsar Huntlv as an example of the "equivocal Gothic," as opposed to Radcliffe's The
Mvsteries of Udolpho, which he places in the category of "explained G~thic,"'~Carroll categorizes Brown inaccurately.
For in using these subdivisions of Gothic literature which were defined by Montague Sumers, it is noteworthy that even
Summers himself places Brouin as a writer of the "Explained Supernatural."" Carroll would have made a stronger argument by using Wieland in place of Huntlv, since Brown's first novel has a tentative ambiguity in of iering the possibility that the voices heard by the younger Wieland were of supernatural origin. This tentative ambiguity leads to Poe, who exploits this equivocal nature to a much greater dogree. George E.
Aaggerty notes that Poe demonstrates "how the supernatural can be made convincing without rendering the work absurd" by
"focusing on the teller of the tale."" This quality of ambiguity is the distinguishing feature of American Gothic literature, as G. R. Thompson noteda William Bysshe Stein defines this subjective quality more precisely: "the signature of American Gothicisrn" is "the subjective condition of the ingrained Puritan sensibility of the American even when he is in the grip of the consoling illusion of self- reliance. "'' Brown's pseudo-scientific devices and Poe 's psychological internalizing provide alternatives to Exopean
Gothic machinery that are both realistic and ambiguous. When 294
Clara Wieland declares, "1 believe the agency to be external and real, but not supernatural" (CBB 1: 178), in a post- traumatic response to her brother's auditory delusion, she articulates a literary manifesto which had adherents from
Godwin and Radcliffe through Brown to Poe. Endnotes
l~avidLee Clark, introduction, Edqar Huntlv or Memoirs of a Sleep-Walker, by Charles Brockden Brown, ed. Clark (1799;
New York: Macmillan Company, 1928) xii.
homa mas Love Peacock, Peacock's Memoirs of Shellev with Shellev's Letters to Peacock, ed. Ha F. B. Brett-Smith (London: Henry Frowde, 1909) 36-37.
3~ . C. Prescott , "Wieland and Frankenstein, " American Literature 2.2 (May 1930): 172-73. Prescott also notes that in her novel, The Last Man, Mary Shelley drew her description of an epidemic "on the masterly delineations" of the author of Arthur Mervvn .
%oh* Keats, "To Richard Woodhouse," 21-22 Sept. 1819,
Letter No. 194 in Letters and Papers, 1819-1821, ed. Hyder Edward Rollins (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard UP, 1958)
173, vol. 2 of The Letters of John Keats, 1814-1821 (2 vols.).
'[william Hazlitt], "Art. VIL - Sermons and Tracts; including Remarks on the Character and Writings of Milton, and of Fenelon [sic]; and an Analysis of the Character of Napoleon Bonaparte. By W. E. Channing ...," The Edinburgh Review 50.99 (October 1829) : 126-28.
'sir Walter Scott, quoted in "S. G. Goodrich" (Peter
Parley ) , Recollections of a Lif etirne, or Men and Thinas 1 Have Seen: in a series of Familiar Letters to a Friend,
295 Historical, Bioqraphical, Anecdotical, and Descriptive ( New
York: 1856) 643.
'~odwin, pref ace, Mandeville. A Tale of the Seventeenth
Centurv in Ensland vol. 1 (Edinburgh: 1817) x, ix (3 vols.).
*B. J. Tysdahl, William Godwin as Novelist (London:
Athlone, 1981) 129.
'~ohn Neal, "American Writers, No. II, " Blackwood's
Masazine 16 (1824): 415-28, rpt. in "Charles Brockden Brown,"
American writers: A Series of Papers Contributed to
Blackwood's Maqazine (1824-1825), ed. Fred Lewis Pattee
(Durham, North Carolina: Duke UP, 1937) 65.
'O~ichard Henry Dana, Sr., "The Novels of Charles Brockden Brown," The ~nited States Review and Literarv Gazette 2
(August 1827): 321-33, rpt. in Critical Essavs on Charles
Brockden Brown, ed. Bernard Rosenthal (Boston: G. K. Hall and Co., 1981) 51, 57.
~ameçFenimore Cooper, Notions of the Americans : Picked
Ur> bv a Travellinq Bachelor vol. 2 ( 1828; New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1963) 111.
12~ufusWilmot Griswold, The Prose Writers of America with a Survev of the Intellectual Historv, Condition, and Prospects of the Country, rev. ed. (Philadelphia: 1870) 109.
130r~riendeclares "the calling of the voices" in Wieland to be "awful, " in his most famous work, the short story, "What 297 Was It?" (1859). Fitz-James O'Brien, "What Was It?" The
Fantastic Tales of Fitz-James O'Brien, ed. Michael Hayes (London: John Calder, 1977) 59.
14~athaniel Hawthorne, Mosses £rom ar Old Manse, eds.
William Charvat, Roy Harvey Pearce, and Claude M. Simpson
(1846; Columbus: Ohio State UP, 1974) 174, 361, 380, vol. 10
of The Centenarv Edition of the Works of Nathaxiel Hawthorne (23 vols., 1962-94).
''8. P. Lovecraft, "Supernaturd Aorror in Literature, " Daaon and Other Macabre Tales, ed. S. Tm Joshi (1927; Sauk
City, Wisconsin: Arkham House Publishers, Inc., 1987) 377.
16~ricW . Carlson, introduction, Critical Essa~son Edqar Allan Poe, ed. Carlson (Boston: Go K. Hall and Co., 1987) 2-
3.
l7~enneth Silverman, Edsar A. Poe: Mournfui and Never- endinq Remembrance (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1991)
Idcharles Baudelaire, Baudelaire on Poe, tram. & ed. Lois and Francis E. Hyslop, Jr. (State College, Pennsylvania: Bald
Eagle P, 1952) 91, 94.
lg~aymondFoye, "The French Viewfl' The Unknown Poe: an antholow of fugitive writincrs bv Edsar Allan Poe, ed. Foye
(San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1980) 76.
20~yodorDostoevsky, "Three Tales of Edgar Poe, " Wrarnia [Time] 1 (1861): 230, quoted in Vladimir Astrov, "Dostoevsky on Edgar Allan Poe, " American ~iteraiure14.1 (March 1942) :
''tlenry James, "Les Fleurs du Mal, " The Nation ( 27 April
1876), rpt. in "Comments," Critical Essavs on Edgar Allan Poe
23~.S. Eliot, "From Poe to Valéry," The Hudson Review 2.3
(Autumn 1949) : 327.
24~.A. Lawrence, Studies in Classic Arnerican Literature
(New York: Thomas Seltzer, 1923) 100, 119.
25~dmundWilson, quoted in Carlson 5.
26~rthurMachen, "Edgar Allan Poe: The Suprerne Realist ,"
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