Blasphemous Bodies: Transgressive Mortality As
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View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by University of Missouri: MOspace BLASPHEMOUS BODIES: TRANSGRESSIVE MORTALITY AS CULTURAL INTERROGATION IN ROMANCE FICTION OF THE LONG NINETEENTH CENTURY A DISSERTATION IN English and Religious Studies Presented to the Faculty of the University of Missouri-Kansas City in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY by LORNA ANNE CONDIT M.A., Northwest Missouri State University, 1992 B.A., Park University, 1990 Kansas City, Missouri 2011 ©2011 LORNA ANNE CONDIT ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BLASPHEMOUS BODIES: TRANSGRESSIVE MORTALITY AS CULTURAL INTERROGATION IN ROMANCE FICTION OF THE LONG NINETEENTH CENTURY Lorna Anne Condit, Candidate for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree University of Missouri-Kansas City, 2011 ABSTRACT The long nineteenth century was characterized by advances in medical, biological and technological knowledge that often complicated definitions of human life and blurred the lines between life and death. These changes impacted both beliefs and practices surrounding the human body and epistemological concepts relating to human nature and the cosmos. British fiction of the period participated in an interdiscursive tradition that was deeply informed by these discussions of the body. Romance writers in particular often engaged with these ideas in imaginative and innovative ways. Among the more provocative forms of engagement with these ideas is one that arises among romance writers who mingled new scientific knowledge with a iii popular tradition of physical immortality. These writers produced an array of texts treating a theme I have identified as “amortality”, a form of bodily immortality that is characterized by a transgression of death’s bounds either through artificial prolongevity or reanimation. These texts posit a normative standard of mortality, and the amortal characters—figures who have avoided or escaped the grave—are presented as disruptive and often destructive, their unnatural or “blasphemous” bodies locating them outside the bounds of the religious, medical and/or socio- political orthodoxy and allowing them to serve as a locus for social examination and critique. The Western cultural imagination has long found immortality an intriguing and problematic subject for exploration. Both idealized and horrific visions of immortality have served as a locus for reflecting, legitimating, and contesting cultural values. Amortality continues and complicates this tradition of immortality as a cultural signifier. Arguing that amortality or transgressive mortality serves to mark the limits of the permissible—socially, politically, medically or religiously—whether in order to reinforce and naturalize those limits or to illuminate them as arbitrary and unjust, I examine these characters and texts as participants in the social issues of the time. Using an eclectic combination of approaches, including literary close reading, genre analysis, feminist criticism, and post-colonial theory, I examine a range of canonical, moderately well-known and unfamiliar texts and authors. Texts examined include William Godwin’s St. Leon (1799), Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s Zanoni (1842), Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) and “The Mortal Immortal” (1833), Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) and Jewel of Seven Stars (1903), Jane Webb Loudon’s The iv Mummy! A Tale of the Twenty-Second Century (1827), H. Rider Haggard’s She (1887) and Ayesha: The Return of She (1904-5), and Ludwig Achim von Arnim’s Isabella of Egypt (1812). Despite the significance of embodied immortality as an imaginative construct, this aspect of romance fiction has been neglected or treated as a peripheral characteristic of the genre, adding to the uncanny effect of the texts, but without critical significance. My study attempts to rectify this oversight by demonstrating the prevalence of this motif throughout the period and its adaptability to a wide range of critical purposes. v APPROVAL PAGE The faculty listed below, appointed by the Dean of the School of Graduate Studies, have examined a dissertation titled “Blasphemous Bodies: Transgressive Mortality as Cultural Interrogation in Romance Fiction of the Long Nineteenth Century,” presented by Lorna Anne Condit, candidate for the Doctor of Philosophy degree, and certify that in their opinion it is worthy of acceptance. Supervisory Committee Jennifer Phegley, Ph.D., Committee Chair Department of English Gary Ebersole, Ph.D. Department of Religious Studies Jennifer Frangos, Ph.D. Department of English Lynda Payne, Ph.D. Department of History George Williams, Ph.D. Department of English University of South Carolina Upstate vi CONTENTS ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................. iii APPROVAL PAGE ...................................................................................................... vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .............................................................................................. vii Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION: INTIMATIONS OF AMORTALIY ........................................... 1 2. THE FLAWED IDEAL: IMMORTALITY, IRONY, IMPATIENCE AND THE CRITIQUE OF REVOLUTIONARY CHANGE ............................... 26 3. POSTHUMOUS LIVES: AMORTALITY AND THE PROBLEMS OF WOMANHOOD .................................................................. 93 4. ROMANCES OF THE FOURTH DIMENSION: AMORTALITY AND A POLITICS OF TIME .......................................................................... 148 5. LIVING WORDS: AMORTALITY, MATERIALISM AND HOMO LOGOS ............ 227 6. CONCLUSION: VIEWING THE TAPESTRY ...................................................... 284 REFERENCE LIST ...................................................................................................... 291 VITA ........................................................................................................................... 313 vii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank Dr. Jennifer Phegley, who has been my advisor and primary mentor throughout my doctoral program. Her help and guidance has been invaluable, and I hope I can live up to her example. I would also like to thank the other members of my committee, Dr. Gary Ebersole, Dr. Jennifer Frangos, Dr. Lynda Payne, and Dr. George Williams, for their support and commitment to my success. Although she was not able to continue on my committee, Dr. Daniella Mallinick also deserves thanks for her support of my work. My deepest thanks are due to my family, especially my wonderful mother; my friends; and my church family who supported me throughout the process of writing my dissertation, including offering encouragement when the project seemed overwhelming. Without them, I would never have made it through to the end. viii DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to the memory of three family members whose lasting impressions on my life are inestimable. To my grandmother, Izetta Mae Condit (1899-1998). Your independent spirit, endurance of hardship, and vibrant character were an inspiration to all of your grandchildren. Thank you. To my father, Harold Lloyd Condit (1918-1991). Your gentle manner, integrity, dedication to service, and ability to recognize the value in everyone you met remain my models for living. I am blessed to be your daughter. To my aunt, Beverly Larsen (1934-2011). Your gracious warm-heartedness embraced me even when we were miles apart. You showed me the best of being an aunt. Though you are no longer physically in my life, you will always be a part of me. Know that I will cherish your legacy and honor your memory. This dedication is a token of my pledge to do my best to fulfill your faith in me. ix CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION: INTIMATIONS OF AMORTALITY “Nothing was more difficult for me in childhood than to admit the notion of death as a state applicable to my own being. But it was not so much from feelings of animal vivacity that my difficulty came as from a sense of the indomitableness of the spirit within me. I used to brood over the stories of Enoch and Elijah, and almost to persuade myself that, whatever might become of others, I should be translated, in something of the same way, to heaven.” --William Wordsworth, 18071 From a purely biological standpoint, at least at the present, mortality is a given. At the time of conception, a process of cellular growth and division begins that, with time, inevitably succumbs to a process of cellular decay and death. For some individuals, this biological reality of death is the only reality. For others, like Wordsworth above, the idea of death as a (personal) ending is inconceivable; and immortality, variously conceived, is its “conquerer.” And for some, mortality and its partner/opponent immorality occupy a sort of conceptual fissure where biology, metaphysics and culture intermingle. Located at a central place in human experience, mortality and immortality offer an ideal locus for exploring and critiquing that experience. In Western society, the cultural imagination has long found immortality not only an intriguing but a problematic subject for exploration. At times, immortality has been portrayed as the pinnacle of human hopes and desires, while at others it has appeared as a monstrous perversion of the natural and/or divine order. It has been 1 From Wordsworth’s preface to “Ode: Intimations of Immortality.” 1 variously dream and nightmare, reward and punishment. From the Greek myth of Tithonous to the legend of the Wandering Jew to Christian