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Signed (student author)

Signed (faculty advisor)

Signed (2d advisor, if applicable) ------

Thesis title Vic-!orio.tl Re.He..c.:Hon eM'\� Oi�f'O.t..-ttCln rft D>A\d'.$ �Mtis.s.u�

Date S/IID/12

Library Use ____,5/''J--+7--- /;_1 __ Accepted By: _ Date: 3 I rev. March2010 Victorian Reflection and Diffraction of Ovid's Narcissus

by

Hannah Wang

Edan Dekel,Advisor

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts with Honors in Comparative Literature

WILLIAMS COLLEGE

Williamstown, Massachusetts

May 3, 2013 Acknowledgements

I would first like to thank my advisor, Edan Dekel. He has been an incredible

source of academic inspiration and moral support throughout this entire process, which

began in the spring of my junior year. Since I arrived at Williams, he has helped me

become a more articulate, adventurous, and well-rounded person, always encouraging me

to think bigger.

I would also like to thank the second reader of my thesis, Gail Newman, who was

extremely helpful in the construction of this project. I am very grateful for the time and

energy she put into reading my thesis and sharing her comments, and her expertise on

Freud was invaluable.

I would also like to thank my sister, Elise Wang, and my friend, Natalie Johnson,

for reading my thesis at various stages of its development and providing crucial feedback.

I would also like to thank Michael Ormsbee for his last minute edits.

Finally, I would like to thank my family and friends- especially my Rectory girls

- for their constant love and support. Table of Contents

Introduction 1

I. Optics in the Ovidian Narrative 12

II. Narcissus and Ovidian Reception in Western Literature 35

III. Narcissus Through the Victorian Lens 44

IV. The Reflective Surface of Waterhouse's Echo and Na rcissus 83

Afterword 98

Works Cited 101

Introduction

in mediis quotiens visum captantia collum bracchia mersit aquis nee se deprendit in illis!

How often, trying to embrace the neck that he saw, He plunged his arms into the midst of the waters, but could not catch himselfl (Met. 3.428-9)1

'exigua prohibemur aqua! cupit ipse teneri!'

"We are kept apart by only a little water! He wants to be held!" (Met. 3.450)

Ovid's Narcissus narrative is preoccupied with the paradox of water. It is a flat surface, reflecting a superficial image; it also has depth, a space withoutsolid substance.

Ovid explores the frustrations that result fromthis paradox, when neither the image nor the depth beneath the surface holdswhat is desired: something familiar, yet truthful, that can reciprocate one's feelings- something tangible. Water, in its very slipperiness, is a metaphor for so many frustrating products of the human imagination: art, beauty, personality. We seek something deeper in these surface reflections of our society; sometimes we are rewarded with some truth or meaning that they contain, but often we are foiled in our attempts and do not fmd what we want beneath the surface. Narcissus is the archetypal seeker of solid forms in a liquid void, frustrated by a paradox that is ultimately superficial and empty. The truth that Narcissus finds in his watery journey is not found in the water itself, but in the person that he sees reflected in its surface.

1 All translations are my own, unless otherwise noted.

1 Ovid's is not the only version of the Narcissus story from antiquity, but it is the most comprehensive and the one that has been sustained in Westernculture into the present day.2 Given the manytransformations that the story has undergone, it will be useful to have a brief sununary of Ovid's original account, which appears in Book 3 of the Me tamorphoses. The nymph Liriope gives birth to a boy whom she names Narcissus, and the prophet Tiresias foretells that Narcissus will live to an old age if he should not know himself. Narcissus grows into a beautiful youth who rebuffs the advances of both men and women, including the nymph Echo, who is doomed to repeat the words of others. When Narcissus refuses Echo, she wastes away until she is nothing but a voice.

Narcissus subsequently comes upon a pool in the depths of the woods, a pool that is completely still. When he leans forward to drink from the pool, he spies his own reflection in the water and immediately falls in love with it, believing it to be another person who stares up at him. Eventually, Narcissus has a moment of realization that the image he sees is just a reflection of himself: he comes to know himself, and this knowledge is devastating. Even after realizing that theimage is merely a reflection of his own beautiful form, Narcissus cannot help but be enamored with it and separate it from himself, and, like Echo, his body wastes away pining after the beauty of another. He is then metamorphosed into the narcissus flower, a common daffodil, and his spirit resides in the underworld, eternally gazing at his reflection in the river Styx.

The story of Narcissus, with its themes of beauty, self-love, self-discovery, and, of course, metamorphosis, has inspired countless writers and artists throughout history.

Narcissus is seen as the quintessential self-centered male, an allegory for the painter, and

2 Other examples include Conon's and Pausanius' Narcissus narratives, both written in Greek. For more on these and other versions, see Vinge 1967, 19-24.

2 a model for the ideal of beauty. He appears, named, in works ranging from the thirteenth­

centuryRoman de Ia Rose to the poetry of Seamus Heaney, and he is an unnamed

influence on countless works of Western fiction with self-absorbed and self-regarding

characters. Narcissus is also the source of theterm "narcissism," the psychoanalytic

concept turned psychological illness turnedpopular culture personality trait. "Narcissism"

is a term introducedin late Victorian England by the psychologist Havelock Ellis, later

seized on and explicated by the likes of Sigmund Freud and Otto Rank. The Victorians

seem to have been especially fascinated with Narcissus, and during this period his

character underwent many adjustments and changes in its reception. Indeed, theVictorian

reception of Narcissus seems to be a turning point in how Western culture views the

character. Prior to the Victorian period, Narcissus' character was used for many different

purposes, each individually suited to the context of the work, but by the end of the

Victorian period he was molded into the psychologically and morally deficient aesthete

that continues to live in the popular imagination. The Aesthetic movement in England,

heralded by Walter Pater in his infamous 'Conclusion' to Studies in the History of the

Renaissance, was quickly taken up by Oscar Wilde and Algernon Charles Swinburne in

3 literature and by Edward Burne-Jones and J. W. Waterhouse in art. Late Victorian

reception of Narcissus was undertaken through an Aesthetic lens, with the purpose of

producing "art for art's sake," rather than for propagating moral or political values. The

Aesthetics concerned themselves with the surface of the canvas, or the beauty of the word

on the page, and they did not seek to provide any moral depth for the audience. In their

insistence on surface beauty, and their constant divorcement of this from moral depth, the

Aesthetics seem to revive the water paradox from Ovid, which contrasts surface with

3 Pater 1873, 194-199. See also Dowling 1986, 3-5.

3 depth and explores the frustrating emptiness of both. Their treatment of Narcissus in this new light sets him free of moral restrictions and forgives him of any self-absorption and superficialitythat may have tainted his earlier reception, but it also condemns Narcissus to an eternity of moral deficiency.

I propose that both the story of Narcissus and his reception can be viewed productively through the metaphor of water and its different optical properties. As we readily see in the Ovidian story, water is a kind of mirror in its ability to reflect. But although Ovid's Narcissus narrative is nominally concernedwith the reflective properties of water, I will demonstrate that it is also a story about the constant alternation between different kinds of diffraction: fragmentation and refocusing. I believe that the paradox of water and its multiple properties also govern the way that receptive works interpret the character of Narcissus in the late Victorian period. I will examine how these works of reception, spanning the fields of psychoanalysis, literature, and art, use Narcissus and his pool as a lens to exaruine their own preoccupations with surface, beauty, and the self. In the existing scholarship on Ovidian reception, this approach to Narcissus' Victorian reception is novel in both its period focus and its interdisciplinary breadth. In addition, I hope to shed some new light on how the issues of nature and metamorphosis explored by

Ovid, who uses water as a means to understandlove and the self, continue to inform cultural preoccupations well into the modern era.

The reception of Narcissus is a subject long studied and long contested. The starting point for many recent studies of Narcissus in Western culture is Louise Vinge's comprehensive The Narcissus Theme (1967). Vinge falls within thetradition of descriptive classical reception studies that take one character from mythology and trace

4 4 its reception and influence throughout cultural history. Vinge's work, while admirable in

its scope and specificity, fi.mctions as little more than a roll call of works of Narcissus

reception, with little attempt at thematic synthesis. Vinge does not approach Ovidian

reception with any organizational principle other than chronology. She also ends her

study at the beginning of the nineteenth century, statingthat the traditions of Narcissus

reception that she has traced end at this point and that later "poets approached the figure

freefrom previously acknowledged evaluations and opinions of it. "5 While Vinge does

cite some nineteenth- and twentieth-century commentary on the works of reception

within her chronological scope (as when she mentions Havelock Ellis's psychoanalytical

interpretation of Calderon's play Eco y Narciso), her omission of Romantic and Victorian

6 reception of Narcissus is unfortunate. On the contrary, later reception of Narcissus does respond to previous notions of the myth, either by accepting or rejecting traditions of

reception. Even if Oscar Wilde did not care that the Golding translation of the

Metamorphoses was heavily influential in Elizabethan England, he must at least have

been aware of some of Shakespeare's use of Ovidian material, since he explicitly cites

Shakespeare throughout The Picture of Dorian. Gray. As I hope to demonstrate in this

project, the Victorians are not completely freefrom any historical influences in their

reception of Narcissus; rather, they delight in situating themselves in history, trying to

relive the decadence of classical timeswhile also reviving Gothic aesthetics.

Jeffrey Berman takes up where Vinge leaves offin Narcissism and the No vel

( 1990), looking at narcissism in seven novels from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

4 Other notab le works in this vein ofreception studies include Galinsky's The He rak/es Theme (1972) and Warden's Orpheus, The Metamorphosis ofa My th (1982). 5 Vinge 1967, xv. 6 Ibid., 241.

5 His project is relevant to my thesis, as he discusses the influence of Narcissus and

narcissism in novels such as Frankenstein and The Picture of Dorian Gray . Berman's

book takes a decidedly clinical approach to thismaterial: after establishing that there is a theme of narcissism in each of these novels, he proceeds to psychoanalyze both the

characters and the writers themselves. In his treatment of Dorian Gray, Berman even

acknowledges that "Wilde would hardly have welcomed a psychoanalytic study of

narcissism" as this would amount to a reduction of the complicated aesthetic theories that informed his works? Berman then goes against Wilde's implicit wishes and

psychoanalyzes Dorian Gray and Wilde himself. Instead of discussing Wilde's conscious

decisions in his modernization of the Narcissus theme, Berman devotes his study to

anachronistically ("narcissism" was not a term introduced until after Wilde wrote Dorian

Gray) diagnosing Wilde as a transsexual writer with narcissistic personality disorder and

discussing how this influenced his work.8 Berman, trained in psychoanalysis, dissects the

novels in his book as manifestations of narcissistic writers and fictional portrayals of

narcissistic characters. 9 My study, while it does cover similar thematic and periodic

terrain, does not endeavor to label any works or writers as "narcissistic," but instead

investigates the evolution of the term and how it has changed the way in which Narcissus

is received in Western culture.

In Refle cting Narcissus: A Queer Aesthetic (2001), Steven Bruhm takes issue with

Berman's treatment of Oscar Wilde as a homosexual narcissist. According to Bruhm,the

association of homosexuality with narcissism has led to the conflation of homosexuality

7 Berman 1990, 150. 'Ibid., 172-3. 9 Hall 1990, 4 70.

6 10 wi1h "egoism and selfishness and wi1h self-delusion and excessive introspection." This

trait of social inversion and isolation has been used to categorize and condemn gay men

and women since 1he invention of 1he term "narcissism." Instead, Bruhm believes 1hat

Narcissus is a character that can be taken up by 1he queer community as a positive model,

exemplifyinghow various acts of rejection can disturb 1he binarisms that attempt to

frame deviancy.11 Bruhm examines Narcissus' roots in pre-Freudian literature and traces

1he character through Postmodernism, all 1he while investigating how Narcissus functions

in relation to a normative notion of love. In tracing how 1he figure ofNarcissus has

directed 1he development of psychoanalysis, Bruhm's book offers fascinating insights into

how a queer aes1hetic is actually inscribed into 1hese structures1hat attempt to categorize

it. The book has also been a large influence in my own work on Narcissus. Bruhm's

discussion of 1he negative pa1hologizing ofNarcissus and its roots in figures like Ellis has

guided my interest in this period and how literature and art may also be symptomatic of

1his tendency. While Bruhm systematically applies queer 1heory to 1heNarcissus my1h, I

am approachingNarcissus' reception wi1h an eye to 1he development of his character

from an Ovidian model to one 1hat is entrenched in Victorian revisions, ranging from 1he

sexualization of his character to 1he Aes1hetictransformation of his story.

This last element of my project, the engagement wi1h art historical material, also

owes a debt toAfter the Pre-Raphaelites: Art and Aestheticism in Victorian England

(1999), edited by Elizabe1h Prettejohn. Prettejohn is one of 1he foremost scholars in Pre-

R.aphaelite and Aesthetic art, and her book advocates for 1he recognition of 1he

importance of 1he visual arts in the Aes1hetic movement, as art is usually viewed as a

10 Bruhm 2001,2. 11 Ibid., 15.

7 secondary product of the period.12 The book is a collection of interdisciplinary essays, covering both Aesthetic writers and artists, and deals with issues of beauty, gender, religion, and philosophy. This interdisciplinary approach to the Aesthetic movement has inspired my own approach, which includes a close reading of a classical text, analysis of

Victorian literature, and a dissection of a work of art. The artist that I discuss in my third chapter, J. W. Waterhouse, has been the subject of relatively little critical inquiry, and little has been written about his painting Echo and Narcissus (1903).13 This can be said of many paintings from this period and from the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, which have not received nearly as much attention as, for example, the French Impressionist and Post-

Impressionist paintings that were produced at the same time. Pre-Raphaelitism and

Aestheticism have risen to greater prominence in academia in the last twenty years, and books like Prettejohn's have encouraged this renewed interest.

Scholars of Comparative Literature often have to wear many hats, and this interdisciplinary thesis requires me to don three different ones. My first chapter, "Optics in the OvidianNarrative," engages the disciplinary methods of Classics. Here, I examine the original Narcissus narrative, as told in Ovid's Metamorphoses, as a story governed by optics. I reveal the pool ofNarcissus to be not only reflective, but also diffractive, alternatelyfragmenting Narcissus from his image and refocusing the two. These optical properties of vvater can also be used to understand better the puzzling anticlimactic metamorphosis at the end ofNarcissus' tale. The role of distortion, through both reflecting anddiffracting, is also considered in relation to deception and autoeroticism in the story. WhileNarcissus' autoeroticism, which will later be taken by Victorian writers

12 Prettejohn 1999, I. 13 One recent work, J. W. Waterhouse: The Modern Pre-Raphaelite (2008), also edited by Prettejohn, is an example of some of the current theoretical work that is being done on Waterhouse.

8 as the most important element of his story, does defy certain amatory conventions that

Ovid has already set in the Me tamorphoses, I will demonstrate that autoeroticism also has

precedent in other stories from the poem, as does the sadomasochistic nature of

Narcissus'self-love.

In my second chapter, "Narcissus and Ovidian Reception in Western Literature," I

provide a brief and abridged summary of the reception ofNarcissus from the Middle

Ages to the Romantic period in England. This chapter investigates selected examples of

Narcissus' reception that demonstrate the different ways that the character was utilized in

literature before the Victorian period, and how his character was transformed in specific

ways by these works. The works under examination are Guillaume de Lorris's thirteenth­

century Roman de la Rose, Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis (1592-93), Milton's Paradise

Lost (1667), and Keats's "I stood tiptoe upon a little hill" (1817). This chapter provides

contextfor the unique reception ofNarcissus that takes place in late Victorian England.

My third chapter, "Narcissus Through the Victorian Lens,'' continues with the

theme of autoeroticism from the first chapter, but it propels us forward in time about

1900 years, out of the realm of classical literature and into the literature and

psychoanalysis of late Victorian England. This chapter begins at the end, with Freud's

"On Narcissism: AnIntroduction" (1914), which falls after the period largely investigated

in the chapter, and uses this text as a lens through which to view earlier works that deal

with the character ofNarcissus. "On Narcissism" is very much a product of Victorian

views on the self, morality, and sexual desire. These views were both cultivated and

challenged in the public eye in the works of Robert Louis Stevenson andOscar Wilde. In

the Strange Case of Dr. Je kylland Mr . Hy de (1886) and The Picture of Dorian Gray

9 (1891), these two authors explore issues of self-love, the fragmentation of the soul and mind, and homosexual desire that Freud would later address in "OnNarcissism," which reveals itself to be a kind of mirror of the Victorian self.

I don my art historian hat in the last chapter, "The Reflective Surface of

Waterhouse's Echoand Narcissus," which deals with a work by the Aesthetic painter from 1903. This painting is one of the only visual depictions of Narcissus fromthe late

Victorian period, when he was as unpopular in art as he was popular in literature and psychoanalysis. This chapter engages with several questions posed by the painting and its place within art history, such as why Waterhouse would choose to portray this subject

and why he might choose to paint it in this manner. In investigating these issues, I will · show that the canvas itself possesses many of the qualities of a reflecting pool, and that

Waterhouse takes up the visually limiting and extending qualities of theNarcissus narrative and uses them to convey a decidedly Aesthetic thesis on the importance of the surface. In its visuality, tangibility, and ultimate opacity, Waterhouse's painting brings us full circle, back to the watery paradox of surface and depth that destroyedNarcissus and continues to haunt us when we look in the mirror.

In these chapters, I hope to demonstrate the ways in which the character of

Narcissus was transformed in the Victorian period from the Ovidian self-lover to the

"narcissistic"Narcissus we knowtoday. The Victorians (and their direct inheritors, like

Freud) selected certain elements of the Ovidian myth and amplified them, using the receptive lens of their unique cultural moment to magnify these many fragments. The

Victorian period directed the development of English and American culture in many ways; the case ofNarcissus and the narcissist is just one product of the Victorian

10 imagination that has changed how we view literature, art, and ourselves. By delving

deeper beneath the surface of the Victorian lens to see exactly what changes were enacted, we may gain insight into our own society; we may see how our cultural

preoccupations are reflections and diffractions of the art and literature of our

predecessors, going all the way back to Ovid.

11 I. Optics inthe Ovidian Narrative

The central source of conflict in Ovid's account of Narcissus is the reflecting pool, a mirror that allows him to see himself and believe that it is someone else. This act of reflection aids in Narcissus' ultimate knowledge of himself, knowledge that prompts his demise. In using a reflecting pool as the fulcrum of this story, Ovid exploits his readers' own familiarity with mirrors and their scientific and metaphorical potential. In The Mo ral

Mirror of Roman Art, Rabun Taylor discusses the pervasiveness of mirrors in the Roman world. Every day, many Romans would encounter their own reflections casually in handheld mirrors; but Taylor points out that there is "no such thing as a casual reflection"

14 in Roman art. Depictions of reflections in Roman art and narrative are imbued with metaphorical and moral significance, and the story ofNarcissus is no exception.

Narcissus gazes into the pool and sees both a physical replica of himself and another person who is separated throughthe lens of the mirror, a projection of the body he wishes to see. In his account of the Narcissus narrative, Ovid utilizes not only the reflective properties of the mirroring pool but also the diffractive properties of the watery transparent lens. We may reexamine Ovid's narrative as a story governed by optics, a narrative that makes the reader question both reality and the nature of attraction.

TheNarcissus narrative is a fragmented story, clearly separated into two parts, the

Echo episode and the reflection episode, woven together with an ekphrastic interlude about the reflecting pool. Ovid's lengthy description of Narcissus' pool, to which we will return later, is indicative of the poet's larger fascination with water throughout the poem.

In Ovid's accolUlt of the world's creation, water plays an important role: circumjluus

14 Taylor 2008, I.

12 umor I ... solidumque coercuit orbem ("the flowing water surrounds the solid earth," Me t.

1.30-1) ; and the creating god punctuates the land with seas and springs and rivers,

creating order out of the chaos by differentiating land from water. Water is the place on

earth where humans cannot live, but it is where they congregate. Throughout the

Me tamorphoses, water is an important meeting place: Ariadne is met and abandoned on

the shore, Pyramus and Thisbe arrange to meet by a cool spring, Medea and Jason are

15 joined in marriage when they sail home together. Ovid's frequent use of water as a

meeting place is also indicative of water's prominent place in Roman society: public and

private baths existed in Rome since at least the third centuryBCE, and during the time of

16 Ovid the vast Thermae of Agrippa became open to the public. The famous aqueducts

that brought water into Rome also allowed fountains to be constructed throughout the

city. Bath the fountains and baths provided convenient meeting points, the urban

equivalent of natural cool springs. In literature as well as inreality, water has the positive

potential to unite people both platonically and sexually. Roman writers believe that the

baths can cause sexual arousal, and Ovid himself writes that the Augustanbaths are a

17 perfect place for lovers to meet unchaperoned. But these meetings in or near water can

have dramatic and transformative consequences for the participants, and sometimes for

the water itself. Ovid is interested in the powerful transformative capabilities of water in

mythology, especially in the presence of sexual transgression.

The story of Diana and Actaeon, which is told earlier in Book 3, prefigures that of

Narcissus by discussing the dangers of seeing in water. Actaeon stumbles upon the

15 For the story of Ariadne, see Met. 8.169-82. For water in Pyramus andThi sbe, see Met. 4.90-2. For Medea and Jason's flight from Colchis, see Me t. 7.155-8. 16 Fagan 1999, 108. 1 7 Ibid., 34.

13 virginal Diana's bathing pool at the end of his day's hunting. Before the two meet, Ovid

describes the pool itself(Met. 3.161-4):

fo ns sonat a dextra tenui perlucidus unda, margine gramineo patulos succinctus hiatus: hie dea silvarum venatu.fossa sole bat virgineos artus liquido perfo ndere rore.

To the right, a transparent pool resounds with its slender wave, with a grassy border surrounding the wide opening: here, the goddess of the woods, after she grew weary from hunting, was accustomed to bathe her virgin limbs in the clear water.

Diana's pool is not described as a reflectivesurface; rather, it is notable for its perlucidus

("transparent") nature. Later in the ekphrasis, perfo ndere ("to bathe") echoes perlucidus

in both placement and the shared prefixper- ("through"), emphasizing the importance of

seeing through this body of water. The purity of the water corresponds with the virginity

of Diana, which is fiercely protected, but this clarity also permits Actaeon to see Diana's

nude body, posing a threat to that virginity. When she sees Actaeon, Diana splashes him

with ultricibus undis ("the vengeful waters," Me t. 3.190), and the water itself becomes a

vehicle for metamorphosis. Diana transforms Actaeon into a stag, andhe is then hunted

and killed by his own hounds. The clear water is initially permissive of this sexual

encounter, but Diana is able to harness its dangerous power; instead of threatening

Diana's chastity, the water becomes a threat to Actaeon's life.

Water appears in another dangerous and transformative context in Book 4 in the

story of Salrnacis and Hermaphroditus. Here, the nymph Salmacis assumes the role of

aggressor against the chaste male, subverting the gender roles traditionally seen in

Ovidian rape narratives. The stories of amorous pursuit that appear in Book 1 set the tone

for the whole Me tamorphoses: male gods are driven to lust after resisting virgins, as in

14 18 the cases of Apollo and Daphne, Jupiter and lo, and Jupiter and Callisto. As we will see, however, Ovid seems to introduce many of these social norms in order to subvert them completely in later sections. In Book 4, Ovid turns his own amatory paradigm on its head by positioning a virginal divine male as the sexual victim. Hermaphroditus, the son of

Venus and Mercury, comes upon the pool of Salmacis on his first journey away from his home. Salmacis is an unusual nymph; rather than indulging in hunting and worshiping

Diana (like Daphne and Callisto, nymphs that appear in Books 1 and 2), Salmacis spends all day grooming herself by the pool, and she seems to lack the nymphal commitment to chastity. When she sees Hermaphroditus by her pool, she attempts to pursue him and, ignorant of love, he rebuffs her. Undeterred, Salmacis hides and watches Hermaphroditus bathe, and when he has let down his guard, she attempts to rape him. She calls on the gods to unite them forever, and they become a fo rma duplex ("double form,"Me t. 4.378), one body possessing male and female traits.

When Hermaphroditus first encounters Salmacis' pool, the site of his future metamorphosis, its innate qualities fascinate him (Met. 4.297-300):

videt hie stagnum lueentis ad imum usque solum lymphae. non illic canna palustris nee steriles ulvae nee acuta cuspide iunci; perspicuus liquor est

Here, he sees a pool of water, clear all the way to its very depths. In that place there are no marshy reeds nor barren sedges nor sharply pointed rushes; it is transparent liquid.

The transparency of water is emphasized again, although it echoes the perlucenti

("transparent," Me t. 4.313) clothing that provocative Salmacis wears, rather than her chastity. As in the story of Diana and Actaeon, the water performs the double function of

18 For the story of Apollo and Daphne, see Me t. 1.472-567. For Jupiter's rape oflo, see Met. 1.588-600. For Jupiter's rape of Callisto, see Met. 2.409-440.

15 facilitating visual transgression and enacting metamorphosis. The perspicuus liquor

("transparent liquid") enables Salmacis to see the naked form of Hermaphroditus as she spies on him from afar. The water also becomes the vehicle for their merging into one dual-sexed person, and Hermaphroditus will condemn the pool to perform similar metamorphoses in the future, transformingit into an eternal emasculator of men. After

Hermaphroditus sees what liquidas ... undas ... fecisse ("the watery waves have done,"

Me t. 4.380), he prays to his divine parents to turn any man into a semivir ("half-man,"

Me t. 4.386) who enters the pool of Salmacis.

In both of these stories, water sets the scene for a dangerous sexual encounter and some kind of intersexual transgression.The pools of Diana and Salmacis are also notable for their unusual optical properties: they are abnormally transparent and seem to lack any refractionthat might distort theimage of the body seen intheir waters. In the story of

Narcissus, we find another body of water that has dangerous optical qualities, but, crucially, transparency is not named as one of them. As in the stories of Diana and

Actaeon and Salmacis and Hermaphroditus, the moment of the metamorphosis is prefaced by an ekphrasis describing the setting (Met. 3.407-12):

fons erat inlimis, nitidis argenteus undis, quem neque pastores neque pastae monte capellae contigerant aliudve pecus, quem nulla volucris nee fera turbarat nee lapsus ab arbore ramus; gram en erat circa, quod proximus umor ale bat, silvaque sole locum passura tepescere nullo.

There was an unmuddy pool, silvery with shining wave, which neither shepherds nor feeding goats nor any other cattle of the mountains had ever touched, which neither a bird nor a wild animal nor a branch fallen from a tree had ever disturbed; there was grass around, which the closest wave nourished, and the woods would not allow that place to be made warm with the sun.

16 AfterNarcissus escapes a pursuing youth, he stumbles upon a pool which is described as inlimis, a term that seems to have been coined by Ovid to use in this specific situation, literally meaning "unmuddy." This aligns it with thefons ... perlucidus of Diana, and both pools are also surroundedby a rich grassy border. Like the pool of Salmacis, which is described later in the poem, the pool of Narcissus is notable for the unadulterated, virginal quality of its waters. However, the "unmuddiness" of this pool does not make it clear; instead, it is nitidis argenteus undis ("silvery with shining wave"), like a mirror.

This establishment of Narcissus' pool as a mirroring lens initiates a narrative that is governedby a complex interplay of differentoptical properties.

The most obvious property thatNarcissus' pool possesses is that of reflection, the cause of the central conflict inNarcissus' story. The reflection ofNarcissus is both true and deceptive. From the outset, the Ovidian narrator establishes the reflection as an intangible image, in tension withNarcissus' belief that his reflection is a real body: sp em sine corpore amat, corpus putat esse, quod unda est("he loves a hope without a substance; he believes it to be a body, what is only wave," Met. 3.417). This tension begins what William Anderson terms "the reflection paradox" in theNarcissus story, a repetition of Narcissus as both subject and object, as well as a repetition of the conflict between tangibility and intangibility .19 In one especially masterful passage, Ovid uses three differentsyntactical structures to verbalize the experience of reflection: se cupit inprudens et, qui probat, ip se probatur, I dumque petit, petiturpariterque accendit et ardet ("unwisely he desires himself; he who admires is himself admired; and while he seeks, he is sought; and equally he inflames and burns," Met. 3.425-6). Ovid uses a reflexive pronoun, the passive and active forms of a verb, and transitive and intransitive

19 Anderson 1997,381.

17 20 verbs that share the same meaning. Through this mirroring of verbs, Ovid reinforces the perfect imitation that Narcissus' image performs of Narcissus, reflecting the same actions back to the originator.

The reader knows, however, that the reflection is not perfect in every way; it can only reflect image, not substance, a point confirmed by the narrator's description mendacem .. .formam ("lying form," Me t. 3.439). The reader has already come across a deceptive reflection earlier in the story, when Narcissus is pursued by Echo. Echo's verbal reflection of Narcissus is both faithful and dishonest (Met. 3.385-7):

perstat et alternae deceptus imagine vocis 'hue coeamus' ail, nullique libentius umquam responsura so no 'coeamus' rettulit Echo

He stands still and, deceived by theimage of another voice, he says, "Here let us meet," and, never responding to a sound more willingly, Echo answers, "Let us meet!" (or, "Let us have sex!")

Echo brings a perfect reflection of Narcissus' words back to him, but this is only imago vocis ("an image of a voice"), and her words take on a different, deceptive meaning when repeated back to Narcissus. Echo herself is unable to impose her will and desire directly onto her words: she is doomed to reproduce only the sounds that she hears and cannot form any original words to convey her thoughts. Nevertheless, although Echo is only repeating the final syllables of Narcissus' words, the two manageto have a coherent conversation in which Echo's own true desire is implied. The double meanings in this

"conversation" are partly due to Ovid's artistry and the possibility for flexible word order in Latin. These double meanings may also be deliberately imparted by Echo, who seems to have control over the duration of her oral repetition, because she only says words that form a discrete thought. These factors allow Narcissus' refusal of Echo's love to be

20 Ibid., 38 I.

18 transformed into a plaintive cry of Echo's undying devotion: 'ante ... emoriar, quam sit

tibi copia nostri' ("'I will die before what is mine is yours,'" Met. 3.391) in Echo's voice

becomes 'sit tibi copia nostri' ("'What is mine is yours,'" Me t. 3.392).

Despite her seemingly selective repetition ofNarcissus' words, Echo's desire can

only be manifested in the narration and her actions, rather than through any independent

verbal expression of her volition. The Ovidian narrator expresses Echo's feelings to the

audience, almost on her behalf, stating that Echo incaluit ("burned,"Me t. 3.371) when

she sawNarcissus. Echo attempts to fulfill her desire by meetingNarcissus and

embracing him.Echo's body is the only partof her being that is still able to have free

will. Withher oral independence taken away, Echo's corporeality is emphasized as her

only vehicle of desire and her only means of truly distortingNarcissus' words. Rather

than depending on sound, this corporeality occupies the senses of touch and sight.

Narcissus realizes that the aural reflection of his words has been distorted when he sees

Echo's body and feels her arms around his neck. Sight, more easily distorted than sound,

is how Echo's will and deception are ultimately indicated. Echo's repetition ofNarcissus'

final words transforms their meaning, an aural metamorphosis that is only made tangible

in conjunction with feeling andsight. Theagent of this metamorphosis is a distorting

reflective lens (Echo) that imposes its own view. As Taylor astutely notes, the human act

of "reflection" or "speculation" implies a projection of an idea upon an object of

thought?1 We see this kind of active speculation in Echo's vocal reflection and physical

actions, which represent this "projection," thereby makingNarcissus' words subject to

Echo's metamorphosis of meaning.

21 Taylor 2008, 7.

19 Narcissus' reflection is also distorted, a fact that makes the reader question

Narcissus' subjectivity as a viewer. Water, as a nonhuman agent of reflection, is passive,

unlike Echo, but the reflection that it produces is nevertheless a projection of an idea.

Taylor notes that in water, perfect perpendicular reflections are impossible, because

water's non-reflective properties interfere with the reflection.22 One is only able to see a

wavering and distorted reflection under these conditions. While this is a detail from the

Narcissus narrative that may be lost in our modem era, contemporary Roman readers

would probably be more familiar with water's natural optical properties, given the

centrality of baths in their world. If the reader knows that the kind of reflection that

Narcissus sees in the pool is impossible, the reader also knows thatNarcissus' confusion

of his image with an actual person is unbelievable. It seems that not evenNarcissus' own

senses can be trusted.Narcissus is visae conreptus imagine formae ("seized by the image

of a seen body," Me t. 3.416), but no other person is present to attest to this body's image

in the water. And when Ovid offers commentary on Narcissus' situation, he creates

tension over whether the image exists at all. He speaks, unheard, to Narcissus: quod petis,

est nusquam ("what you seek, it is nowhere," Met. 3.433). But although Ovid insists that

the image is nusquam, the reader has also seen Ovid describe it as imago (Met. 3.416)

and simulacrum (Met. 3.432), deliberately casting doubt on whetherNarcissus has

actually seen a reflected image, or if it is nothing. If it is nothing, or perhaps just a partial

and distorted reflection, thenNarcissus' infatuation has been caused by his own

projection of self-love onto his image, an autoeroticism that is omnipresent but only

displayed when a reflective surface is provided.

22 Ibid., 4.

20 Narcissus' returnto loving his image, even after he realizes that it is only a reflection of himself, proves that this infatuation has deeper roots than sight, and that

Narcissus is indeed "speculating" and projecting onto his image, in addition to seeing it.

With the realization 'iste ego sum' ('"I am he,'" Me t. 3.463), to which we will return in more depth, Narcissus realizes and accepts the intangibility of the image, by virtue of it being a part of himself. This realization, however, does not end Narcissus' love for his image; rather, it increases the tragedy of the situation by giving Narcissus knowledge but no way to escape. Narcissus finally possesses the narrator's knowledge of the reflection paradox and voices his dilemma using a similar structure: 'roger, anne rogem?'("Should

I be sought, or should I seek?" Me t. 3.465). Narcissus now understands his position as both object and subject, but in this realization he stilltreats his image as a separate person. Narcissus has accepted the image's intangibility, but it is as though the image has inunediatelyregained tangibility through its defmition as the other player who may seek or be sought by Narcissus. And rather than truly accepting the image as part of himself, a facet of his own body that is privy to his thoughts, Narcissus returns to addressing the image aloud in the second person (Met. 3.477). Ovid's brief explanation for this action is thatNarcissus is male sanus ("with ill mind," Me t. 3.474), projecting an unhealthy idea onto his intangible image, willing it into being. Narcissus' return to addressing his image is also directly preceded by his tears falling in the water, a distortion of his reflection that causes him to ask where his image has gone. This combination of distorted reflectivity and willful projection produces an image thatNarcissus can see as separate from himself.

Ovid heightens the distortion of Narcissus' pool in describing its other, secondary optical properties. Although the pool does act as a reflective mirror, it is also a

21 transparent lens just like the pools of Diana and Salmacis, and so it has the ability to diffract. This diffraction fragments Narcissus fr om his image, leading himto believe that they are not one and the same, while it also creates tension for the reader between reality and imitation. Ovid uses a variety of words to refer to Narcissus' reflection: imago, sp es

(Met. 3 .417), simulacrum, emphasizing the difference between the man and the image, creating a disparity in material. There is also clearly a difference in location between the two "lovers": Narcissus must lie prone on the ground in order to be closer to his reflection, and Ovid uses verbs that emphasize the physical distance that separates

Narcissus from his intangible lover: water separat (Met. 3.448) and obsta! (Met. 3.453)

Narcissus from his image; the two are prohibemur (Met. 3.450). And most notably, there is a distance between Narcissus and his reflection in temporality. When Narcissus addresses his reflection about its puzzling mirroring of himself, he uses the same verbs to describe both of their actions, but his own actions are stated in the perfect tense while his image's actions take place in the present (Met. 3.458-60):

'cumque ego porrexi tibi bracchia, porrigis ultro; cum risi, adrides; lacrimas quoque saepe notavi me lacrimante tuas ... '

"And when I have extended my arms to you, you extend on the other side; when I have smiled, you smile back; also I have often known your tears when I cry ..."

Narcissus creates a fictive temporal distance between himself and his image, with his image acting more as an echo than as a reflection, repeating his completed action after the fact. This temporal separation is reminiscent of Echo's verbal reflection ofNarc issus, which presents a distorted image to the originator. The difference in temporality heightens the fragmentation of Narcissus from his image, making the reader question

22 whether the relationship between man and reflection is simultaneous, causal, or

completely dissociated. Narc issus and his image, two parts of the same whole, are

scattered as diffracted pieces on both sides of the watery lens.

Narcissus and his reflection also experience a moment of conflation through the

fo cusing power of the lens of the pool. After the series oftemporally separating phrases,

Narcissus' encounter with his image climaxes at the fa mous realization 'iste ego sum' ("'I

am he"'), the fateful knowledge of himself prophesied by Tiresias. Here, two personal

pronouns are juxtaposed as predicate and subject - iste and ego, he and I - and they are

conflated by the verb sum, a verb that brings Narcissus into the present. The vowel

elision between iste and ego emphasizes this conflation, practically turning Narcissus and

his image into one new being, an ist'ego. He and his image now inhabit the same

temporal space. Given the fact that the last five lines of the poem have fo cused on the

issue of fictive temporal separation, it seems likely that Narcissus makes this realization

of oneness fo llowing a realization of actual temporal simultaneity. Moreover, Narcissus

has chosen to express this bodily and temporal conflation in the first person, using the

word sum instead of est to bring the two entities together. By saying iste ego sum instead

of iste ego est (which would be grammatically correct, though perhaps metrically problematic), Narcissus situates himself and the reader in his first person psychological perspective. The statement "I am he" also displaces Narcissus' identity onto his reflection, which now independently embodies both itself and its originator. While NarC issus does

realize that his image is only a reflection of himself, the terms in which he phrases this

realization continue to endow the image with corporeality and the ability to embody identities.

23 If separation through a diffracting lens kept the lovers apart before this, they are now doomed by being fo cused through the lens into one being; rather than a reflection paradox, we have a diffraction paradox. Narcissus verbalizes this very dilemma in nunc duo concordes anima moriemur in una ("now we two will die united in one spirit," Me t.

3.473). Ovid emphasizes the paradoxical nature ofNarcissus' situation by juxtaposing duo and una. The very existence of love (a transitive action that connects a subject to an object) between Narcissus and his reflection makes them separate, but they are bound through their nature as a man and his image, an ironic reversal of the normal plight of doomed lovers. But immediately after his realization of their true oneness, Narcissus, male sanus (Met. 3.474), is fo rced to return to a fragmentedview of himself and his reflection as two separate entities, leading to his ultimate demise by the side of the pool and his eternal fragmentation in the underworld.

Optics and Autoeroticism

The source ofNarcissus' self-love is that he believes that his image is a sign for another body and, ultimately, a sign for himself. Although his projection of an ideal onto his imperfect image may signal some preexisting autoeroticism, his error of mistaking the

23 image for a sign causes him to realize and act on this autoeroticism. According to

Umberto Eco, mirrors fa il the "semiotic requirements" that would make them signs: they do not stand for something that is not there, and therefore they carmot lie about the object

23 I use the word "error" for lack of a better term, because I would like to avoid passing any judgment on Narcissus' actions. The judgment of Narcissus, deeming his actions a "mistake" that signal a "condition" are, as we will see, a result of Victorian psychoanalysis of the character. However, it is clear that Ovid at least acknowledges some incorrectness in Narcissus' thoughts and action in his own use of the term error (Met. 3.431) to describe the misleading effects of the image, and my use of the word "error" merely reflects this Ovid ian knowledge about the distance between reality and unreality.

24 24 that they represent. Mirrors, then, do not "sign" for anything, in this strict semiotic

sense. Narcissus' belief that his image signs for another body represents a

misunderstanding of the nature of mirrors, and this belief causes him to fa ll in love with

his image, which is nusquam and does not sign for anything. Reading his image as a sign

allows him to turn it into an object that receives the transitive action oflove. The

fo cusing diffraction of himself and his image represents an ultimate knowledge of what

mirrors do, but despite this knowledge, he continues to love his image. He still mistakes that image for a sign, something that it is possible to love, even if it signs for himself. Eco

does allow for some semiotic potential in his examination of distorting mirrors, the kind that are seen in funhouses. Because of our fa miliarity with mirrors, we see these

distorting mirrors as possessing some kind of truth, and we can interpret their distortion

as a sign.25 The watery lens, with its secondary properties of diffraction, is a distorting

mirror, allowing for Narcissus' proj ection of his own ideal and his interpretation of the

image as if it were a sign. This phenomenon of seeing and signing causes Narcissus to

enact and realize his own autoeroticism, with an image standing for the obj ect of his

affection.

If we see Narcissus' love of his reflection as a kind of autoeroticism, this self-

fo cusing eroticism is not only positive, but also sadomasochistic. Narcissus is bothself -

loving and self-victimizing. As pursuer and pursued, he fulfills bothhalves of the

aggression paradigm used in the Me tamorphoses, exemplifiedby the story of Apollo and

Daphne in Book 1. This story is part of what Brooks Otis terms "the Divine Comedy" of

24 Eco 1984, 214-5. 25 Ibid., 217-9.

25 26 theMe tamorphoses, recounting tales of the gods and their various loves. The story of

Apollo and Daphne also falls directly after the cosmological episodes in Book 1 that recount the creation of the world and its beings, implying that it takes place when the world is still in its formative stages. Therefore, this story is positioned as a programmatic episode, the first example of passionate love, and it has a tacit influence over all subsequent similar episodes in the Me tamorphoses. Apollo desires Daphne, who is a self- avowed virgin and fleesfrom his advances. Daphne is transformed into a laurel tree in order to escape being sexually possessed by Apollo, and thereafter the laurel becomes a symbol of Apollo, and he crowns his head with its branches. Ovid uses much of the same language in his Narcissus story in Book 3 that he has already used in the story of Daphne and Apollo, consciously linking these two stories of unrequited love. Apollo and

Narcissus, as sexual aggressors, are described in very similar terms. Apollo sterilem sp erando nutrit amorem ("nourishes a barren love with hoping," Me t. 1.496) and

Narcissus sp em sine corpore amat. Both of them substitute hope for a love that does not exist or is in some way incomplete. Both stories also use fire imagery to describe the

27 burning passion of love, a common trope in Roman literature. Indeed, this kind of language can be fo und not only to describe Apollo, but also Salmacis and Tereus, two

28 other notable sexual aggressors in the Me tamorphoses.

Accordingly, Narcissus' reflection is associated with the victims in these stories.

Daphne eludes Apollo's touch,fogit ocior aura I ilia levi ("she flees swifter thanthe lightest air," Me t. 1.502-3). Narcissus' reflection is alsofogacia ("fleeing," Me t. 3.432) and intangible, and despite Narcissus' attempts to reach into the water and touch it, the

26 Otis 1997, 83. 27 For more on fire imagery in Ovid and Vergil, see Anderson 1997, 192. 28 Cf. Met. 1.492, 1.495, 3.426, 3.430, 4.347, 6.455.

26 reflection is swift in its escape. Apollo only succeeds in touching Daphne after she has

been transformed into the laurel tree; Narcissus is never actually able to touch his

reflection, even in the afterlife. Ovid self-consciously references other examples of the

aggression paradigm in his account of Narcissus' own self-pursuit, thereby attaching a

victim identity to Narcissus' reflection. The diffraction ofNarcissus fromhis image

allows it to sign for something, and the meaning that Ovid ascribes is "victim,"

completing the other half ofNarcissus' desire. And through the fo cusing diffraction of the

pool, the image becomes a sign for Narcissus, conflating them into one person, and

Narcissus becomes both the violator and the violated, in addition to being both the lover

and theloved.

Ovid offers precedent not only for the violent aggression in the story of Narcissus,

but also for the autoerotic elements of the story. Narcissus' autoeroticism is a result of

reflection and distortion, allowing him to embody both sides of the aggression paradigm.

But Daphne's laurel tree can also be seen as autoerotic, reflecting Apollo, not only as an

object of his external love but also as a projection of his own self-love. The story of

Apollo's pursuit of Daphne is told as an etiology, the explanation for why Apollo's head

is crowned with laurel branches and the evergreen laurel tree is associated with victors

and rulers. The virginal Daphne flees from the advances of Apollo, and her prayers fo r

escape are answered by her father, who turns her into the laurel tree. Ovid describes this

transformation in vivid detail, with tree attributes gradually overtaking Daphne's beautiful

fe atures (Met. 1.548-52). Metamorphosis is a vehicle for salvation, immobilizing the victim but preventing her sexual victimization. Daphne is turned into a plant, passive but

unable to be sexually possessed by her admirer. Having lost Daphne in her sexually-

27 available fo rm, however, Apollo turns Daphne into a self-honoring, auto erotic object for his own purposes (Met. 1.555-8):

conplexusque suis ramos, ut membra, lacertis oscula dat ligno: refogit tamen oscula lignum. cui deus 'at quoniam coniunx mea non pates esse, arbor eris certe ' dixit 'mea'

He embraced the branches with his arms, as if theywere limbs, and he gives kisses to the bark: however, the bark withdraws fr om his kisses. The god said to her, "Since you cannot be my wife, you will surely be my tree."

Even in her metamorphosed form, Daphne resists physical contact in the same manner as her fleeing body did at the beginning of the passage, with Ovid parallelingfugit (Met.

1.502) with refugit here. But despite Daphne's flight, she is still pursued and ultimately possessed against her will. Apollo may not be able to kiss Daphne, but he can appropriate her branches, dismembering her arboreal body in a kind of rape. He also takes firm possession of her with the word mea, which is repeated twice across two lines in the same metrical position to enforce this act of absorption and domination. Apollo's possession of the tree does not only signal his obj ectification of Daphne, but also his identification with her laurel branches. He likens the laurel tree to himself, stating utque meum intonsis caput est iuvenale cap illis, I tu quoque perpetuos semper gere frondis honores ("'as my head is always young with its unshorn locks, you will also always bear the undying honors of your leaves,"' Me t. 1.564-5). Apollo describes the aggressor and victim in a parallel fashion in two separate lines, making himself the elevating metaphor (and, indeed, an explicit simile) for Daphne's eternal youth. Apollo honors Daphne by endowing her tree with some of his own traits, a self-serving and autoerotic act. Daphne's leaves, used to adorn his head, also become a metaphorical extension of his hair, always

28 green and youthful . By honoring Daphne, Apollo actually honors himself and creates

another way to be honored by men.

The story of Salmacis and Hermaphroditus in Book 4 also offers an example of

autoeroticism in the Metamorphoses. Here, Salmacis plays the role of aggressor when she

and Hermaphroditus meet at her pool, marking her as unusual among her race of

normally chaste and demure nymphs. She is even compared to a man as Ovid describes

her lust for Hermaphroditus; notably, the comparison drawn is between her and Phoebus

Apollo, who has already appeared in the story of Daphne (Met. 4.346-9):

tum vera placuit, nudaeque cupidine fo rmae Salmacis exarsit; flagrant quoque lumina nymphae, non aliter quam cum pura nitidissimus or be opposita sp eculi re.feritur imagine Phoebus

Then she was truly pleased, and Salrnacis burned with desire for his naked form; the nymph's eyes also flamed, not unlike when shining Phoebus is struck by his image in a mirrorfa cing his pure orb.

The fa miliar fire imagery appears here, again ascribed to the aggressor, with Salmacis' burning eyes being compared to a reflectionof the sun. Unusually, Salmacis' love for another person is compared to Apollo's own autoerotic love for himself. This is a confirmation of the autoerotic elements hinted at in the story of Apollo and Daphne, but it is also an interesting reversal of Narcissus' narrative, which appears in the previous book.

In Book 3, Ovid implicitly compares Narcissus' love for his image to the love between two people, citing the tragic irony of this votum in amante novum ("new wish for love,"

Met. 3.468): to be separate rather than together. Inreversing the metaphor from

Narcissus' story and referencing Apollo's love for himself, Salmacis' narrative

emphasizes the autoeroticism in the Me tamorphoses, validating self-love as a tragic and well-known plight.

29 Metamorphosis as Stasis

In contrast to Daphne's majestic laurel tree and Hermaphroditus' grotesque semivir, Narcissus's ultimate metamorphosis is an unusual anticlimax in the

Me tamorphoses; this great ideal of youthful beauty is replaced by a common daffodil.

The Naiads and Dryads prepare for the funeral of Narcissus, but return to the pool to find that his body has disappeared (Met. 3.508-1 0):

iamque rogum quassasque fa ces fe retrumquepara bant: nusquam corpus erat, croceum pro corpore jlorem inveniunt fo liis medium cingentibus alb is.

Then they were preparing the funeral pile and the quivering torches and the litter: but there was no body; they come upon a flower in the place of the body with white petals encircling a yellow center.

It is important to note that there is no explicit metamorphosis described in this passage. In contrast to Ovid's vivid description of Daphne's gradual transformation into a tree, there

29 is no description of Narcissus' actual metamorphosis. Rather, it is described as an act of replacement, where pro corpore jlorem ("a flower fo r a body," emphasis mine) is fo und by the women, a substitution of one form for another.30 Despite the lack of any description that might indicate a transformation, the reader is pushed to intuit the presence of the flower as an indication of metamorphosis because of the broader context of the poem. But this deliberate account of substitution rather than metamorphosis highlights many important fe atures about Narcissus and his relationship to the flower.

29 Vivid descriptions of gradual metamorphoses can also be seen in Arachne's violent transformation into a spider (Met. 6.139-45) and Baucis and Philemon's slow and tender transformations into trees (Met. 8.712- 20). 30 In an example ofcontemporary Ovidian reception, Mary Zimmerman's play Metamorphoses nods to this phenomenon of a substitution-metamorphosis in its humorous pantom ime depiction ofNarcissus. In the play, the frozen dead body ofNarcissus is carried offstage by one of the actors, while another actor quickly places a potted daffodil in the spot where his body lay.

30 Firstly, it emphasizes that Narcissus is alone in his death and transformation. His demise

is the epitome of solipsism, where his body and its manifestations are the only things that

exist, and once his consciousness of thisfact dies, his body itself disappears. The flower

as a replacement for Narcissus also serves as a reversal of Narcissus' human

characteristics and as an exaggerated form of his existential situation. The flower that

Ovid describes is known to us as the narcissus, or daffodil. Narcissus was a youth

remarkable solely for his physical beauty, which made him either desired or hated by all.

His transformation into a daffodil undermines his fo rmer beauty even more than a

transformation into an ugly flower might; while a daffodil is perfectly unobjectionable, it

is neither highly desired nor strongly rej ected. This neutralization of erotic reactions to

Narcissus also ironically reinforces the psychological state that he has inhabited since

seeing his image. He is completely alone, introverted and unresponsive to any attention that he receives.

The substitution of a flower for Narcissus' body is also disappointing to all parties

involved. The women prepare for the funeral by gathering three essential items, only to

find that they are missing the most important one: a body. Without a body, there is no

way to honor Narcissus' death properly, a fact that surely upsets the women who would

like to lament him. In the final lines of Narcissus' story, his life is itself metamorphosed

into a common etiological myth, the cause of a phenomenon in our everyday world.

Furthermore, the disappearance of Narcissus' body after his death undermines his entire story, wh ich is predicated not only on this body's physical beauty but also on its very tangibility. Without substance, Narcissus' self has nothing to distinguish it from its image: he also becomes a sp em sine corpore. While this lack of substance could be seen

31 as a fitting way to uniteNarcissus with his image,Ovid assures us that this is not the final

fate ofNarcissus. He and his image are eternally separated, even in the underworld.

Narcissus' anticlimactic metamorphosis into a not-particularly-beautiful flower

forces the reader to questionOvid's intentions in writing the story. A final metamorphosis

into a higher state of being would press the reader to sympathize withNarcissus, as

Daphne's metamorphosis into the honorific laurel tree does. But instead, Narcissus' whole

story is transformed into an explanation for the origin of the daffodil, a metamorphosis of

narrative that hints at a great deal of irony and skepticism inOvid's tone.In fa ct, this

ultimate metamorphosis does little more than preserve and ironize the status quo.

Narcissus dies believing that he and his image are separate, diffracted into two pieces that

may love each other. The physical reality is that they are one and the same, neither one

signing for the other. Narcissus' fate is dual-sided: physically he and his image are

brought together as one inanimate object, and their souls are fo rever separated in the

underworld. Physically separate bodies become one, and united souls are separated;

Narcissus' metamorphosis preserves the same conflicting diffraction that existed when he

had a human fo rm. Metamorphosis is not change, but stasis.

But if we examine other examples of aggressor/victim metamorphosis in the

Me tamorphoses, we see that this stasis is not unique toNarcissus. Daphne's

metamorphosis into a laurel tree essentially preserves her situation: before her

metamorphosis, it becomes clear that she cannot outrun Apollo, but she can preserve her

virginity. She remains sexually unavailable to Apollo as a laurel tree, but she is

physically overtaken. The same can be said of the metamorphoses ofTereus and

Philomela: they are both turned into birds that are avian equivalents of their human

32 forms. When Tereus cuts out her tongue, Philomela is stripped of her ability to make

sound, but she retains the use of her hands, allowing her to sew a tapestry of her story and

murder Tereus' child. In her transformation into a nightingale, Philomela's voice is

returned to her, but it is used tosing laments, the purposethat her now absent hands

fo rmerly served. Likewise, the bloodthirsty Tereus is transformed into the crested

hoopoe, which resembles a warrior and has a sharp beak that sta nds fo r Tereus' sword. In

these stories, metamorphosis only amplifies the fo rmer state of its subj ects, preserving

each in a non-human form. Narcissus' transformation into a daffodil is certainly an ironic

metamorphosis, but so are most of them. Ovid seems to view metamorphosis as

preservation rather than change, a view that is perhaps indicative of the ultimate

unchangeability of the world.

Ovid's account of Narcissus' revelatory encounter with his own image is guided

by the optical fe atures of the reflecting pool, both literal and metaphorical, whi ch inform the story's preoccupations with self-love, temporality, and transgression. Narcissus' narrative is indicative of the larger importance of perception and deception in the

Metamorphoses, as well as in the classical world in which the poem originated. Ovid uses the vehicle of water, a reflective surface and refractive lens, both to establish and to complicate conventions of!ove and self-knowledge. Narcissus becomes the violator of the traditional amatory paradigm while also being its standard-bearer. This paradox is one of many in the Me tamorphoses, but it has been one of the most enduring in Ovidian reception. My next chapter will examine some of the receptive works that appropriate and

elaborate on the character and story of Narcissus, and which eventually lead to his great

33 metamorphosis in the Victorian period.

34 II. Narcissus and OvidianReception inWestern Literature

My focus for the remainder of this thesis will be Narcissus' reception in England

inthe late Victorian period. In order to situate that reception, it will be useful to provide a

brief summary of Narcissus traditions in the intervening centuries. As the interval

between Ovid and Wilde is broad in time, location, and state of mind, it will be

impossible to give a comprehensive account of this intervening reception. Instead, this

chapter will highlight those works that deal with the character ofNarcissus in a manner

relevant tothe Victorian reception. These are works that treated Narcissus in ways that

significantly altered his character or may have affected how he was viewed in the

Victorian period. Hopefully, this brief survey will provide the reader with adequate

context fo r approaching the much later reception discussed in the subsequent chapters. 31

Narcissus is a character that appears most memorably in Ovid, but his story is

described elsewhere in antiquity in the works of Conon and Pausanias, Greek scholars who lived within one hundred years of 0vid.32 Narcissus' story is often used in later

antiquity as an exemplum of vanitas ("vanity").33 The literary tradition that Louise Vinge terms the "Narcissus theme" is then renewed in the medieval period as an important facet

of the aetas Ovidiana ("Ovidian age") that begins toward the end of the eleventh

century.34 One of the most important of these early receptive works dealing with

Narcissus is Guillaume de Lorris's Roman de la Rose, a French allegorical dream poem written in the thirteenth century. The Roman de Ia Rose was one of the most widely read

31 For a more thoroughinvestigation ofNarcissus' reception history, see Vinge 1967, Berman 1990, Bruhm 2001. 32 Vinge 1967, 19-22. 33 Ibid., 35-6. 34 Ibid., 55.

35 texts for nearly three hundred years after it was written, in both France and England. 35 In his dream, a Lover gains entry into a walled garden, where he findsa fountain;beside this fountain, Nature has inscribed a marble stone to read that this is where Narcissus perished. The Lover then tells the story of Narcissus as an aside to the reader, to explain his initial hesitation in approaching the fountain.

In his recounting of the Narcissus myth, de Lorris makes several innovations.

Instead of saying that Narcissus was cursed by a male youth, he simplifiesNarcissus' sexuality and story by stating that the rejected Echo prayed to God that Narcissus might be tormented as she hadbeen (de Lorris 50). De Lorris also includes a moral at the end of thetale: "You ladies who neglect your duties toward your sweethearts, be instructed by this exemplum, for if you let them die, God will knowhow to repay you well for your fault" (51). The story ofNarcissus is made clearly didactic here, a warningto women not to spurn their lovers. In this exemplum, the genders of the rejecter and rej ected are reversed, with the character of Narcissus mapped onto women. This is perhaps due to his feminized qualities in the original Ovidian text; while he is the exemplar of the self­ loving rej ecter, he is also an anomalous male among the many fe male characters who are rejecters in the amatory paradigm. De Lorris's frnal innovation is the addition of two crystal stones to the bottom of the fountain. These crystals, which "reveal the whole condition of the garden, without deception" (51), are metonyms for the reflective surface of the pool in Ovid's tale, the cause of Narcissus' death. Whereas Narcissus' pool produces a mendacem ...f ormam (Met. 3.439), de Lorris emphasizes the truthful nature of the reflection, although it is dangerous because of the truthsthat it reveals (de Lorris 52).

The Lover subsequently sees roses reflected in the fountain, and he falls in love with one

3l Dahlberg 1995, I.

36 of them. The mirror in the Roman de Ia Rose is a vehicle of truth anddeath, which are

inextricably linked to love.

While the modem reader may not be familiar with Guillaume de Lorris or the

Roman de la Rose, William Shakespeare continues to be taught as part of a standard

literary education, and Shakespeare is an important figure in Ovidian reception who also

usesNarcissus in his works. Many of Shakespeare's works are steeped in Ovidian

characters, stories, themes, and language.36 These references range from oblique to

explicit In Prospero's speech in Act V of The Tempest, where he renounces the magic thathe has practiced on the island, he uses a phrase spoken by Medea in Book 7 of the

Me tamorphoses, as translated in the late sixteenth century by Arthur Golding.37 In Titus

Andronicus, a tangible copy of the Me tamorphoses is even brought out onstage, to make

clear to both the characters and the audience that the plot is a direct reference to the story

of Philomela from Book 6.38 R. W. Maslen notes that the Me tamorphoses would have been taught in Shakespeare's schoolboy days to teach Latin versification and as a model

of moralizing fables, and that this practice of exegetical reading of Ovid may have

encouraged the poetic appropriation and innovation of Ovid's stories in Elizabethan

England.39 Even by his contemporaries, Shakespeare was thought to be exceptionally giftedat this, and was seen as the inheritor of Ovid's poetic abilityand style; in his 1598

'Comparative Discourse of our English Poets with the Greeke, Latine, and ltaliane Poets,'

Francis Meres states, "the sweete wittie soule of Ovid lives in mellifluous and hony-

36 For a broader investigation of the relationship between Shakespeare and Ovid, see Bate 1993, Taylor 2000. 37 See Tempest, V.i.33·57; Met. 7.187·209; Golding 7.265·77. The Te mpest is a work that would later influence Oscar Wilde, who references the barbaric character Cali ban in his Preface to Dorian Gray (see p. 50, below). 38 See Titus Andronicus, 1V.i.30-43; Met. 6.412-674. 39 Maslen 2000, 17-19.

37 tongued Shakespeare. "40 Although Shakespeare does not focus on Narcissus as much as he does on some other Ovidian characters (for example, he preserves Pyramus and Thisbe in both tragic and comedic form, in Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night's Dream), his few innovations with the character of Narcissus are important to highlight because of

Shakespeare's later influence on the work of Oscar Wilde.

Narcissus is an important figure in Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis (1592-93), which is a poem that relies heavily on Ovidian stories and imagery. In the poem, Venus pursues a resistant Adonis, and as she tries to persuade him to give in to her wishes, she compares him to Narcissus (Venus and Adonis, 157-62):

'Is thine own heart to thine own face affected? Can thy right hand seize love upon thy left? Then woo thyself, be of thyself rejected, Steal thine own freedom, and complain on·theft. Narcissus so himself himself forsook, And died to kiss his shadow in the brook.'

Because Adonis refuses her advances, Venus accuses him of harboring the same foolish love for himself that led Narcissus to his death. By invoking Narcissus in this context,

Shakespeare enforces the sexually transgressive nature of his story. Ve nus and Adonis features a female taking the role of sexual aggressor, like Ovid's story of Salmacis and

Hermaphroditus. Shakespeare alters the story of Venus and Adonis fonnd in Book I 0 of the Me tamorphoses by making Adonis resistant to Venus' advances, which transforms the story into Venus' playful yet menacing quest for Adonis' love. By invoking Narcissus as a negative example of love, Shakespeare also emphasizes the error in his self-love. Venus sees excessive self-love as one of the only possible explanations for Adonis' resistance, and by accusing Adonis of this vice she enforces the wrongfulness of love that is not

40 Bate 1993, 2.

38 focused on a real human obj ect. The reflective mirror in Narcissus' story is also tacitly

evoked in Shakespeare's language. As John Roe notes, Shakespeare's love of antithetical

wordplay ("she loves, and yet she is not loved," Ve nus and Adonis, 610) owes much to

Ovid, who exemplifies this type of language in his description ofNarcissus' reflection

41 paradox. Language itself is the mirroring vehicle in Venus and Adonis, the means to see

love that is or is not returned; as we have seen, this playful use of reflective language has precedent in Ovid.

While Shakespeare applies the story ofNarcissus to another character from the

Me tamorphoses, John Milton uses his story as the basis for an experience of a Biblical

character in Paradise Lost (1667). This kind of cross-pollinationbetween Ovid's pagan material and Christian writings was already an established tradition at this point in

Western literature.The so-called Vulgate commentary on the Me tamorphoses, written

42 around 1250 in France, is a Christian exegetical reading of thetext. The commentary,

written in Vulgar Latin, explains each line in Ovid's text to the medieval reader, often

interpreting his text in a way that aligns with Christian doctrine. The Vulgate

commentary shows the reader how Ovid can be read as a Christian author, which has the

effect of encouraging many different versions andinterpretations of the Me tamorphoses,

43 many of which still exist. Four hundred years after the Vulgate commentary was

written, Paradise Lost uses Ovidian material in a Biblical context; instead of interpreting

Ovid through the Bible, Milton uses Ovid to gain a deeper understanding of Christian

doctrine.

1 4 Roe 2000, 43-4. For my previous discussion of this language in Ovid, see pp. 17-8, above. 2 4 Coulson 1991, 6. 43 Ibid., 4-6.

39 In the fo urth book of Paradise Lost, Eve recounts to Adam her first memory of awakening, and the episode she describes is very similar to Narcissus' encounter with his

pool. She comes upon a pure, unmoving lake and lies down to stare into its depths

(Milton IV.460-9):

As I bent down to look, just opposite A shape within the wat'ry gleam appeared Bending to look on me. I started back, It started back, but pleased I soon returned, Pleased it returned as soon with answering looks Of sympathy and love. There I had fixed Mine eyes till now and pinedwith vain desire Had not a Voice thus warned me: "What thou seest, What there thou seest, fair creature, is thyself: With thee it came and goes."

Milton mirrors Ovid's language with remarkable precision, and thepar allels between

Eve's and Narcissus' experiences are clear. The Voice, audible to Eve, has replaced the

Ovidian narrator that is only heard by Narcissus. Her knowledge of herself through her reflection, her iste ego sum moment, is expedited by this Voice, which prompts her to turnaway from her reflection and go to the man that God has created. Notably, the

Voice's fr rst argument in favor of Adam likens their relationship to a reflecting pool, placing Eve in the role of the reflection: "He I Whose image thou art, himthou shalt enjoy I Inseparably thine" (IV.471-3). In these lines, the reader is immediately reminded

of man and woman's creation in Genesis, where "God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and fe male created he them" (Gen. I :27). The use

of the word "image" as a reflection of a creating man, found both in the King James Bible and in Milton, has a possibly unexpected parallel in Ovid's use of imago in the Narcissus narrative. Through his appropriation inParadise Lost, Narcissus is positioned as a kind of divine creator, or at least an original man. Simultaneously, however, Narcissus is also

40 fe minized by his association with Eve, and his actions are confirmed as foolish by this

Christian frame, which eventually has Eve move on from her image to the "correct"

sexual object.

Milton's influence can be charted throughout the later Romantic period, where his poetry had a substantial effect, especially through the aesthetics of his blank verse. Ovid

4 also survived through the nineteenth century, in rather interesting ways. 4 As Norman

Vance notes, Ovid was seen as a kind of "Roman Byron," a lone poet in exile among

5 uncultured Philistines, an image that Ovid himself cultivated in his works.4 Ovid was a

Romantic bad boy, the cynical aesthete that rose to prominence in the Romantic period and transformed into the cultured dandy in the Victorian period. But the nineteenth century also saw the rise of Greek influence in artand literature, the neoclassicism that

46 accompanied archeological discoveries and a surge in scholarship on antiquity. And

within this new secondary position of Latin literature, Ovid was yet subordinate to the

7 great poetry of Virgil and the wisdom of Horace. 4 Despite this tendency to marginalize

Ovid, Romantic poets such as Wordsworth and Keats still rooted much of their poetry in

Ovidian influences. According to Vance, Wordsworth uses Ovid to explore "mythology

4 as the language of the natural imagination." 8 Keats, especially, seems to have a

somewhat boyish enthusiasm for Ovid, which he displays in poems like Endymion (1818) and "I stood tiptoe upon a little hill" ( 1817).

In "I stood tiptoe upon a little hill," Keats describes an excited discovery of and

communion with nature, using the natural settings of Ovid and the tragic figure of

44 For more on Ovid in the nineteenth century, see Vance 1988. 45 Vance 1988, 217. 46 Ibid., 225. 47 1bid., 219. " Ibid., 226.

41 Narcissusto enhance his idyllic fa ntasy. The poem progresses fr om firstperson narration to a direct address, as Keats urges his companion (likely the reader) to embrace nature with all his senses. Keats and his companion join as a "we" before he turns to the tale of

Narcissus and the poet who wrote it (Keats 7-8):

What firstinspired a bard of old to sing Narcissus pining o'er the untainted spring? In some delicious ramble, he had found A little space, with boughs all woven round; And in the midst of all, a clearer pool Than e'er reflectedin its pleasant cool, The blue sky here, and there, serenely peeping Through tendril wreaths fa ntastically creeping. And on the bank a lonely flower he spied, A meek and forlorn flower, with naught of pride, Drooping its beauty o'er the watery clearness, To woo its own sad image into nearness: Deaf to light Zephyrus it would not move; But still would seem to droop, to pine, to love. So while the Poet stood in this sweet spot, Some fainter gleamings o'er his fan cy shot; Nor was it long ere he had told the tale Of young Narcissus, and sad Echo's bale.

Keats takes Narcissus' pool out of the realm of myth, grounding it in the everyday magic of nature that surrounds him. Keats can well understand what might have inspired Ovid to write Narcissus' story, because he sees the clear pool that produces a perfect reflection and the lone daffodil on its banks.Keats removes the narrative fromNarcissus: the confusion, the autoeroticism, the truth or deception that can be found in the surface of the pool. Narcissus is used as a reference point for the beauty of nature and as an example of the poetrythat this beauty can inspire. This is a step toward aestheticizing Narcissusthat will continue through the Victorian period.

These and many other works through themiddle of the nineteenth century affected the way that Narcissus was received, nuancing his character or emphasizing

42 certain characteristics that suited their purposes. The works described above entered the literary canon, leaving their receptions of Narcissus to be either accepted or rejected by subsequent generations. An important feature to note is how varied these receptive works are in their interpretations of Narcissus' character. The Ovidian story ofNarcissus is a complex narrative that challenges different notions of love, selfhood, beauty, and reality; its reception is accordingly complex, often choosing to fo cus on just one facet of

Narcissus. Narcissus' reception is not yet tied down to the term "narcissism" or any other transformation enacted upon Narcissus during and after the Victorian period. The

Victorians ultimately seize upon Narcissus as an emblematic character of their time, and he becomes permanently fixed in the Western imagination as the Victorians see him.

43 III. Narcissus Through the Victorian Lens

In his 1914 paper "On Narcissism: AnIntrodu ction," Sigmund Freud acknowledges a definition ofthe psychological term "narcissism" that fo cuses on self­ absorption and sexual deviancy. The term, borrowed fromthe psychologist Paul Niicke

(and, as Freud notes in his later work, from Havelock Ellis), denotes "the attitude of a person who treats his own body in the same way in which the body of a sexual obj ect is ordinarily treated" (Freud 1981, 73). In other words, Freud cites a precedent for using the term "narcissism" to describe a specific fo rm of sexual deviancy that is self-focused.

Freud goes on to explicate his new theory of a "primary narcissism" that is an essential stage in human development, an expression of the "ego-libido" which acts in self­ preservation.

"On Narcissism" marks a turning point in psychology, introducing the concept of an "ego-libido," a sexual drive that is directed at the ego, as well as an object-libido, which is directed at external obj ects. As Peter Gay notes, "On Narcissism" collapses the distinction that Freud previously made between ego-instincts and libidinal instincts,

49 leading him to deeper investigations of the libido in his postwar writings. But Freud's paper also signals animportant change in the way that Western culture views the character of Narcissus. In his subsequent reception, Narcissus becomes "narcissistic," a sexual deviant who is self-absorbed, driven by an ego-libido that preserves a childlike preoccupation with himself. And as Steven Bru!rm points out, the application of the term

"narcissism" implies that there is "something wrong" with the character of Narcissus in

49 Gay 1995, 545.

44 the first place.5° Narcissus becomes a diagnosable patient and the prototypical

embodiment of his diagnosis; we may sympathize with him because, regrettably, we all

share a common narcissism. Narcissus, like Oedipus, becomes entrapped in a Freudian

literary analysis, and we carmot thinkabout the character without thinking about his

modem psychoanalytic significance.

Freud and his seminal paper arrive on the heels of the Victorian era, which had a

deep fascination with the character of Narcissus. In this chapter, we will look at examples

of the literary and psychoanalytic reception of Narcissus during theVictorian period.

Oscar Wilde's ThePicture of Dorian Gray (1891) is widely acknowledged as a Victorian

retelling of the Ovidian tale. 51 Wilde transforms Narcissus into a morally deficient

aesthete who is able to commit unspeakable acts because of a lack of physiognomic

consequences, which are instead displayed in his portrait. Robert Louis Stevenson's

Strange Case of Dr. Jekylland Mr. Hy de (1886) also plays with the idea of the double

life and the love that exists between doubles. These two authors interpret Ovid's story of

Narcissus and classical ideas about reflection and fragmentation in a contemporary

context of Victorian Aestheticism, corruption, and decadence. Amid this fascination with

Narcissus stands Freud, the avid reader of literature who spawned the modem tradition of

psychoanalytic literary criticism. While Freud's theory of primary narcissism does mark a turning point inhow we view Narcissus, his paper serves fundamentally to highlight trends in the psychoanalyticand literary reception of Narcissus that were already well-

established by the time that it was written. The ideas proposed in "On Narcissism," while

not necessarily inherited from the likes of Wilde and Stevenson, are emblematic of the

50 Bruhm 200 1, 9. 51 See, for example, Berman !990, 148-75; Bruhm 2001, 54-79; Gorilovics 2000, 263-9.

45 Victorian reception ofNarcissus, which is manifest in the selective treatment of the myth by these authors. Freud's innovation is to condense these many fragments of Narcissus into one receivable character.

Freud's intent in condensing these fragments into one psychological condition is to create a narcissistic lens through which everyone can be viewed, such that every person is narcissistic to a greater or lesser degree. In "On Narcissism," Freud reformulates his previously articulated theory of anaclitic object-choice: rather than having just one object of sexual cathexis, a man originally has two sexual obj ects his mother and himself (87). This choice of the self as a sexual object exhibits a "primary narcissism" that is an essential stage in human development. Primary narcissism is a manifestation of the ego-libido, the sexual counterpart of ego-instincts (our drive for self-preservation).

Freud classifies primary narcissism as an inevitable part of life, rather than a disorder. It is one end of a spectrum of object-choice, and, as they develop, humans either tend more toward anaclitic obj ects (taking the original form of the mother) or narcissistic obj ects

(themselves).

According the Freud, men naturally tend to develop a stronger obj ect-love, and women are more often narcissistic ego-lovers who may develop object-love with the birth of a child. Both object-lovers and ego-lovers are necessary in society: narcissists are attractive to object-lovers and vice versa, and ideally there are complementary amounts of self-regard in either person (87-9). In most normal adults, however, the narcissism of childhood is repressed and displaced by the formation of an ideal ego, which the actual ego loves and aspires to emulate (93-4). Additionally, Freud notes that a proj ection of the ideal ego is crucial in the fo rmation of homosexual desire, characterizing homosexuals as

46 a largely narcissistic group (101-2). But Freud also notes that secondary narcissism

ultimately derives from the primary narcissism that exists in every person, therefore

connecting any kind of deviancy resulting from narcissismto a shared primal instinct of

self-preservation (75). This narcissism is nonetheless diagnosable andconnected to the

mentally ill - those who would be seen as male sanus in Ovid's world - schizophrenics,

megalomaniacs, and homosexuals.52

A. THE MIRROR AS THE VEIDCLE OF NARCISSISM

In latereditions of "On Narcissism," Freud cites Havelock Ellis, anEnglish psychologist, as the originator of the term "narcissism" (73n). Ellis inaugurated the trend

of invoking Narcissus' name in the field of psychoanalysis in his paper, "Auto-Erotism," published in 1897, where he discusses sexual fe elings that are spontaneously generated in

the absence of external stimuli. Auto-erotism can encompass acts ranging from day­ dreams to masturbation. Ellis claims that his study is unique in the very breadth of topics

that he investigates, and his paper discusses many sexual acts that may all fa ll under this

new heading of "auto-erotism." He devotes a large portion of the paper to how women

are more likely to use "artificial instruments" (Ellis 169) in their autoerotic practices. He notes these masturbatory instruments are not only common among the women of modem

European civilization but can also be found among primitive and ancient peoples. Indeed,

Ellis's study fo cuses almost entirely on auto-erotism in women, only bringing men into

his discussion briefly to mention erotic dreams that produce spontaneous orgasm.

Toward the end of his paper, Ellis introduces an extreme case of auto-erotism which he terms a "Narcissus-like tendency" (206). Here, the individual's sexual emotion

52 For more discussion of theterms male sanus and error inOvid, see pp. 21, 24, above.

47 is entirely focused on and absorbed by the self, to the exclusion of erotic fe elings for the other sex. Again, Ellis focuses on women as the primary examples of this kind of auto- erotism. As women use artificial instruments to achieve autoerotic orgasm, they also use aninstrument for their narcissisticlove: the mirror. Ellis describes the mirror as symbolizingthe "normal germ" (206) of the Narcissus-like tendency in women. The mirror is the vehicle by which we may observe ourselves, whether it is a manmade surface of reflective glass and metal or a supernatural reflecting pool. The mirror gives us a revelation of ourselves, but it also gives us a means of separation, producing an image to observe and adore that is separate from our own bodies. According to Jacques Lacan, the mirror is also animportant tool fo r developing humans to observe themselves and how they relate to the reflected reality around them.53 Although Lacan sees this "mirror stage" as an important part of psychological development, Ellis cites Iwan Bloch's view that the mirror also encourages "sexual aberration" (206), when boys or girls become aroused at the sight of their own bodies. 54

Ellis's inunediate citation of the mirroras a vehicle for the Narcissus-like tendency is surely due in part to his familiarity with Narcissus' story. As we have seen,

Ovid's account of Narcissus predicates self-love on the abilityto see and know oneself.

Narcissus is able to see himself through the pool's property of reflection, and he is able to

53 Lacan 2006, 78. Although Lacan's work on the mirror stage is well outside the scope of this study, it is interesting to note some parallels between the Narcissus story and Lacan's theory about the recognition of the whole self. For Lacan, the identification of oneself through the mirror is characterized by an "Aha!" moment, where the person is suddenly captivated by theimage, a moment similar to Met. 3.416 (Lacan 2006, 75). It is also illuminating to think about Lacan's mirror stage in relation to Dorian Gray. Like the infant who assumes his image and immediately identifies it as himself, Dorian immediately recognizes the portrait as a depiction of his whole self. According to Lacan, the mirror image becomes an ideal that the ego is always trying to approach, but the ego can only do so asymptotically (76). Dorian, however, is the ideal that is portrayed in the portrait, and his achievement of oneness with this ideal results in catastrophe. 54 The activity of sight seems to be less important in Freud's theory of narcissism, though it is still seen as a requisite fo r male-female attraction, which is based partially on aesthetics (Freud 89).

48 love himself because of his separation fromhis image caused by diffraction. Ellis's

reference to Narcissus without explanation of his story implies that he expects his

readership to be fa miliar with the myth, although this is the ftrst time that Narcissus'

name hasbeen used in a psychoanalytic context. Ellis also expects his readers to apply

readily what they know about mirrors from their everyday lives and literature to this new theory of self-love. In life, mirrors are a way to check one's appearance, to see what

image is being shown to the outside world. In literature, mirrors are often given symbolic

meaning and treated as magical obj ects (such as the reflective crystals in the Roman de Ia

Rose). In the reception ofNarcissus in Victorian literature, mirrors play a similar role to

Narcissus' pool in Ovid: they are a means of separation from one's image and a way to examine the soul.

1. The mirroring Picture of Dorian Gray

The Picture of Dorian Gray was ftrst published as a short novel in June 1890 in

Lippincott's Mo nthly Magazine, a literary journalPhiladelphia. in Oscar Wilde

subsequently made revisions and expanded the story, so that it could be published in

book form in April 1891. Between these two publication dates, Dorian Graywas met with shock and received many scathing reviews. Many of the criticisms directed at the novel took issue with the immoral lifestyles of Wilde's characters and their implied

sexual depravity. 55 A month before the second publication of Dorian Gray, Wilde responded to these critics in 'A Preface to Dorian Gray,' printed in the Fortnightly Review and shortly thereafter included as the preface to the novel. 56 The preface is a treatise on

55 Mighall 2000, ix-x. 56 Ibid.,231-2.

49 Aestheticism, triumphantly stating that artneed not be moral if it is beautiful. In it, Wilde includes a discussion of mirrors. He writes in a series of maxims, two of which ironically mirror each other (Wilde 3):

The nineteenth century dislike of Realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own fa ce in a glass. The nineteenth century dislike of Romanticism is the rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a glass.

These two sentences are a nod to The Tempest and its barbaric, misadventuring antagonist. They mock the critics of both Realism and Romanticism, the two avant-garde artistic and literary movements that protested against the idealized world that Neo-

Classicism created. Most importantly for our purposes, thesetwo sentences introducethe idea that mirrors can be bothtruth ful and deceptive, based on whether or not they display the face that stands before them. theIf mirror does display the truth, then the primitive mind is angered by the ugliness of reality. If the mirror displays a lie, the primitive mind is angered by that deception. Either way, the mirror is measured by the effect that it has on the person standing in front ofit, who is both its object and its spectator. And in

Wilde's Caliban metaphor, the mirror itself is the art produced by Realism and

Romanticism, the vehicle of truthful or deceptive reflection. Wilde then expresses this relationship even more explicitly, stating in the preface, "It is the spectator, and not life, that artreally mirrors" (4). The implication is that The Picture of Dorian Gray is a mirror of its reader, making the novel a subj ective artform that changes depending on the person who reads it. Although this statement appearsto be a glib rebuttal to the novel's critics

(implying that they should question theirown morality if they findthe book to be immoral), it also introduces the idea of artbeing a subj ective mirror, a theme that pervades the plot of Dorian Gray.

50 The Picture of Dorian Gray is a clear example of Ovidian reception, containing

many explicit references to Ovid and Roman culture for the educated reader. Inthe first

chapter, where Lord Henry sees Dorian's unfinished portrait, he describes the figure

painted by Basil as a "young Adonis ... a Narcissus" (6). Dorian Gray's reception of

Narcissus resembles Titus Andronicus's reception of Philomela: the book is brought out

onstage, as if the characters are aware of their own intertexuality. Adonis andNarcissus

are references to the two great exemplars of male beauty in Ovid whose images have

persisted to the modem era (and both of whom appear in Shakespeare's Venus and

Adonis). Lord Henry champions this youthful beauty and the "new Hedonism" (25) that

the youth can enjoy. Wilde uses classical allusions in his novel to create an atmosphere of

sentimentality for antiquity, especially for the romantic relationships between men that

were permitted in that bygone era. In 1895, five years after Dorian Gray was published,

Wilde stood trial for charges of sodomy and gross indecency. When asked, "What is 'the

Love that dare not speak its name'?" (a line from a poem written by Wilde's lover, Lord

Alfred Douglas), Wilde famously responded (TheTrials of Oscar Wilde 236):

"The Love that dare not speak its name" in this century is such a great affection of an elder for a younger man as there was between David and Jonathan, such as Plato made the very basis of his philosophy, and such as you findin the sonnets of Michelangelo and Shakespeare. It is that deep, spiritual affection that is as pure as it is perfect.

In an era of sexual repression, Wilde romanticizes the artistic pederasty of ancient times,

even citing the homosocial relationship between King David andJonathan fromthe Old

Testament. Although Wilde was compelled to remove some of the more explicit homoerotic references in the second edition of Dorian Gray, there is still a clear

sentimentalization of ancient Roman permissiveness, which Wilde has viewed mainly

51 through writers like Ovid and Horace and the lives of the depraved Roman emperors. 57

References to Cupid, Icarus, Domitian, and especially Narcissus abound throughout the novel, stated by characters and narrators alike.

AfterLord Henry's early comparison of Narcissus and Dorian, Dorian's portrait is

established as an analog to Narcissus' pool. From the outset of the novel, Wilde's · narrative approach to the portrait resembles the ekphrasis before Ovid's pool episode.

Wilde sets the sensual scene of Basil's studio by describing the scent of flowers that pervades it, turning this urban studio into a natural oasis from the city of London (5). The portrait itself, like the reflecting pool in Ovid, is seen by the reader before it is seen by

Dorian. The reader enters the scene after Lord Henry has already begun to view the painting, and he describes it in relation to the beauty of its sitter. When Dorian himself sees the portrait, it is a moment of revelation: "a look of joy came into his eyes, as if he had recognized himself for the first time" (27). Like Narcissus, Dorian fm ally "knows" himself. The portrait is described explicitly as a mirror after the death of Sibyl Vane.

Ironically, this description appears at a time when the portrait does not actually physically mirror Dorian as itdid perfectly before. The mouth of the figure in the portrait has been twisted, a physical manifestation of Dorian's cruelty. He realizes that the "portrait would be to him the most magical of mirrors. As it hadrevealed to him his own body so it would reveal to him his own soul" (103). Dorian is able to keep track of the status of his soul and his descent into absolute immorality by monitoring the changes in the painting.

But Dorian's knowledge of himself changes as he observes his "reflection" over time, which prevents him fr om completely loving and idealizing the portrait as Narcissus does his reflection.

57 For corrections of this type made in the 1891 publication, see Mighall 2000, xvi-xviii.

52 In addition to providing a mirror of Dorian's soul, the portrait also exhibits the

Ovidian optical property of diffraction. Dorian's portrait is, in Wilde's words, a true mirror of the spectator. This gives Dorianthe dual status of subj ect and surveyor of art, a person who is one with the art while simultaneously being separate from it. Like

Narcissus, Dorian experiences vacillatingunity with, and separation from, his portrait; the portrait is often an integral part of Dorian's being, while the two are also separated by distance and diverging metamorphoses. When Dorian first encounters his portrait, he is unsure whether to treatit as a part of himself or as an external object. He says, "I am in love with it, Basil. It is a part of myself" (29). Dorian loves the portrait as one loves a work of art, but he also recognizes theportrait as a manifestation of his own person.

Differentiation between the two Dorians also immediately becomes a problem for the other characters in the story, and Basil and Lord Henry assist in the separation of Dorian from his portrait. Basil, partially responsible for Dorian's self-obsession by loving him and painting such a beautiful portrait, proclaims that the pictureis the "real Dorian" (31 ), uncorrupted by Lord Henry'sinfluenc e. Meanwhile, Lord Henry prefers the real-life

Dorian, the one who is malleable. Dorian seems to be influenced by the love of external works of artpromoted by Basil and a love of himself that is cultivated by Lord Henry.

This recognition of the portrait as both the self and the other is, in short, the function of a mirror. Dorian's conflation of obj ect love andself -recognition becomes his downfall, as he is repeatedly enamored with different reflections of himself.

In ThePicture of Dorian Gray, there are two reflections of Dorian that play a major role in his development. The first is the portrait, which gives Dorian a knowledge and love of himself, while also providing him with a double that receives the

53 physiognomic consequences of his own crimes. The second reflection is created by a book that Dorian borrows fromLord Henry, a book about a young Parisian whose life seems to mirror his own: a "prefiguring type of himself' (123). The exact contents of the book are never fully explained by Wilde, but it does change Dorian's views on aesthetics, as he officially abandons all morality in the pursuit of beauty. Linda Dowling notes that this book opens the history of sin to Dorian, relating the crimes of the Parisianto the decadence of antiquity.58 The book is a large presence in Dorian's life for many years; he associates itwith his descent into opulence, and the reader sees that he has been

"poisoned by a book" (140). The book, a seemingly innocuous object, becomes dangerous because Dorian assigns the property of reflection to it. However, rather than believing that the book is a coincidental mirror of his own life, Dorian fashions his life to mirror the book. He imitates the Parisian, who models himself after the sinners of old

(125). Dorian identifies with the book so much thathe becomes a reflection of it. Dorian admires the Parisian as a separate character while also becoming the Parisian in his everyday life, which comes to reflect the book. The book also carriesthe property of a fo cusing lens, collapsing time so that years pass without thereade r's notice. 59 It also collapses history, bringing the opulence of the past into Dorian'spresent. This is the point at which Dorian loses control over his actions, "poisoned" by the book that now dictates his life.

But although the book has ruined Dorian by influencing his actions and aesthetics, his relationship with his reflecting portrait is what causes his final and fatal metamorphosis. Like Narcissus'relationship with his reflection, Dorian's relationship

ss Dowling 1986, 170. l9 Ibid., 171.

54 with his portraitis more complex than a simple love for his reflected self. As we have seen in Ovid's narrative, Narcissus and his reflection exemplifY the aggressor/victim paradigm in the Me tamorphoses, and Ovid uses violent language to show the nonconsensual nature of their relationship. Dorian's relationship with his portrait is likewise fraughtwith violence. Although Dorian's initial reactionto the portrait is one of love and self-recognition, he quickly becomes jealous of it, because its "beauty does not die" (28) with time. Because the portraitcaptures Dorian at a unique moment, he believes that it will stay the same while he is transformed by age. He is frightened by the temporal fragmentation that he and his portraitwill experience, believing that it will someday mock himwith its beauty. Dorian. and his portrait do indeed suffer a temporal fragmentation, but in the opposite way from what Dorian had anticipated. When he realizes that the portrait, not he, will show the damage of time and sin, Dorian is no

longer jealous. He decides that "there would be real pleasure in watching it" (1 03) change as he retains his eternalyouth. Dorian loves the portraitfor saving him from old age, while simultaneously living in haughty defiance of the ruin that its features represent.

Dorian's portrait is a physical document of the state of his soul and an inverse indicator of the state of his beauty; as the portrait becomes more and more deformed, Dorian is able to assure himself of the physical safety of his beauty. Dorian defiesthe portrait by

continuing to live immorally, but the reassurance that the portrait offers compels him to

love it despite his simultaneous disregard for its appearance.

Dorian's triumphant mixture oflove and defiance, however, eventually gives way

to resentment and hatred for the portrait. As Dorian's soul descends far ther into sin and

the portrait becomes more ugly, he realizes that he would like to change back, to regain

55 some of his goodness and see that reflected in the portrait. But his portrait is unforgiving and holds him back from this metamorphosis, becoming "an unjust mirror ... of his soul"

(212). It becomes impossible for Dorian to change, and he begins to hate both himself and the portrait. At the end of the novel, Dorian first destroys an actual mirror in his library, a mirror that holds his impossibly young reflection, symbolically murdering his physical aspect. He then fm ally destroys the portrait: a literal destruction of his soul.

However, Dorian and his portrait have become inextricably united as subj ect and reflection, and the portrait's destruction results in Dorian's own death. Dorian and his portrait become one in this ultimate metamorphosis, the soul and body united in the corpse "loathsome of visage" (213) fo und by Dorian's servants. This scene poetically parallels the ending ofNarcissus' narrative in the Me tamorphoses, where the nymphs come to gather Narcissus' body for the funeral and find that he has been transformed (or substituted). And like the substitution of a flower for Narcissus' body, Dorian's metamorphosis is purposefully ambiguous.

The moment of transformation is not described, and the reader is left to wonder about the mechanics of Dorian's death. Indeed, what has occurred is unclear to the bystanders and the reader, until they see that the corpse is wearing Dorian's rings (213).

But Dorian's metamorphosis can be seen as climactic in comparison to Narcissus', because of the violence with which he destroys the portrait andthe comparative suddenness of the ending; Wilde describes the events that lead to Dorian's death and metamorphosis in less than two pages, while most of the Narcissus narrative is devoted to his slow deterioration. And unlike Narcissus' metamorphosis, the unification of Dorian's soul and body (two pieces fo cused into one being), represents a dramatic reversal ofthe

56 central problem in the story, rather than a preservation of the status quo. The

fragmentationthat has permittedDorian's immorality no longer exists, and he is not left

staring at his image for eternity. In this fm al metamorphosis, Dorian is at last forced to

face the physical consequences of his inner depravity. It is a tidier ending thanthe

Ovidian version, perhaps reflecting a greaterneed for closure and comeuppance in fiction at this Victorian moment.

In The Portrait of Dorian Gray, artis a subj ective mirror that both forces metamorphosis and prevents it fr om taking place. Mirrors play an importantrole of revealing Dorian's self to him, an initial positive revelation that gives way to hopelessness and resentment. Like Narcissus, Dorian would have lived to anold age si se

non noverit (Met. 3 .348). But his reflecting portrait prevents him from aging at all, and he becomes like a work of art, frozenin time and reflecting his former self. Reflection permitsself -knowledge and self-love in Dorian Gray, and it allows the protagonist to become obsessed about the state of his body and soul for the rest of the novel, a self­ made narcissist.

2. The Strange Case of an experimental Narcissus

At the time of the publication of ThePicture of Dorian Gray, many critics

compared thenovel to another recent work about a double life, Robert Louis Stevenson's

Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hy de , published in 1886.60 Stevenson's novella is told

in the style of a Gothic mystery: the lawyer Mr. Utterson investigates the strange

relationship between his friend, Dr. Jekyll, and Jekyll's protege, Mr. Hyde, a relationship

that results in both of their deaths. The plot twist thatis revealed toward the end of the

60 Mighall 2000, 214-219.

57 novella is now known to most readers in the Western world; Jekyll and Hyde have entered the popular imagination as a trope for a double life and a split personality. The last two chapters of the novella act as a denouement, explaining that Jekyll was able to fracture his personality and appearance into two parts. The better, more civilized nature that he had spent his entire life cultivating resided in the body of Jekyll; the brutal, "evil" part of his nature now had a new body in Hyde, a man of shorter stature and ugly fe atures. Jekyll performed this experiment on himself to relieve the anxiety of a dual nature, "the profound duplicity of life" (Stevenson 58) that plagues man's existence. The solution that he finds to this anxiety is a completely split soul that lives in two bodies, so that each body may be physically true to its nature.

There are many striking resemblances between Stevenson's novella and Dorian

Gray . Jekyll's attraction to a double life is similar to Dorian's attraction to his divided body and soul; dissociation allows them both to commit unspeakable crimes without any physiognomic consequences. Jekyll, however, is motivated by social standards and a need to appear decorous, while Dorian's attachment to his portrait is driven by a need to stay young fo rever. Both stories also demonstrate the Victorians' preoccupation with

61 physiognomy. The double-life conflicts in Dorian Gray and Dr. Je kyll and Mr. Hy de both manipulate the common belief that one's nature can be seen in physical features.

Wilde contradicts this notion by pointing out the case of Dorian Gray, a person who was able to separate his body and soul such that his face remained pure despite his actions.

Stevenson, however, manipulates this assumption without contradicting it. If one's fe atures must show the consequences of one's actions, a person with a completely evil soul must have an ugly face. Stevenson also relates the cultivation of appearance to the

61 See Pearl 20 I 0.

58 development of the soul. In fact, Jekyll explains Hyde's short stature by the fact that the evil side of JekylVHyde "had been much less exercised and much less exhausted" (61).

Stevenson takes the concept ofphysiognomy to an extreme, presenting two separate bodies that completely reveal the two souls they carry.

Although Dr. Je kyll and Mr. Hy de is clearly very similar to Dorian Gray, the novella's cotmection to Ovid may seem slightly more tenuous, since the names of Ovid and Narcissus are not mentioned once in Stevenson's text. The cotmection emerges more clearly when the novella is examined within the context of other works of Ovidian reception. While there is no explicit evidence that Stevenson consciously thought of Ovid as he was writing Dr. Je kyll and Mr . Hy de, there is no doubt that Ovidian notions of reflection and metamorphosis play a large part in the novella. Narcissus' pool had survived as the sp eculum mundi in the Roman de la Rose, in works of art in the

Renaissance and Baroque, and more recently in the poetry of John Keats. Narcissus' mirror can also be seen in the monster of Mary Shelley's Fr ankenstein, which influenced many works of the Romantic and Victorian Gothic literature . Frankenstein, like Dr.

Je kyll and Mr . Hy de, fe atures a tortured doctor dealing with problems of an evil double.

Jeffrey Berman has demonstrated in his book Narcissism and the Novel how Victor

Frankenstein is a narcissistic character, demonstrating all the qualities of narcissistic

62 personality disorder. Even without the traits described in the Diagnostic and Statistical

Manual of Mental Disorders, and without anachronistically trying to diagnose Victor

Frankenstein as a Freudian narcissist, one can easily see that the character bears many resemblances to Ovid's Narcissus. His creati on of the monster is driven by self-love, a desire to create a creature in his own perfect image. This self� love, however, is

62 Berman 1990, 58·9.

59 transformed into self-hatred when he sees the antagonistic reflection of himself that the monster embodies. Dr. Frankenstein's cruel nature, evidenced by his rejection of the monster, is mirrored in the monster's physical fe atures.

Henry Jekyll, like Victor Frankenstein, has a love-hate relationship with his double: Jekyll loves Hyde for the freedomthat he experiences in his body, but hates him for Hyde's ultimate control over the transient vessel oftheir shared being. During his experiments and transformations, when he is in the reflective experience of having a double, Jekyll also avoids interactions with others, both men and women alike (indeed, he has never been marri ed). He shows a Narcissus-like tendency toward isolation, preferring to be left alone with his double personality. In his account of the case, Jekyll even begins to refer to Hyde in the third person: "He, I say - I cannot say, I" (70). In this respect,

Jekyll bears more similarities to Narcissus than does Dorian Gray. He treats his double as a person apart from himself, referring to him in the third person as Narcissus does before his iste ego sum revelation. Moreover, there is a literal mirror that plays a crucial role in

Jekyll'stra nsformation: the cheval glass in his cabinet.

In the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hy de, the mirror is used to observe metamorphosis, allowing Jekyll and Hyde to engage in narcissistic observations of themselves. The mirror is a cheval glass, which causes Utterson andPoole "an involuntary horror" (49) when they find it in Jekyll's cabinet. A cheval glass is an ordinary full-length mirror, supported by legs on either side of the glass. Despite its ordinariness, however, it is conspicuous to the two men investigating the scene. Perhaps such mirrors would seem unnecessary in the cabinet of a doctor. But Utterson's and

Poole's "horror" also seems to be a reaction to the intangible magic of the mirror, which

60 is not dissimilar to the uncannily reflective pool ofNarcissus; both arewitn ess to strange metamorphoses. For when Utterson reads Jekyll's testament, he discovers that the mirror was brought from Jekyll's bedroom so that he could observe his transformations. It does not seem, however, that Jekyll used the mirror for scientificpurpo ses. Rather, it is used to confirm the fact of his transformation, to discover whether he is actually Jekyll or Hyde.

In this way, it is similar to Dorian Gray's portrait, which is a confirmation of the state of his soul, which he fe els but cannot see. And as Richard Dury notes, the mirror as a transformative device is prefigured in Jekyll/Hyde's handwriting, which slant in opposite directions; thus, the two handwritings are mirror images of each other.63 These similar

"hands" are also the only indication that Jekyll and Hyde are one and the same - a learned

skill that stays constant across the transformation.

Jekyll's immediate reaction to seeing Hyde's face in the mirror is one of fa scination and welcome at the sight of his other self, similar to Narcissus' first glimpse of his reflection in the pool. Indeed, Jekyll seems to experience a great deal of pleasure while viewing his reflection in the cheval glass. While Jekyll could have used another test

subject or performed experiments on his faithful servants, he instead chooses to

experiment on himself, giving him the experience of a disjointed soul and body. After

Jekyll's first transformation into Hyde, he immediately seeks his reflection. Feeling hopeful, he wends his way through the house with great anticipation, and he finally

ar rives at a pleasurable climax when he sees the face of Hyde. Instead of being repulsed by the short and ugly person reflected inthe glass, he feels "a leap of welcome" (61) at the recognition of himself, both transformed and familiar. This pleasure in the divergent reflections of Jekyll and Hyde is similar to the self-observation that accompanies Ellis's

63 Dury 2004, xxxviii.

61 "Narcissus-like tendency," a fa scination with the self that is completely absorbing. When this experience is no longer pleasurable, as Hyde overtakes Jekyll without his consent, the mirror has the effect ofmaking the metamorphosis real: in the absence of other observers, Jekyll must rely on the passive observer of the mirror to confirm reality.

Jekyll's narcissism becomes fatal when Hyde completely takes over; he experiences a death similar to Narcissus', wasting away before the mirror. The reader discovers that he has written his testament in one of the last moments where Hemy Jekyll can "see his own fa ce ... in the glass" (73). Jekyll's ultimate death is anticlimactic, like

Narcissus'. Jekyll does not die by suddenly destroyingthe mirror, uniting his two halves; he wastes away, leaving Hyde to die separately, and they arepermanently split in the afterlife. Like Narcissus' ultimate metamorphosis, the fate of Jekyll and Hyde's is dual­ sided. In the end, Hyde's personality is the completely dominant one, and the two natures that Jekyll sought to separate are unable to exist side-by-side. But Jekyll's body is physically fractured from Hyde's in their separate deaths, preventing th\') two men from achieving complete unity. This is a reversal of the physical unity and spiritual separation that Narcissus and his reflection experience in their final metamorphosis, but the effect of both the Ovidian and Stevensonian metamorphoses is a preservation ofthe status quo. In

Stevenson, man is cursed to live in the paradox of being both one and two, and even in death, Jekyll must suffer in this contradiction.

B. ISTE ET EGO: OBJECT-LOVERS AND SELF-LOVERS

According to Freud's theory of narcissism, narcissists are essentialto human relationships and reproduction. In "On Narcissism," Freud describes society as a world of

62 binaries, where people are either predominantly obj ect-lovers or predominantly self­ lovers. Men are more likely to be object-lovers, due to their anaclitic desire for their mothers and the transference of their narcissism to a sexual object. On the other hand, the onset of puberty in women brings a more marked narcissism as they choose themselves as sexual object. This establishes a convenient symmetrybetween men and women: women provide the object that men need to love, and men provide the love that women crave. Consequently, object-lovers and self-lovers are naturally attracted to each other, providing corresponding amounts of object-libido and ego-libido (Freud 1981, 89). Freud also cites this as the cause of people enjoying certain works of literature. Narcissistic protagonists, who "manage to keep away from the ego anything that would diminish it"

64 (89), are attractive to readers because they supply a narcissistic object for obj ect-love.

There is obvious precedent for this reading of the narcissist in Ovid's account.

Echo is the epitome of an object-lover: she fo cuses all her attention on others, doomed to repeat their words without creating any of her own. She loves Narcissus in a way that he only loves himself; as Echo fo llows Narcissus, magis sequitur, jlamma propiore calescit

("the closer she fo llows, the more she burns with flame," Met. 3.372), while Narcissus accendit et ardet ("bums and inflames," 3.426) for his reflection. This is closely resembled by Freud's slightly humorous statement that "it is only themselves that such

[narcissistic] women love with an intensity comparable to that of the man's love fo r them" (Freud 1981, 89). Itis notable, however, that Freud hasreversed the genders from the Echo and Narcissus story, making themale the object-lover and the female the self­ lover. Perhaps this is due to Narcissus' contemporary reception as a homosexual figure

(which will be discussed in more depth later) or to Victorian norms of courtship. It could

64 Assuming, of course, that the reader is an object-lover himself and,therefore, male.

63 also be due to thefact that Echo and Narcissus exemplifY a reversal of common gender roles even in the Metamorphoses, with Echo acting as aggressor and Narcissus acting as victim. Echo is one of the few fe male figures inthe Me tamorphoses who pursues an

65 unwilling male. Freud may be recognizing this reversal of gender norms in Ovid in his attribution of Echo's traits to object-loving males and Narcissus' traits to self-loving fe males.

Freud's assertion that readers are attracted to narcissistic protagonists merits more discussion. According to Freud, readers envy literary narcissists for maintaining "an unassailable libidinal position which we ourselves have since abandoned" (89).

Narcissists, as depicted in works of literature in the Victorian period, did indeed hold a great fascination for readers. Upon its initial publication in Lippincott's Magazine in

1890, The Picture of Dorian Gray sold very well in literary circles, proving to be a

66 popular sensation, despite some negative backlash fromthe press. Its self-absorbed author also fascinated the public, and his irreverent attitude toward charges of sodomy

67 made him the most infamous sexual criminal of his day. Josephine Guy notes that

Wilde's books, like many works of nineteenth-century literature, were marketed through the selling of the author himself, a process of commodification that turned the author into

68 a celebrity. Other examples of literary narcissists filled the popular literature of the late nineteenth century. Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes fascinated readers with his arrogance, and was an engaging character despite his loner tendencies and self-l ove.

Indeed, he is portrayed as the somewhat effeminate self-lover later described by Freud:

65 The other notable example of an aggressive fe male in the Me tamorphoses is Salmacis. For further discussion ofSalmacis, see pp. 14-16, 29, above. 66 Bristow 2005, xliv. 67 See Guy 2010, 21-3. For Wilde's fame in America, see Bennett 2010, 279-80. 68 Guy 2010, 19.

64 Dr. Watson even remarks inA Study in Scarlet (1888) that Holmes "was as sensitive to flattery on the score of his art as any girl could be of her beauty" (Doyle 63). Similarly, readers were drawn to the title character in H. G. Wells's The Island of Doctor Moreau

(1896), who isolates himself on an island to create human-like creatures fr om animals, possessed with crazed confidence and self-admiration.69 And of course, the tortured narcissistic creator in Shelley's Frankensteinhad attracted the popular imagination since the early nineteenth century.

This Victorian fa scination with narcissists is indicative of an overall Victorian fo cus on the self. This preoccupation withthe self- the mind, body, and soul culminated in the psychoanalytic fm dings of Freud and his contemporaries, but the seeds of this fa scination were sown much earlier. By the mid-nineteenth century, theories about the mind and its relationship with the body had reached the general public, produced by new developments in philosophy and physiology. There was a major debate over whether the mind was a higher power that controlled the body and its notions of selfhood, or whether itwas actually a function controlled by the body through the brain. 70 Scientists explored issues of mental physiology (such as physiognomy and phrenology), which later developed into the discipline of modem psychology, with the aid of figures like James

Sully. Jenny Bourne Taylor notes that in the late nineteenth century, psychological research started to fo cus on cases of multiple personality disorders in order to discover the nature of the self, and its relation to mind and body, and that these ideas were

71 literalized in works like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hy de . The mind's relationship to the body and its role in creating the self was obviously an intriguing theme for authors and their

69 Wells 2008. 70 Taylor 2010, 185-6. 71 1bid., 197-200.

65 readers. This theme also led tothe development of other questions: how is the self fo rmed into a vehicle of good or evil? Can there be a duality between good and evil that exists in one person? How does the body exhibit the nature of the mind?

Taylor rightly notes that ThePicture of Dorian Gray offers an example of "the paradoxical relationship between the body and mind at the close of the century."72

Adding to this point, I would contend that the fictional narcissist was an essential vehicle for the exploration of this relationship. Through narcissistic protagonists and antagonists inliterature, authors were able to consider these questions and provide some answers to their readers. Narcissists, by definition, are completely fo cused on the self, and the development of this self was the topic of these literary works. The reader is able to examine the relationship of Dorian's soul to his body because Dorian fo llows Lord

Henry's encouragement toward narcissism fromthe opening pages of the novel: "The aim of life is self-development" (Wilde 20). Dorian's obsessive fo cus on the progress of his self, rather than on his actions' impact on others, also allows the reader to fo cus on the larger idea of the self. Furthermore, a narcissistic character can be an exaggerated projection of the reader's self, in whom the reader can see certain elements of his own personality. And so it seems that the Victorians' fa scination with narcissists was not only based on a displacement of love onto a self-lover, but also on a personal interest in self- discovery.

Freud himself uses literature as a means of "self-discovery," drawing on books and plays to formulate his own theories of the self. He was an avid reader, and he often used literature to illustrate psychoanalytic points.73 Freud sees literature not only as

72 lbid., 201. 73 Hertz 1997, xi.

66 material for psychoanalytic evidence, but also as a subject worthy of its own independent

study. He investigates the effect that literature and art has upon its audience, as evidenced in his explanation ofthe horror of the Medusa's head (Freud 1997, 264-5). For Freud, art is a product of the human mind, a manifestation of unconscious desires and primal instincts. Several works of fiction even play major roles in the fo rmation of Freud's psychoanalytic theory, including Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, Shakespeare's Hamlet, and

7 Grillparzer's Die Ahnfrau. 4 Freud is a psychoanalyst who gives literature a privileged place in human society, recognizing the influence of authors from antiquity through more recent innovators like Dostoyevsky. In addition to containing an explicit reference to

Ovid in its theory of narcissism, "On Narcissism" is an essay clearly aware of the development of Narcissus in the popular imagination, a character that hadundergone transformations inDorian Gray and Dr. Je kyll and Mr. Hy de, both of which emphasize their characters' self-regard. The narcissistic protagonist is vital in helping the Victorian artist and public explore their notions of the self; Freud explains this attachment to fictional characters as proof of the placement of object-love onto self-lovers. In a characteristically Freudian manner, however, his very use of the term "narcissism" reveals his own love ofliterature and its narcissistic protagonists, including Narcissus himself.

C. THE FRAGMENTED SELF

One of Freud's greatest innovations in "On Narcissism" is his theory of the "actual ego" and the "ideal ego." The "ideal ego" is a precursor to what later becomes Freud's

74 Ibid., xi.

67 theory of the divided mind, structured around the ego, the id, and the super-ego. 75 The ego-libido that drives primary narcissism, the sexual instinct bent on self-preservation, does not completely disappear with the displacement of desire onto external objects.

Rather, the individual's self-love is displaced onto the ideal ego. The ideal ego is formed by the individual as an agent of repression: by trying to aspire to the ideal ego, the actual ego is able to adhere to societal norms and improve itself. This ideal ego is "the substitute for the lost narcissism of [the individual's] childhood in which he was his own ideal"

(Freud 1981, 94). The actual ego is able to love the ideal unconditionally, as the individual was able to love himself in his childhood. In Freud's theory, the ideal ego eventually evolves into the super-ego, which works in conflict with the id and tries to steer the mind toward propriety and compliance (95n). In "On Narcissism," Freud describes the place of narcissism within the individual as the governing force between man's dual instincts, an innovation that grants a place for the ego-libido in the normal individual. This notion of fragmentation and dual natures, however, has precedent not only in Victorian literature but also in Ovid.

The fragmentation ofNarcissus in Ovid has already been discussed in the previous chapter, and we need not restate it here. It is notable, however, thatthis fragmentation is not depicted as an internal phenomenon, but rather as a separation outside of the body. Narcissus and his image are divided by physical distance, separated by exigua ... aqua ("a little bit of water," Me t. 3.450). The internal conflict of self-love is made tangible through the metaphor of reflection. In Freud, the actual ego and the ideal ego are both concepts that exist withinthe self, and the only external manifestation of the two egos is the adherence to societal norms caused by repression. Also in contrast to

75 Gay 1995, 545.

68 Freud, the two pieces of Narcissus' self are corresponding and identical: Narcissus' image mirrors exactly every action that Narcissus completes. Although the actual ego tries to emulate the ideal ego, they are two different entities that, by definition, can never be united and identical. The idea of a fragmented self, however, is a phenomenon that can be traced at least as far back as Ovid, with Narcissus being the most fruitful example in antiquity of individual fragmentation.

The fragmentation that occurs in ThePicture of Dorian Grayand the Strange

Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hy de , in addition to expanding upon Ovidian notions of the fractured self, reflects Victorian beliefs about physiognomy. Physiognomy is a concept thathas existed since antiquity, as the study of external characteristics that reflect internal nature. Prior to the Victorian period, however, physiognomy was mainly utilized in art,

fo rtune-telling, and guides for behavior .76 1n About Faces: Physiognomy in Ni neteenth-

Century Britain, Sharrona Pearl demonstrates how physiognomy became more widely practiced in the nineteenth century as a method of dealing with urban interaction. Pearl comments that the increased use of physiognomicjudgment by social commentators, artists, and laypeople in the Victorian period exhibits a Victorian tendency to "set apart" people who do not belong. These "others" include criminals, the insane, and fo reigners. 77

This, however, is a human tendency that can be traced back to Leviticus and before a sense of safety derived from separation and categorization. What does seem unique about this Victorian phenomenon of physiognomy is its context of an urban envirorunent, the fast-moving city that makes quick judgments vital. "Judging a book by its cover" is

76 Pearl 2010, 2. 77 1bid., 4.

69 necessary when the cover is all that you can see on a busy street, and these judgments become more practiced when you encounter strangers all day.

The relationship between Victorian notions of physiognomy and Freud's theory of the ideal ego should not be overlooked.Pearl notes that one of the most important effects

7 of physiognomic beliefs in the Victorian periodwas the aspect of self-presentation. 8 If people feel that their characters are being judged based on their appearances, they will be very careful about the face that they present to the public. Public appearances became performances, which may have contributed to the theatrics and decadence of the English fin de sii�cle. According to Freud, this phenomenon of the "public self" is a repressed version of the ego, an attempt to align with the ideal ego. Physiognomy is a large part of the image of the ideal ego, because the ideal ego is one that conforms to society's expectations and sets the individual apartfrom the excluded "others." This conformity must be outwardly proved through both actions and appearance. While Freud's theory is not a "physiognomic science," as fields like phrenology attempted to be, it does reflect

79 Victorian anxiety about physiognomy by analyzing humanity's need to conform.

Despite physiognomy's many appeals - the ease of practice, the aesthetic organization of the world - it is clear from Victorian literature that there is a great deal of anxiety about the limitations of physiognomy. Pearl points out that, as there was no

0 formal physiognomic doctrine, there was also no organized opposition. 8 Instead, subtle critiques of its tenets appear in works like ThePicture of Dorian Gray and the Strange

Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hy de. Wilde andStevenson take the idea of physiognomy to its horrifying, ridiculous extreme in order to expose its potential flaws.

78 lbid.,8. 79 For more on phrenology as aphysiognomic science in the nineteenth century,see Pearl 2010, 188-192. 80 Pearl 2010, 12.

70 In ThePicture of Dorian Gray, a scenario of fr agmentation between the body and the soul tells a story about the dangers of physiognomy. As noted above, Dorian Gray contradicts the idea that one's nature can be seen in external fe atures, because (in the case of a deal with the devil or, more plausibly, exceptionally artful deception) one can fragment the body from soul, so that the former does not exhibit the deterioration of the latter. Prior to Dorian's fragmentation, Lord Henry states his staunch belief inthe truth of physiognomy: Dorian's beauty must betray a pure lack of brains because "real beauty ends where an intellectual expression begins" (Wilde 6). At this point, Dorian is indeed pure, not yet tainted by reflections made by his portrait or the book. When he does begin to gain a bad reputation, most people fe el that "the infinite grace of that wonderful youth that seemed never to leave him" (136) is enough proof against the rumors. Anyone with so innocent a countenance could not possibly harbor an evil mind. But on the contrary,

Dorian's physical beauty only seems to encourage himto commit more sins, because his visage stays the same as the state of his soul steadily declines.

Dorian Gray is a work of social commentary, targeting the Victorianbelief that

appearance and morality are linked. In an interesting parallel to Dorian's diverging body

and soul, the rumors of his criminality increase his esteem in the eyes of many, making

him rich, beautiful, and fascinating. As his good name declines, his reputation becomes more infamous, paradoxically gaining himmore respect. Wilde, as narrator, remarks that

society "feels instinctively that manners are of more importance than morals" ( 136). In

Dorian Gray, the reader seems to become privy to Wilde's views on the "public fa ce" that

is interpreted by physiognomy: it is only a proj ection of a self that meets society's

expectations, reflecting standards of propriety rather than of morality. Man's morality and

71 appearance, according to Wilde, are completely separate. This is also Wilde's view of art: art should only be concerned with aesthetics, and it has no duty to exhibit sound morality.

Indeed, moral responsibility in artmay reduce the quality of the art itself: "An ethical sympathy inan artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style" (3). Wilde is an early champion of the Aesthetic Movement, which values aesthetic qualities in art over moral and political messages. In Dorian Gray, Wilde acknowledges the inevitable fragmentation of body and mind, of appearance and morals, and emphasizes his

Aestheticism as a way to avoid hypocrisy in art.

In the Strange Case of Dr. Je kyll and Mr. Hy de, Stevenson manipulates the idea of physiognomy and exaggerates its possible implications. If we anachronistically use

Freud's terminology, Jekyll's anxiety is caused by a conflictbetween his actual ego and ideal ego. Jekyll hasspent his entire life aspiring to an ideal, wearing a "grave countenance before the public" (Stevenson 58). According to Jekyll's account, he was unusually successful at attaining this ideal, and to everyone around him he appears a

"smooth-faced man of fifty, withsomething of a slyish cast perhaps, but every mark of capacity and kindness" (21). The face that Jekyll presents the public is calculated to honor his position in society, just like the fa ce of Dorian Gray. Jekyll's personal crisis, however, is that he wants to free his self fromthe constraints of his ideal and from the prison of his body. He sees the hypocrisy of forcing his moral self to comply with an ideal, and views the everyday struggle of the self as a "perennial war" (59). Jekyll's resolution is to separate his two natures, so that his entire self does not have to tryto aspire to an ideal. This actual self, his primal and violent nature, resides in Hyde. The negative consequence of this separation, however, is that it opens the possibility of the

72 primal nature overtaking the civilized one, as occurs with Jekyll/Hyde. Freud might argue, in light of his later writings, that this is due to a lack of a super-ego that oversees the adherence of the ego to some civilized norm.

Although Stevenson's novella operates within the bounds of physiognomy, with two bodies reflecting two different natures, Stevenson's cynicism about physiognomy is demonstrated in his gross exaggeration of its consequences. Jekyll's internal struggle between his two natures transforms into ao external struggle between the physical manifestations of these two natures, where Jekyll aod Hyde compete for control overthe one traosient body. Jekyll fe els himself "losing hold of [his] original aod better self, aod becoming slowly incorporated with [his] second aod worst" (66). The external problem that results from ao experiment in balaocing personalities becomes a threat to Jekyll's life. In short, Jekyll's internal crisis of the self is traosformed into a physical crisis between two separate people. In obeying the laws that physiognomy seems to dictate,

Stevenson must create two bodies that are physically faithful to the personalities that they hold. The irony of Jekyll's fragmenting traosforrnation is underscored by the multiple puns contained in Hyde's name. He is the part of Jekyll's soul that has been fo rced to

"hide" inside his body; but he is also the primal "hide" that Jekyll dons, which is far more threatening thao the interior phenomenon of ao evil soul.

Theirony aodcynicism in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hy de is more clearly understood if the story is seen within the context of Ovid's Narcissusnarrati ve. The conflict between

Jekyll and Hyde bears maoy similarities to Narcissus' encounter with his image. Although the two men are really parts of the same whole, they are physically separated. Just as

Narcissus aod his image mirror each other, so do Jekyll aod Hyde. Jekyll aod Narcissus

73 deteriorate before their doubles, overtaken by figures that they have created in their own images. But while Narcissus' image is a creation of his mind, a tangible body that he, male sanus, wills into being, Hyde is a real creation, just like Frankenstein's monster.

Narcissus' image is the product of a sick mind, and his love for it is the result of a prophecy. Hyde was created solely as a vessel for Jekyll's evil nature, because Jekyll fe els that he cannot live with the physiognomic hypocrisy of having two natures in one body, even though he states that each "manis not truly one, but truly two" (59). Jekyll's punishment for this foolhardy separation of himselfis an anticlimactic death, like

Narcissus, a gradual wasting away before the mirror. Stevenson's book does not place

Henry Jekyll in the role of hero, reserving that position for Utterson. Instead, Stevenson seems to view Jekyll'sexperiment as a tragic but unnecessary event, because if man is

"truly two," then everyone faces innerbattles like Jekyll's each day, without sacrificing their lives for physiognomic transparency.

D. SEXUALIZING NARCISSUS

One of the most notable innovations in the Victorianmetamorp hosis ofNarcissus is his transfonnation into a symbol of homosexuality. In "On Narcissism," Freud notes that a narcissistic attitude is often a characteristic in other mental disorders, citing the example of homosexuality as a disorder often accompanied by narcissism (Freud 1981,

73). At the end of his essay, Freud briefly explores the possibility of using the ideal ego to understand group psychology. The ideal ego "binds not only a person's narcissistic libido, but also a considerable amount of his homosexual libido" (101). Homosexual libido is seen as a social displacement of the ego libido, as the desire for the self is

74 proj ected onto other members of the same sex. Tilis characterization of homosexuals as narc issists is a marked change fr om the "Narcissus-like tendency" described by Havelock

Ellis, which involves indifference to all sexual intercourse (Ellis 207). The seventeen years that separate Ellis's "Auto-erotism" from "On Narcissism" completely transform

Narcissus in thisaspect of sexual preference. However, as Steven Bruhm notes, the homosexual narcissist of Freud is the image that has persisted in Western popular

81 psychology, contlating homosexuality with egoism and mental delusion.

The Narcissus of Ovid's Me tamorphoses does not have any homosexual desire; he is instead characterized as rej ecting all sexual interaction. Although Narcissus' great beauty makes himthe object of desire for both men and women, he refuses all members of both sexes. Ovid expresses this absolute repudiation in an elegant mirroring of phrases:

multi ilium iuvenes, multae cupiere puellae I sed . .. I nulli ilium iuvenes, nullae tetigere puellae ("many youths and many girls desired him, but ... no youths and no girls touched

him," Me t. 3.353-5). While Narcissus' rej ection of Echo is recounted at length, he does not only avoid the company of women: his rejection of a male youth results in the curse

of unrequited love. Narcissus' alienation of both sexes is the quality that sets him apart from other Ovidian youths . After the death of Eurydice, Orpheus begins to reject women in favor of young men. Even Hermaphroditus, the youth who attempts to reject Salmacis, is described as being ignorant oflove, rather thancompletely averse to it. The total sexual unavailability of Ovid's Narcissus influences Ellis's defmition of a Narcissus-like tendency as a comparative indifference to sexual intercourse and a preference for the self.

As Steven Bruhm points out, however, Ovid is the first to add the Echo episode to the tale of Narcissus, thereby making the tale more sexually ambiguous than in previous

81 Bruhm 2001, 2.

75 versions, where Narcissus only rejects young men. 82 Ovid is clearly the source for the late

Victorian reception of Narcissus, but Freud's simpler view ofNarcissus' sexuality could almost be seen as a regression to pre-Ovidian accounts. It is clear, however, that Freud's branding of homosexuality as a narcissistic state is derived in part fr om the late Victorian transformations of Narcissus, exemplified in the characters of Dorian Gray and Henry

Jekyll.

In addition to the public fa scination with self-involved characters and authors, there was a great Victorian emphasis on the role that self-love plays in homosexuality.

Homosexuality was a subject at once taboo and romanticized in Victorian England. Oscar

Wilde's trials made him the most infamous homosexual in England, and gross indecency was still a punishable offense. Simultaneously, however, psychoanalysts like Ellis were investigating different kinds of sexual deviancy, replacing the label of "sin" with "mental illness" and "inversion." The term "homosexuality" is introduced into the English lexicon in 1892 by Charles Gilbert Chaddox's translation ofKrafft-Ebing's Psychopathia sexualis, a sign of increased attention to this particular fo rm of sexual inversion in the late

Victorian period. 83 Meanwhile, homosexual and homosocial relationships were being portrayed in literature, romanticized as a return to classical ideals.

The Victorian period, especially during thefin de steele, positioned itself in relation to the fall of the Roman Empire, engaging in an opulence reminiscent of that era.

The term "Decadence," one of the movements with which Wilde identified, is derived from the "decay" that occurred at the end of the Roman Empire - a decay of language and

82 lbid.,!2. 83 Ibid., 3.

76 morality that gave rise to aesthetic indulgence. 84 The Victorian Decadents saw the British

Empire as a power that, like Ancient Rome, had overextended itself andwas on the verge of collapse. Th e Picture of Dorian Grayboth satirizes and celebrates this state of decay and opulence, with its dandyish characters engaging in material, social, and sexual excesses. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll andMr. Hy de, with its creation of a depraved monster that terrorizes the streets of London, also observes the increasing decay of the era. Some writers, Wilde included, associate this Decadence with a reemergence of

Hellenic love, the "Love that dare not speak its name." Wilde celebrates this homosociality in both his works and trials, romanticizing his own sexual relationships as the purest fo rm oflove. Wilde champions Hellenic love in Dorian Gray, while also associating it with a kind of narcissistic self-absorption. Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr.

Hy de is more restrained in its allusions to homosexuality, but places its narcissistic characters in a fe male-less, homosocial society where they independently reproduce.

Stevenson infuses his novella with strong undercurrents of homoeroticism. The novella is striking in its utter and unspoken lack of females. Jekyll himself is seemingly unmarried, as are Utterson, Lanyon, and Poole. The lone female character is the maid who, "romantically given" (Stevenson 24) and staring out her window, witnesses Hyde's murder of Sir Danvers Carew. In the absence of other women, the men in the story develop close relationships with one another, none closer than that of Jekyll and Hyde.

Jekyll's creation of Hyde is an act of independent reproduction. He produces a being that

embodies the essence of himself, like a child, without the aid of a woman. To further

complicate the relationship that Jekyll has with his double, he describes Hyde as "knit

closer to him than a wife" (72). This spontaneously reproduced monster, Jekyll's

84 Dowling 1986, 85.

77 antagonist and worse half, is bound to Jekyll in a linkresembling both matrimony and childbirth. This association, apart from being a horrifying metaphor for marriage, makes

Jekyll's self-love and self-hatred not only autoerotic but also homosexual. Furthermore,

Jekyll's initial transformation into Hyde is described in terms suggestive of orgasm and sexual awakening. When Jekyll first drinks the potion, he experiences extreme pain and nausea; thisis quickly replaced by fe elings of euphoria, and "a current of disordered sensual images" (60) running through his head. He feels at once innocent and evil, completely liberated from his corporeal form through the assistance of this other man who has taken over his body. Enhancing the aggressive sexual nature of their relationship, Hyde is the embodiment of the primal male, hairy and bent on causing destruction. While Jekyll is first described as a virile model of a man, by the end of his life Hyde has reduced him to something weaker and more fe minine. Poole says that he hears Jekyll '"weeping like a woman or a lost soul"' (47) from inside his cabinet, presenting the two ways in wh ich the once-dominant personality of Jekyll has been degraded. Nevertheless, Jekyll is inextricably attached to Hyde, the undeniably male part of himself, coupled to this man to whom he must refer in the third person. Jekyll's narcissism becomes homoerotic with the displacement of his self-love onto a male double fo r himself.

In Stevenson's novella, homosexuality in an age of Decadence is simultaneously romanticized and demonized. Although the relationship between Jekyll and Hyde is ultimately destructive and abhorrent, the society in which Jekyll and his colleagues live is somewhat idyllic, removed from the company of women. Jekyll and Utterson are both described as upright examples of manhood, respectively "well made" (21) and "austere"

78 (7). The men of Stevenson's novella maintain close homosocial relationships withone another. The tone of these relationships is set in the opening pages, where Utterson and his friend Enfield take their customary Sunday walk, which they are known to place above all other engagements, "that they might enjoy them uninterrupted" (8). In later chapters, Jekyll hosts large parties of his male friends, where they presumably partake in fine wine and enjoy the company oflikeminded men. These dinner parties are unencumbered by female attendees, and, unlike Lord Henry of Dorian Gray, the men do not have an Aunt Agatha to distract them with gossip and undermine their grave pronouncements. These men are able to make important scientific discoveries without the burden of watchful wives. This world without women, though not without its dangers, is much simpler.

Although the men of ThePicture of Dorian Gray must contend with women in their lives, they succeed in creating oases ofhomosociality, removed from heterosexual interaction. In Basil's studio, in Lord Henry's library, in "a little private room at the

Bristol where dinner had been laid for three" (Wilde 71 ), the men can fo cus on themselves and each other, without the distraction of women. These rooms function as spaces of introspection, while also serving as settings for the observation of other men.

Acts oflooking are emphasized throughout the novel: Basil and Lord Henry's initial observations of Dorian, Dorian's observation of himself via his portrait, Basil's observation of Dorian's unchanged face, even Dorian's observation of his servant reflected in a mirror. These observations are all based on an admiration for aesthetics and a view of the male body as beautiful. The men of Dorian Gray are fr ee to admire one another, living in a paradise of Hellenic love before the backdrop of dreary London. The

79 ideal of this pure homosexual admiration is Basil Hallward, who fo cuses all of his love onto Dorian, taking him as a muse and protege. Basil mirrors Echo of the Narcissus narrative, who burns with an unrequited and unconsummated love for Narcissus, only supporting Narcissus' self-absorption and sexual alienation by echoing his words . Basil echoes Dorian, creating the portrait that fuels his self-love, and he only succeeds in driving Dorian away into the influence ofLord Henry. Basil is a homosexual in the mold to which Wilde aspired, a fatherly artist who, like Michelangelo, fo sters a supportive and loving relationship with his subject. Basil is not, however, a Narcissus. Dorian, in his eternal youth and beauty, creates the lasting model of the narcissistic homosexual.

Dorian's sexuality, like Narcissus', is complicated. He proclaims to love Sibyl

Vane and has affairs with many women, like the Duchess of Momnouth. His attachment to Sibyl, however, seems to be based on a combination of his own aesthetic ideals and her flexibly gendered persona onstage. The first time that Dorian sees Sibyl, she is playing

Juliet, and he is bewitched by her voice and her "small Greek head" (50); the first time that he talks to her, she hasjust fm ished playing Rosalind, who for most of As Yo u Like It is disguised as Ganymede, the young boy who is the object of Zeus' homosexual desire.

Sibyl's ability to play many different roles, and play them well, is what attracts Dorian.

When Sibyl eschews the role-playing of the theatre for the real love "of which all art is but a reflection" (84), she fa ils Dorian's projected ideal of theatrical perfection and he abandons her.

In addition to his rej ection of Sibyl, Dorian almost certainly has a homosexual relationship with Lord Henry, who lavishes compliments and advice upon Dorian in exchange for utter devotion. This relationship, however, is based on Lord Henry's and

80 Dorian's mutual self-love, rather than anytrue love for each other. Dorian seesLord

Henry as a mirror, able "to reveal him to himself' (23). Dorian becomes dependent on

Lord Henry for self-affirmation. Likewise, Lord Henry fashions Dorian into a mirror of himself, fe eding him theories of selfhood, love, and aesthetics, until Dorian grows to resemble Lord Henry. Dorian begins to make intriguing and paradoxical statements like

Lord Henry, imitating the latter's aura of mystique: "I didn't say I liked it, Harry. I said it fascinated me. There is a great difference" (122). Dorian also takes on Lord Henry's callousness and his indifference to women, shunning Sibyl and treating all others disdainfully. These double Narcissi rej ect the love of others in favor of the self-love that they engender in one another. Their narcissism is enforced by a homosexual relationship, although this relationship does not seem to derive from the ego-libido, as Freud hypothesizes. Rather, this mutually supported self-love helps create an important group dynamic, allowing for those homosocial spaces in which men may admire the aesthetics of themselves and each other.

Wilde's widely publicized trials and his resulting infamy likely cemented the popular notion of homosexual men as effeminate, self-absorbed dandies. Although Wilde preferred to cast himself as a Basil Hallward, in reality his lifestyle resembled those of

Dorian and Lord Henry. He exploited working-class young men fo r sexual favors, acts that wildly contrasted with the Hellenic love that he proclaimed to practice.8 5 Through his trials, Wilde came to light as an exploitative, self-serving fop, the law's worst nightmare of a homosexual man. Wilde had also used the preface to Dorian Gray to proclaim his lack of morality in favor of aesthetics. He positions himself as a Narcissus, as he does

Dorian, an aesthete intent on self-promotion, who sees in himself the ideal of what every

85 Kaye 2007, 61.

81 artist should be. Wilde and the characters in his novel, in their position of power and publicity, become the prototype of the Victorian homosexual, a tropethat pervades later reception of Narcissus, bolstered by Freud's "On Narcissism."

The character of Narcissus was defrnitively metamorphosed by "On Narcissism," a paper that has directly led us to invoke his name to describe our "narcissistic" self­ absorbed peers andflamboyant homosexuals. It is this casual invocation that is most remarkable; very few mortal characters from classical mythology survive in our modern era, which is so divorced from literature and the natural world that it helps us to understand, but Narcissus is practically a household name. This vernacular usage of

"narcissism" in popular psychology is due in part to the Victorians, who burdened

Narcissus' name with their own contemporary preoccupations about the self. Many elements of Narcissus' reception in Victorian literature can be fo und in "On Narcissism," where Freud provides a psychological diagnosis for the self-regarding, fragmented, homosexual incarnations of Narcissus that inhabit the pages of The Picture of Dorian

Gray and the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hy de, symbols of Aesthetic and

Decadent London. But "On Narcissism" is not only an introduction to Freud's new findings on the subject. In the major tenets that the paper uses to define "narcissism," it is a reflection of the surface aspects of Narcissus displayed in Victorian literature, and it is a reflecting pool into which Western culture has fallen in its subsequent reception of the character.

82 IV. The Reflective Surface of Waterhouse's Echo and Narcissus

From Philostratus' description of his invented painting ofNarcissus to Alberti's assertion ofNarcissus as the "inventor of painting," Narcissus' relationship to art and the artist hasprovided rich material for painting and its criticism. Narcissus demonstrates the

intense allure of mimetic images and presents an allegory of the artist's search for himself. Narcissus' transformation into a flower reflects the transformation of form upon

self-realization, the act of creating art. Pictures of Narcissus have always proposed a

86 "triangulation of viewing," as the viewer observes Narcissus observing himself. The viewer has the option of identifying with Narcissus or with Echo, the character that is self-regarding or the character that is externally infatuated. Narcissus has not only transformed the way that we view self-love and mental health; he has also been a prominent figure in art, reflected in both the art obj ect and its artistic creator. The fresco

ofNarcissus from Pompeii and Caravaggio's Narcissus of 1597 are important images in our visual culture, not only because they are artistic masterpieces, but also because they

are art about art, meditations on the artistic impulse and the act of observation.

Within this larger context of Narcissus-focused Western art, Narcissus is

conspicuously absent from British art of the mid- to late nineteenth century. In 1848, the

Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was fo unded, and steered the British avant-garde away from

Renaissance and classicizing influences, turning instead to medieval art and Arthurian romance fo r inspiration. Inthis gesture, the Pre-Raphaelites attempted to return to nature

87 and authentic emotions and ideas. Edward Burne-Jones and John William Waterhouse,

86 Elsner 2000, 102. 87 Hilton 1970, 33.

83 painters of theAesthetic movement, were the stylistic inheritors of the Pre-Raphaelites.

They adhered to Pre-Raphaelite stylistic aspirations but integrated this style with classical subjects and an Aestheticizing lens. Aestheticism was the movement of "art for art's sake": Aesthetic artists concerned themselves with surface qualities in art, eschewing

88 moral considerations in favor of pleasing aesthetics. While the Pre-Raphaelites, according to the painter John Everett Millais, hadthe goal of turning "the minds of men to good reflections," the Aesthetic painters did not have such lofty moral intentions for

8 their art. 9 In this retreat from Romantic spirituality, the Aesthetic inheritors of the Pre-

Raphaelite style also seemed to be more willing to integrate classical influences, no longer seeing them as forces of corruption. Waterhouse's art, especially, demonstrates a returnclassical to themes in a new context of "art for art's sake." It is in Waterhouse's oeuvre that we find a revival of the Narcissus theme and a novel modernization of the

Ovidian tale, specifically, in his work of 1903, Echo and Narcissus (fig. 1).

Waterhouse's thematic interests andunusual use of source material make the figure of Narcissus an obvious candidate for depiction in his art. Water is a major thematic thread for Waterhouse and appears in his paintings at every stage of his career.

The Lady of Shalott (1888) (fig. 2) is based on Tennyson's 1842 poem about a lady who goes into the outside world for the first time in a boat that she kuows will bring her to her death. In Waterhouse's painting of The Lady of Shalott, water is a vehicle to death, while also representing the opening of the world to a closed mind. Hy las and the Ny mphs

(1896) shows a GTeek youth being abducted by water nymphs, who are all depicted as generalized, uniform ideals of beauty. They surround the figure ofHylas, who is shown

88 We have seen these sentiments about art and morality articulated in Wilde's preface to Dorian Gray. 89 Hilton 1970, 54.

84 with his back to viewer, and pull himinto the water, allowing the viewer to be likewise

drawn into this erotic fa ntasy of danger. Here, water is an alluring and dangerous vacuum, associated with the sexualized feminine. 90 As water is the main source of conflict in Narcissus' story, Waterhouse's depiction of Echo and Narcissus obviously includes Narcissus' pool, a stream that runs between the two figures and holds the real object of Narcissus' desire.

The other consistent theme throughout Waterhouse's oeuvre is Ovid. Waterhouse frequently uses stories fromthe Me tamorphoses as inspiration for his paintings, demonstrating an interest in classical Rome that many biographers tend to trace to his birth in Rome and visit to Pompeii as a young man.91 However, as Elizabeth Prettejohn notes, Waterhouse does not fo llow these narratives closely, instead choosing one moment to dramatize and modernize in anEnglish context.92 In Echo and Narcissus, Waterhouse pinpoints a unique moment in the Ovidian narrative and explores its aesthetic and psychoanalytical potential through his vivid pictorial dramatization.

Waterhouse's Echo and Narcissus depicts the moment where Echo sadly observes

Narcissus as he stares at his reflection inthe pool, wasting away. Ovid describes this unequal exchange oflooks toward the end of the Narcissusnarrative (Met. 3.493-8):

nee corpus remanet, quondam quod amaverat Echo. quae tamen ut vidit, quamvis irata memorque, indoluit, quotiensque puer miserabilis 'eheu' dixerat, haec resonis iterabat vocibus 'eheu';

Nor does the body, which Echo had once loved, remain. However, when she saw this thing, although angry and still remembering, she grieved, and

90 Water as a representation of the sexualized feminine is a recurring theme in Waterhouse, and it can also be seen in his paintings Circe lnvidiosa (1892), The Siren (1900), and The Mermaid (1901). 91 See also Circe lnvidiosa (1892), Ariadne (1 898), Ny mp hs Finding the Head of Orpheus (1900), Jason and Medea (1907), and Thisbe (1909). 92 Prettejohn 2008, 31.

85 as many times as the wretched boy hadsaid, "Alas," the girl was repeating, "Alas," with a resounding voice.

Narcissus' attenuating body parallels the fate of Echo's, which has wasted away until she is nothing but a voice. Waterhouse, however, has chosen to give Echo a body, which is placed in the foreground of the painting, drawing the viewer's attention. In Ovid's text,

Narcissus' 'eheu' addresses his reflection, thereby becoming a self-address, while Echo's

'e heu' is outward. Ovid also self-consciously places Echo's "echo" in the same position as

Narcissus' exclamation, at the end of the line, making her a mediator between Narcissus' solipsism and the reader. Echo seems to function in a similar role in Waterhouse's painting, her body turned outward toward the viewer as her head looks over her shoulder to observe Narcissus male sanus. The direction of Echo's gaze leads the viewer's eye to

Narcissus, lying prone on the ground and gazing at his reflection in the pool. The two figures are separated by this pool, which Waterhouse has transformedinto a stream, a body of water that both separates two sides and moves from one point to another. The triangulation of viewing has been augmented by Echo, who removes the viewer one degree farther away from Narcissus. These issues of water and viewing relationships are essential to understanding this painting in its Aesthetic context.

Despite the apparent resonances between the character of Narcissus and the artistic themes importantto Waterhouse, Echo and Narcissus occupies an anomalous place in Waterhouse's oeuvre. Waterhouse's paintings are overwhelmingly devoted to female subjects: Waterhouse seems to have been fascinated by fe mmes fa tales, a

93 fascination consistent with the interests of his Pre-Raphaelite predecessors. Waterhouse features a dangerous woman in many of his earlier works, including Circe lnvidiosa

93 Ibid., 31.

86 (1892), La Belle Dame Sans Merci (1893), and TheSiren (1900). When he is not exploring the violent potential of women, Waterhouse portrays their fe elings of melancholy, as in The Ladyof Shalott (1888) and Op helia (1889). Even when men figure in Waterhouse's paintings, they are often secondary to the role that the women play, seducing or mourning them (see, for example, Ny mphs Finding the Head of Orpheus

[1900]). In his single-figure paintings, the subject is nearly always a woman, with the one notable exception being the early Remorse of the Emperor Nero af ter the Murder of his

Mother (1878), fe aturing a prone and laurel-wreathed figure not dissimilar to the later depiction of Narcissus.

Echo and Narcissus both complies with and defies these conventions that

94 Waterhouse has set for his paintings. As we have seen, the central conflict in the

Ovidian tale of Narcissus is that between Narcissus and his reflection, caused by the confusion of the reflecting pool. By definition, Echo's role in this narrative is secondary: she can only respond to the words of others by echoing them, and her actions have no

5 consequences other than for her own fate of bodily deterioration. 9 By depicting the story of Narcissus, Waterhouse departs from the female-based storylines of his earlier paintings and those of other Pre-Raphaelite and Aesthetic painters. He does, however, fo reground the fe male Echo in this rendition of the story. In classic Waterhouse fashion, he has chosen a particular moment to inflate and dramatize, a moment that is not necessarily in the spirit of the rest of the narrative. The effect of Echo's literal foregrounding, rather than assigning more importance to her relationship with Narcissus, is to emphasize the

94 This simultaneous adherence to and defiance of authorial paradigms is also seen in the story of Narcissus. For my previous discussion of this phenomenon, see pp. 33-4, above. 95 For my previous discussion of Echo's verbal reflections, see pp. 18-9, above.

87 complexity of the two relationships in thestory, both of which are based on the act of viewing.

Although Narcissus is a figure of utmost importance in Victorian literature and psychoanalysis, he is surprisingly absent in the art of the same period, as previously noted. None of the great Pre-Raphaelites paint Narcissus, and even after Wilde and Ellis revive the character of Narcissus as a decadent aesthete in the world of literature, he fails to make many explicit appearances in Victorian visual culture. MartinDanahay argues that for Victorian, the myth of Pygmalion replaces that ofNarcissus; by displacing vanity onto the fe male creation of the artist, Pygmalion offers a way to depict one's own "illicit narcissism" while stillretaining one's rnasculinity.96 Danahay is referring mainly to Pre-

Raphaelite painters, with an emphasis on Dante Gabriel Rossetti, but his argumentseems also to hold true fo r the work of Waterhouse. Indeed, Waterhouse's firstpainting that deals with material from Ovid's Me tamorphoses is the now-lost Pygmalion and the Statue

(1873).97 In this early painting, Waterhouse perhaps acknowledges his Pre-Raphaelite predecessors' preference for Pygmalion as a subject, while also exploring the theme of man's self-expression through the creation of art. Waterhouse's later painting of

Narcissus, then, is a returnto more classical themes in its depiction of masculine, rather thanfe minine, vanity, andit also might respond to the more recent movements in literature and psychoanalysis dealing with Narcissus. As we willsee, the depiction of

Narcissus' pool and themultiple viewing relationships create a canvasthat replicates the effects of the pool, deepening psychoanalytical understanding while limiting access to the object portrayed in its depths.

96 Danahay 1994, 35. 97 Trippi 2002, 6.

88 Inhis painting, Waterhouse depicts Narcissus' pool as a frame that both expands and limits its subj ect's world. This is a property of the Ovidian pool that is an inevitable extension of the optical properties discussed in the first chapter. In exploring this dual nature of reflective surfaces, Waterhouse is also responding toRomantic views on mirrors and water, best articulated in Tennyson's poem, "The Lady of Shalott," which was briefly referenced earlier in this chapter. This poem, written in 1842, is a Romantic revival of Arthurian romance, telling the story of a cursed lady living in the time of King

Arthur. The Lady of Shalott lives on an island in the middle of a river that leads to

Camelot. She is confined to her castle, and a mysterious curse cast upon her prevents her from looking directly at the outside world: instead, she must see it through a mirror placed beside her loom, where she weaves the images that she sees. When she sees

Lancelot riding past in her mirror, she turns to look through the window and steps into a boat inscribed with her name. The boat carries her down the river to Camelot, and by the time she arrives there she is dead. The poem contemplates the conflicting benefits of creating reflective art and living in the real world.

In Tennyson's poem, the property of reflection has the effect of expanding the world: it doubles the objects placed before it. This is demonstrated by the Lady of

Shalott's mirror, which provides her access to the outside world before she can physically experience it, and by the river that carries her to Camelot. In his 1888 The Lady of Shalott

(fig. 2), Waterhouse explores this expanding role of water. The river that flows to

Camelot does limit the Lady's world; she is stranded on an island that is separated fr om the rest of the world. But this river also becomes the Lady's channel to the outside world and her pathto death, as she floats away from the island in a boat.

89 Waterhouse places this Arthurian body of water in an Ovidian context in Echo and Narcissus, transforming Narcissus' pool into a stream that expands his world and will metaphorically carry him to his death. Again, water naturally expands the world by virtue of doubling the objects placed above and before it. It is notable, however, that Ovid himself never describes anything besides Narcissus being reflected in the surface of the pool, and it is not made explicit whether Narcissus' whole visible world is actually duplicated or if the pool only reflects his own figure. In Waterhouse's painting, however, he shows the rock that Narcissus leans over reflected in the pool, alluding to an environment that is completely replicated in the pool's surface. The world of the painting is expanded, as the viewer can see Narcissus' look of deep concentration through the wide eyes shown inthe pool's surface. Indeed, the surface of the pool in Waterhouse's painting hasnot only the ability to reflect, but also to invent. Narcissus' entire left hand is displayed in the reflection, even though the angle of his real hand would seem to make this reflection impossible. In emphasizing the expanding properties of water, Waterhouse also conflates Narcissus' pool with the Stygian waters mentioned at the end of the

Ovidian Narcissus episode, which continue to hold Narcissus' reflection even inhis death. Water is a vehicle that provides extended access to both life and death.

Narcissus' reflective pool, through its finite scope and its property of fo cusing diffraction, also limits the world that Narcissus sees. Waterhouse depicts this limiting frame masterfully, showing a pool that is clearly delineated by sharp rocks, ratherthan bleeding into the world around it. Narcissus gazes at his reflection intently, alienating both Echo and the viewer. Echo is out of the reflecting pool's range, limiting the world depicted in the pool to Narcissus' own reflection and certain elements of the natural world

90 around him(such as the rock that supports Narcissus' weight). The pool's frame not only has the effect of limiting the world shown in its depths, but also of limiting the real world that exists outside the fr ame. Waterhouse's depiction of Narcissus' position, which occludes his entire body from view, stands in opposition to Poussin's much earlier painting of Echo and Narcissus (c. 1629) (fig. 3). In that painting, Narcissus lies on his side and gazes over his shoulder at his reflection, exposing his entire muscular torso to the viewer, who may partake in the same beauty that Narcissus sees in the pool. In

Waterhouse's painting, Narcissus' absorption with his own reflection results in a solipsistic world that alienates all others. Waterhouse has also borrowed the theme of limiting reflective surfaces fromTennyson, which he illustrates in his second version of

The Lady of Shalott (1894) (fig. 4). In Tennyson's poem, the Lady's mirror is perfectly clear, yet what it reflects is somehow lesser than real life, mere shadows of the world

(Tennyson 9- 10):

And moving through a mirror clear That hangs before her all the year, Shadows of the world appear.

"I am half sick of shadows," said The Lady of Shalott.

In Waterhouse's painting, the Lady is shown in the moment that she turns away from her loom to face the outside world, which is also the world outside the painting itself: the world of the viewer. She is twisted up in the yarn from her loom, showing her imprisomnent on Shalott, and it is revealed that the tapestry shows scenes that share the circular shape of the mirror, as if the Lady's world up until this point has been confmed to the frame of a circle. These reflected views through the mirror are also inferior to the real world because they are two-dimensional. The Lady is only able to live (and then die)

91 when she experiences thefull depth ofthe world, experiencing her surroundings by moving through them instead of seeing them in a picture.

Tennyson's poem is a testament to the superiority of reality over art, claiming that the real world offers more tangible sensations and dangers thanare possible in two­ dimensional art; Ovid's story ofNarcissus asserts the opposite. In the Me tamorphoses, it is the very two-dimensional quality ofNarcissus' pool that prompts overpowering emotion and deep understanding through its reflectivity and diffraction. This emphasis on the transformative surface reappears almost two millennia later, in the philosophy of

Aesthetic artists. In its insistence on a distinction between aesthetics and morality,

Aestheticism is interested most of all in the separation between life and art, between depth and surfac e, which is also the primary conflict in the Narcissus narrative. One of the ways in which Waterhouse separates life and art, according to Prettej ohn, is by creating entirely new fantasy worlds for his paintings; worlds that have their own logic, where things are at once ordinary and supematural.98 One could qualifY this statement by pointing out that a Waterhouse painting is not actually a manifestation of a whole imaginary world, but rather a moment with all the qualities of a real world; like the mise en scene of a play, the "world" of the painting exists to lend an atmosphere of reality. The moments captured on the surface of Waterhouse's paintings hint at a world beneath, but like Narcissus' pool, they are not backed by real substance. Waterhouse's paintings are mere art, not worlds unto themselves, but Waterhouse understands the affective potential of the two-dimensional surface. InEcho and Narcissus, he uses this potential to make the viewer meditate on the nature of surface beauty and the act of viewing, makingthe canvas a pool that reflects Aesthetic sensibilities.

98 Prettejohn 2008, 23.

92 Waterhouse's treatment ofEcho and Narcissus involves the viewer in a relationship governed by multiple refractions, which links the viewer, Echo, Narcissus, and his reflection. As previously noted, Echo complicates the "triangulation of viewing" proposed by Jas' Elsner: she acts as a buffer between the viewer and Narcissus, especially in her place in the fo reground of Waterhouse's painting. The way in which Echo views

Narcissus is also very different from the way in which Narcissus views his reflection. In

Ovid, Narcissus' gaze isolates himself and his reflection from the outside world: adstupet ipse sibivultuque inmotus eodem I haeret ut e Pario fo rmatum marmore signum ("he is astonished at himself and he clings to the same fa ce, immobile as a statue formed from

Parian marble," 3.420-1 ). Narcissus views his reflection to the exclusion of the outside world, wh ile Echo views Narcissus through her environment. Echo's gaze is directed completely outward, and in contrast to Narcissus' stasis, she moves through nature in order to reach the object of her gaze: ergo ubi Narcissum per devia rura vagantem I vidit et incaluit, sequitur vestigiafu rtim ("therefore when she saw Narcissus wandering throughthe lonely fields and she burned with love, she fo llowed his fo otsteps stealthily,"

Me t. 3.370-1). Furthermore, Echo is able to observe Narcissus' own act of viewing and fe el empathy towards him, sighing 'eheu. 'Waterhouse emphasizes this difference in viewing types through the positions of the two figures' bodies. Echo's body is turned out to face the viewer, and the twisting motion of her head implies movement. Narcissus' prone body fo rbids outside observation, and the viewer is not even able to see his eyes, which are only visible in the image of hisreflection. Narcissus has the self-involved gaze of an artist, who uses introspection to see himself on the flat surface of the canvas. Echo's gaze is comparable to that of the Victorian aesthete, who, like Oscar Wilde or his

93 fictional Lord Henry, admires objects for their beauty and would collect beautiful people just to be in the presence of beauty. While this gaze is ultimately self-benefitting, it is fo cused completely outward at the superficial world. Given this contrast in viewing types, it seems that the viewer is not meant to identifY strictly with either figure in the painting.

The viewer is removed from Narcissus' introspection by the outside observation of Echo, but also from Echo's outward gaze because the scope of the canvas offers a holistic perspective on her relationship with Narcissus. The viewer is not the self-involved artist or the worshipping aesthete; rather, the viewer is in a position to observe the relationship between the two figures. These multiple refractions have removed the viewer from emotional investment or identification. The flat canvas of Echo and Narcissus acts as a mirror of theAesthetic world, providing the Victorian viewer not with a confrontation of the self, but with a confrontation of art and beauty.

Waterhouse's painting is, in fact, not at all anomalous or out of step withthe

Victorian world. It might not initially appear this way : Waterhouse paints a male subj ect during a time when he depicts almost exclusively fe male subjects; he chooses to explore the character ofNarcissus rather than the psychologically analogous Pygmalion. Echo and Narcissus, however, is not a narrative about a man, nor is it a pure allegory for the self-involved artist. It examines the relationships between man and woman, between artist and aesthete, and views these relationships through the aestheticizing lens of the reflective surface that has always existed in the Narcissus narrative. Oscar Wilde's prose poem, "The Disciple" (1894), tells the story of Narcissus through the perspective of his pool ("The Disciple," 172-3):

94 When Narcissus died the pool of his pleasure changed from a cup of sweet waters into a cup of salt tears, and the Oreads came weeping through the woodland that they might sing to the pool and give it comfort. And when they saw that the pool had changed from a cup of sweet waters into a cup of salt tears, they loosened the green tresses of their hair and cried to the pool and said, 'We do not wonder that you should mourn in this manner for Narcissus, so beautiful was he.' 'But was Narcissus beautiful?' said the pool. 'Who should know that better than you?' answered the Oreads. 'Us did he ever pass by, but you he sought for, and would lie on your banks and look down at you, and in the mirror of your waters he would mirror his own beauty.' And the pool answered, 'But I loved Narcissus because, as he lay on my banks and looked down at me, in the mirror of his eyes I saw ever my own beauty mirrored.'

Waterhouse's painting endeavors to tell a story from the same perspective as Wilde's poem, capturing the dramatic moment of unreturned gazes in the flat surface of a reflecting pool and offering it to the viewer as a reflection of the real worl d. This reflection, however, has no depth; it is all drama and atmosphere. Nor is it "a cup of salt tears" that mourns the death of Narcissus. It is a thin layer of clear water between

Aesthetic fantasy and Aesthetic reality, divorced from emotion and morality, limiting perspective for the purpose of deepening understanding.

95 96 97 Afterword

In contemporary English and American popular culture, it is clear that Narcissus is alive and well in our books, movies, music, and social media. One of the most overt ways in which Narcissus has survived is through the popular psychological usage of

"narcissism." Freud posited that "primary narcissism" exists in everyone, and that instinctual self-love is not unusual. But excessive self-regard has in fact become celebrated in our post-Warhol era, where everyone is entitled to his or her fifteen minutes. Acutely self-aware, we now discover ourselves by clicking through pictures of us tagged on Facebook and grooming our online profiles so that we show the world the qualities that we love about ourselves. We apply the term "narcissistic" to politicians, actors, personal rivals - anyone whom we dislike and who flaunts his or her self-regard in an uncouth manner. Narcissism is self-consciously cultivated in every person who wishes to appear confident and well-adjusted, but the term still manages to be damning wherever it is applied explicitly.

But narcissism is the term that describes the psyche of the Victorian Narcissus, the pathology that explains his actions; what has happened to the character himself? The

Victorian Narcissus can be seen in our culture in two major manifestations. These two personae could be described as Wildean and Narrative. The Wildean Narcissus is an aestheticized, superficial amalgamation of the Ovid ian Narcissus, the Freudian narcissist, and Oscar Wilde himself. He is a character who cycles in and out of fa shion, but he is most often seen in music. David Bowie and Freddie Mercury are two notable Wildean

Narcissi of the 1970s and '80s, displaying their overdetermined self-regard in their live

98 perfonnances and song lyrics. Glam rock itself is a revival of Victorian aesthetics, embracing high heels and ruffles. The Wildean Narcissus is often queer and gender­ bending, and these two particular examples of the character write and perfonn songs for the sheer joy of it: "artfor art's sake," or "funfo r fun's sake." Just as Wilde and the

Aesthetics rej ect the seriousness of the Romantics for the enj oyment of superficiality, the

Wildean Narcissus in the '70s rej ects the sincerity of the protest song to go live Life on

Mars. Other musicians (all of whom, like Wilde, are really rock stars) who fit this mold include Prince and Lady Gaga.

Standing in opposition to the Wildean Narcissus is the Narrative Narcissus. The

Narrative Narcissus seems consciously to resist the influence of the Wildean Narcissus and his tendency to trivialize the Ovidian character. The Narrative Narcissus returns to the original story, attempting to harness the meaning contained there, often for the purpose of self-discovery. The Narrative Narcissus does not necessarily adhere to the narrative strictly; on the contrary, he often plays with it and transfonns it to reflect his own physical or mental reality. But while the WildeanNarc issus exists on the stage of popular culture, the Narrative Narcissus quietly resides in the halls of academia. An example of this figure is Seamus Heaney in his poem "Personal Helicon" (1966), the last in his collection Death of a Naturalist. Heaney transplants elements from the Ovidian story into his rural Irish childhood; the pure reflecting pool becomes a dark and muddy well that echoes "with a clean new music" (Heaney 44). The Narrative Narcissus attempts to be a fresh, personal take on the original character, but Ovidian reception is never fr ee from its antecedents. In its very rej ection of Victorian reception, the Narrative Narcissus acknowledges the existence and importance of this literature and art.

99 These two contemporary versions of Narcissus continue to play out the dual nature of water, which is an opposition of surface and depth. This has been a central fe ature of Narcissus' story since Ovid, and no doubt will remain important in his future reception. It is also unlikely that Narcissus will soon be free of his Victorian treatment.

The Victorians revived the aesthetics of antiquity because they knew they stood on the precipice of decay; as Americans, we are facing the end of our own empire, and we tum to Victorian aesthetics to deal with and escape from the fall. We self-consciously revive the Victorians to fo cus on ourselves, because we will persist even if our civilization breaks down. Looking to Narcissus' solipsism, which continues through his death, might actually be a way to find independence from the old habits of our empire and to discover, perhaps, some knowledge of ourselves.

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