Theatricality and Anti- Catholicism in Brontë, Newman and Dickens
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View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Wits Institutional Repository on DSPACE REALISM AND RITUAL IN THE RHETORIC OF FICTION: ANTI- THEATRICALITY AND ANTI- CATHOLICISM IN BRONTË, NEWMAN AND DICKENS Sonia Fanucchi A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements of Doctor of Philosophy. Johannesburg, 2016. ii ABSTRACT This thesis is concerned with the meeting point between theatre and religion in the mid-Victorian consciousness, and the paradoxical responses that this engendered particularly in the novels and thought of Dickens, Newman and Charlotte Brontë. It contributes to the still growing body of critical literature that attempts to tease out the complex religious influences on Dickens and Brontë and how this manifests in their fiction. Newman is a religious writer whose fictional treatment of spiritual questions in Callista (1859) is used as a foil to the two novelists. There are two dimensions to this study: on the one hand it is concerned with the broader cultural anti-Catholic mood of the period under consideration and the various ways in which this connects with anti- theatricality. I argue that in the search for a legitimate means of expressing religious sentiments, writers react paradoxically to the latent possibilities of the conventions of religious ceremony, which is felt to be artificial, mystical, transcendent and threatening, inspiring the same contradictory responses as the theatre itself. The second dimension of this study is concerned with the way in which these sentiments manifest themselves stylistically in the novels under consideration: through a close reading of Barnaby Rudge (1841), Pictures From Italy (1846), and Villette (1852), I argue that in the interstices of a wariness of Catholicism and theatricality there is a heightening of language, which takes on a ritual dimension, evoking the paradoxical suggestions of transcendent meaning and artificiality associated with performance. Newman’s Callista (1859) acts as a counterpoint to these novels, enacting a more direct and persuasive argument for the spiritual value of ritual. This throws some light on the realist impulse in the fiction of Brontë and Dickens, which can be thought of as a struggle between a language that seeks to distance and explain, and a language that seeks to perform, involve, and inspire. In my discussion of Barnaby Rudge (1841) I argue that the ritual patterns in the narrative, still hauntingly reminiscent of a religious past, never become fully embodied. This is because the novel is written in a style that could be dubbed “melodramatic” because it both gestures towards transcendent presences and patterns and threatens to make nonsense of the spiritual echoes that it invokes. This sense of a gesture deferred is iii also present in the travelogue, Pictures from Italy (1846). Here I argue that Dickens struggles to maintain an objective journalistic voice in relation to a sacramental culture that is defined by an intrusive theatricality: he experiences Catholic practices and symbolism as simultaneously vital, chaotic and elusive, impossible to define or to dismiss. In Villette (1852) I suggest that Charlotte Brontë presents a disjuncture between Lucy’s ardour and the commonplace bourgeoisie world that she inhabits. This has the paradoxical effect of revitalising the images of the Catholic religion, which, despite Lucy’s antipathy, achieves a ghostly presence in the novel. In Callista (1859), I suggest that Newman concerns himself with the ritual possibilities and limitations of fiction, poetry and theatre. These dramatic and literary categories invoke and are ultimately subsumed in Christian ritual, which Newman considers the most refined form of language – the point at which detached description gives way to communion and participation. Keywords: Victorian literature, Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë, John Henry Newman, ritual, religion, realism, theatricality, anti-Catholicism iv DECLARATION I declare this dissertation my own unaided work. It is submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. It has not been submitted before for any other degree or examination in any other university. Sonia Fanucchi 20th day of May 2016 v DEDICATION To my husband: for helping me believe. vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my warmest thanks to my supervisor, Prof. Victor Houliston, who first inspired me to pursue a degree in Literature and who opened my eyes to the wonders of the Victorian literary universe when I was still an undergraduate student. I have benefited immeasurably from his intellectual guidance, encouragement and patience during this process and will forever be indebted to him for his kindness and support as my supervisor and mentor. I would also like to thank my colleagues in the Wits English Department for their patience and professional support and especially Prof. Libby Meintjes, in her role as Head of the School of Literature, Language and Media. I further greatly benefited from the writing retreats organised by the School and the Postgraduate Centre, which provided me with the space and time to pursue my research away from lecturing responsibilities. Finally, I would like to thank my family: my father, Piero, sister, Sylvia, brother, Dario, Robbie, and my beloved nieces – thank you all for your love, support and good- humored encouragement these last few years. To my dear Mother, Patrizia: my gratitude for your unwavering encouragement and inspiration is inexpressible. My Nonni – though you are now beyond time’s veil, I will always carry your wisdom with me and am proud to have been loved by you. My husband, Leonard: it is only because of your unfailing love that I have had the strength to persevere, “to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield”. vii CONTENTS ABSTRACT ii DECLARATION iv DEDICATION v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vi BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ix INTRODUCTION: The Myth of Secularity 1 Survey of Mid-Victorian attitudes to Religion, Catholicism and Drama 1 Some theoretical Perspectives 11 Brief introduction to the novels 17 Definition of terms 18 CHAPTER ONE: The Attraction/Repulsion of the “Visible Invisible”: a Survey of Mid-Victorian Anti-Theatricality and Anti-Catholicism. 20 Theatre, Tractarianism and anti-Catholicism 42 Anti-Catholicism 53 Conclusion 67 CHAPTER TWO: Pantomimes, Games and “Amens in the right place”: Dickens, Theatricality and Religion – the Biographical Evidence 69 Dickens and the theatre 69 Dickens, religion and ritual 79 Theatricality in the novels 91 CHAPTER THREE: “Ghosts of ghosts of ghosts”: Melodrama in Barnaby Rudge (1841). 97 The Raven 99 Barnaby 106 The anti-Catholic riots 116 Conclusion 128 CHAPTER FOUR: Catholic Culture and Intrusive Theatricality in Pictures From Italy (1846) 132 CHAPTER FIVE: A “mighty revelation”: Catholic Ghosts and the Ambivalent Attraction of Sham Theatre in Villette (1852) 165 “Our Plays”: Charlotte Brontë’s attitudes to the theatre 165 Villette: Vashti and M.Paul’s Vaudeville 171 Charlotte Brontë and Catholicism 174 Anti-Catholicism in Villette 178 viii The Nun of Villette – the gothic, realism and theatricality 188 Conclusion 195 CHAPTER SIX: An Apologia for Ritual in Newman’s Callista (1859) 200 Newman and the Imagination: the importance of poetry in the life of the soul 201 Poetry and Ritual 204 Callista 209 Pagan and Christian ritual 220 Conclusion 230 CONCLUSION 233 Instress and inscape in Hopkins’s thought and poetry 233 Brontë 242 Dickens 249 Newman 253 Instress, ritual and realism 257 Concluding thoughts about theatricality, realism and ritual 259 BIBLIOGRAPHY 264 ix BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE Quotations from Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of The Riots of Eighty (1841) are taken from the Penguin edition edited by John Bowen (London: Penguin Books, 2003). Quotations from Pictures From Italy (1846) are taken from the original edition of American Notes and Pictures From Italy that was published by Bradbury & Evans (London: Bradbury & Evans, 1846). Quotations from Villette (1853) are taken from the Penguin edition edited by Helen M. Cooper (London: Penguin, 1994). Quotations from Callista: A Tale of the Third Century (1859) are taken from the Longmans, Green edition (London, New York: Longmans, Green, & Co, 1891). The 1611 Authorized King James Version (AV) is used for all biblical quotations and references. References to the Bible use the standard abbreviation as found in the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. 1 INTRODUCTION: The Myth of Secularity Survey of Mid-Victorian attitudes to Religion, Catholicism and Drama In his essay collection entitled Realism, Ethics and Secularism George Levine suggests that the most important question facing the Victorians was an ethical one: “how might one lead a meaningful, good, and satisfying life in a world from which God has disappeared?”1 He argues that the Victorians were attempting to make sense of a world from which the comforting sea of faith had withdrawn, that they were thrown into “moral anarchy and despair” by their increasing secularism, by the paradoxical sense that as they “tried to wrench themselves free from traditional religion”, they were unable to escape the dualism between “knowledge and ethics, knowledge and value”.2 The driving force behind novels of the nineteenth century for Levine is therefore a search for “value”, a “non-theistic enchantment” where religious order is imitated but “gods are not allowed”. 3 An overarching