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(2015) Robert Louis Stevenson Within Imperial Precincts: a Study of Literary Boundaries and Marginalised Voices

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(2015) Robert Louis Stevenson Within Imperial Precincts: a Study of Literary Boundaries and Marginalised Voices Higgins, David George (2015) Robert Louis Stevenson within Imperial precincts: a study of literary boundaries and marginalised voices. PhD thesis. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/6414/ Copyright and moral rights for this thesis are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Glasgow Theses Service http://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] Robert Louis Stevenson within Imperial Precincts: A Study of Literary Boundaries and Marginalised Voices David George Higgins In the fulfilment of the degree of Ph.D. Department of Scottish Literature School of Critical Studies University of Glasgow 1st of June, 2015 1 Contents Abstract: Pages 3-4 Introduction: pages 5-9 Chapter One: Reading Stevenson- Beyond the Boundaries of Scottish Perspectives and Critical Receptions of Stevenson and Victorian Literature (Pages 10-32) Chapter Two: R.L. Stevenson and Marginalised Voices: ‘The Pentland Rising’, ‘Thrawn Janet’, ‘Father Damien’ and Weir of Hermiston. (Pages 33-53) Chapter Three: Treasure Island: Lost Voices of a Boyhood Adventurer (Pages 54-79) Chapter Four: The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde: Stevenson’s Imperial City Horror. (Pages 80-107) Chapter Five: The Master’s Wanderings: The Master of Ballantrae as novel of Transition. (Pages 108-132) Chapter Six: Scotland and the South Seas- ‘The Beach of Falesa’ and Catriona. (Pages 133-163) Chapter Seven: R.L. Stevenson, Joseph Conrad and Graham Greene: Partners in Colonial Fiction- ‘The Ebb Tide’, ‘Thrawn Janet’, Lord Jim and The Quiet American. (Pages 164-188) Chapter Eight: Changing perceptions of Stevenson on Film (Pages 189-213) Conclusion: Pages 214-219 Bibliography: Pages 220-228 Word Count: 92,610 2 Abstract: R.L. Stevenson within Imperial Precincts: A Study of Literary Boundaries and Marginalised Voices This thesis has two primary functions. Firstly, it seeks to challenge the prevailing critical under-rating of Stevenson’s fiction during much of the twentieth century. I aim to add fresh impetus to what are relatively recently established changing critical perceptions of the author, elevating Stevenson beyond the marginalised labelling of ‘adventure writer’, which had perennially pursued his work from his death in 1894. Secondly, it is my intention to consider the role of Stevenson as an early writer of embryonic anti-colonial literary responses to the imperial world, examining fiction which crossed literary as well as geographical boundaries and entered new precincts of a Victorian life which was dominated by the conquest of the globe. Primarily, this thesis considers, almost exclusively, Stevenson’s fiction. Some use is made of two essays, ‘The Pentland Rising’ (1866) and ‘Father Damian’ (1890), due to their usefulness in illustrating a clear link between Stevenson’s early and later writing in terms of his concerns for and sympathetic portrayals of marginalised voices. I am also aware of that the concerns of my thesis could have been taken further via the study of Stevenson’s non- fiction, particularly via his travel writing. I have, nonetheless, chosen to focus almost exclusively on the thematic concerns of marginalisation in his fiction, given the undervaluing of his work in relation to his status as a major writer who challenged and criticised matters of imperialism. For similar reasons, I have chosen not to examine extensively Stevenson’s responses to religion in his fiction. This could easily occupy a complete thesis in its own right, but I have limited my consideration of religious aspects to those of relevance to the treatment of marginalised voices and populations. I argue unambiguously that Stevenson can be regarded as a writer who constantly relates to marginalised populations and individuals, seen in his Scottish fiction, his adventure stories, and that of a writer at a source of imperial life in the South Seas. Stevenson’s concerns for the marginalised emerge when he considers the violent past of Scotland, with his strong focus on the aftermath of the Jacobite rebellion. I have deliberately chosen not to focus extensively on Kidnapped (1886) in my consideration of the author’s responses to Culloden but have instead subjected the sequel Catriona (1893) to close scrutiny, while referring to the earlier texts when required. Kidnapped has already been subjected to much critical discussion elsewhere; Catriona less so. And the study of the later novel takes into account the context of Stevenson’s South Seas residency and the impact this had upon his perceptions of Scottish 3 history and the plight of marginalised voices. Of the author’s South Seas fiction, as this thesis also considers in detail, Stevenson’s sharp critique of the imperial project is written from his own colonial experience. I argue that Stevenson’s response to Scotland’s post- Culloden landscape was sharpened and enhanced by his experiences when in exile in Samoa. But, as demonstrated in chapter three, there is evidence of a colonially critical approach to be found even in his early adventure novel, Treasure Island (1881) For the purposes of this thesis the term precincts is selected for its connotations of geographical boundaries and areas, both of which apply to the experiences of Stevenson’s career. There are several sharply contrasting precincts identified in this thesis: the precincts of the Scottish past; the island precincts of the author’s earliest novel, Treasure Island; the imperial precincts of London, the centre of the imperial project seen in The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) and the overtly colonial precincts of Stevenson’s South-Seas fiction. I focus closely on Stevenson’s literary responses towards the Imperial Precincts of his existence and marginalised voices of oppressed cultures and populations, both in the Scotland he left behind and beyond its borders and boundaries. I also aim to prove that these seemingly different elements of Stevenson’s life- Scotland and the South Seas- are inextricably linked, with his exile making a profound impact upon concerns about the marginalised already evident in his earliest writings. 4 Introduction Robert Louis Stevenson has been one of the most elusive writers in the English language. Conventional critical approaches generally look for a degree of categorisation: to feel comfortable with an author a label is considered necessary. […] We think we know him. Yet he has elicited a variety of evasive responses from serious readers: coy praise, effusive keenness, puzzled irritation, reluctant acknowledgement. And even in the case of praise and enthusiasm there has often been a dismissive element, which has come sometimes from those who have been content to accept his curious, tributary position in British literature without much enquiry.1 So wrote Jenni Calder as editor of Robert Louis Stevenson and Victorian Scotland (1981), a critical collection inspired by an academic symposium in Edinburgh. This important volume marks a clear turning point in what had, as I shall show, previously been a repetitive series of complacent and severely limited critical responses to Stevenson. With some occasional exceptions, such a low-level of assessment had become part of an accepted view of the author. Literally, he became subject to critical boundaries, rendering him no more than a talented boys’ adventure writer, a position which remained virtually unchallenged through most of the twentieth century. Chapter one addresses the nature of criticism directed at Stevenson in the first half of the twentieth century, where initially intrigued and curious reviews of his work in the late nineteenth century were eventually surpassed by a succession of complacent assumptions which relegated both Stevenson and Scottish literature in general to the margins of literary seriousness. This chapter is not concerned with reading Stevenson directly but is instead an examination of the responses of critics to the readings of Stevenson which have been made public. In short, this chapter sets up my argument that Stevenson was one of the first authors to address seriously the effects of colonialism via fiction. I argue that Stevenson was an anti- colonial writer at the heart of the colonial process, writing from the colonised South Seas. In particular, I am indebted to Paul Maixner for his collation of contemporary Victorian criticism, where the distinctly different nature of Stevenson’s work seemed to unsettle the definitions of the genre which encapsulated the Victorian era: the Adventure novel, with its sense of exotic travel and territorial and material gain. I also consider three strands of twentieth-century criticism: from F.R. Leavis comes damnation by virtual omission; and from within Scotland itself, a distinct relegating of Stevenson to the margins of serious Scottish 1 Jenni Calder, Stevenson and Victorian Scotland (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1981) p.1 5 literature for most of the first half of the twentieth century. The third element is the critical break-through which emerged in tandem with an undoubted renaissance of Scottish literature, and responses to literary tradition and heritage, developing, as I shall demonstrate, from the early 1980s and beyond. Chapter two traces the progress of Stevenson’s pre-occupation with the fate of the marginalised, examining his earliest published essay ‘The Pentland Rising’ (1866) where his concern for the lost voices of the past is first heard. This theme is extended in my examination of the short story ‘Thrawn Janet’ (1881), a key section of Weir of Hermiston (1896) and a short non-fictional example, Stevenson’s letter on ‘Father Damien’ (1890) where the fate of the marginalised in society is taken to the extremes of a leper colony in a colonial, South Seas setting.
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