Blakean Monstrosity in Alan Moore's Graphic Novels
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ARTICLE https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-020-0451-2 OPEN ‘Terrible monsters Sin-bred’: Blakean monstrosity in Alan Moore’s graphic novels ✉ M. Cecilia Marchetto Santorun 1 ABSTRACT William Blake’s illuminated books are full of depictions of the monstrous, like Orc’s or Urizen’s metamorphoses, bestial figures such as the Leviathan in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (c. 1790–1793), and the masses of blood and flesh appearing in The Book of 1234567890():,; Urizen (1794). In contrast to eighteenth-century discourses in which moral virtue and monstrosity were polar opposites, Blake’s universe is more complex and presents an ambivalent attitude towards revolution and social transgression embodied in the monstrous. The meanings of the monstrous in Blake are associated with evil in his works, where it can be understood as released or repressed energies, two types which correspond, respectively, to liberation or alienation. Via countercultural influence, Blakean antinomianism filtered down to Alan Moore, for whom the notion of evil depends on perspectives; thus, in Moore, the socially unacceptable can appear as monstrous, but monstrosity is also a mode through which to make visible the oppressive order that defines transgression as such. This article will discuss Blake and Moore’s use of visual and verbal aesthetics to identify as monstrous characters like Satan, Urizen and Orc in Blake and William Gull, Asmodeus and Cthulhu in Moore to pinpoint the meanings that underlie them and how the direct or indirect Blakean influence operates in Moore’s works. This will contribute to trace changes in their meanings as they pass from signifying energy to tyranny, from unfallenness to fallenness, or from conventional to visionary perception. This exploration will also show the changes in their mode of repre- sentation, contributing to understand the peculiarities of the Gothic side of Moore’s con- struction of Blakean vision. To do this, a series of parallels found in several examples from Alan Moore’s graphic novels will be analysed, especially Swamp Thing (1984–1987), where the hero is a vegetable–human hybrid; From Hell (1989–1998), where the villain acts as both mad scientist and monster in his perverse endeavour to violently reshape female desire to his will; Promethea (1999–2005), where a divine emanation is perceived as a threatening devil by opposing fundamentalists; and finally the horrible entities in Neonomicon (2010–2011) and Providence (2015–2017). 1 Research Group Discourse and Identity (D431C 2019/01, Regional Government of Galicia), Department of English and German Philology, Universidade de ✉ Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Spain. email: [email protected] PALGRAVE COMMUNICATIONS | (2020) 6:91 | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-020-0451-2 | www.nature.com/palcomms 1 ARTICLE PALGRAVE COMMUNICATIONS | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-020-0451-2 A literary genealogy of the monstrous: introduction Shaub, 2018: pp. 64–67). Bindman points out that the subjects of he meaning of contemporary figurations of the monstrous Blake’s early historical drawings inspire resistance against tyranny Thas its roots in past avatars of monstrosity. As the his- and revolution, an attitude that influenced later engravings like torical and socio-political concerns that shape these Glad Day (1803–1810) (Bindman, 1973: pp. 44–45). Although representations and determine their meanings mutate and fluc- Gothic has been associated with a conservative turn in Blake, tuate, new meanings emerge. These contain fossilised remnants of recent critics like David Baulch have discussed his more radical anxieties derived from old cultural dilemmas, but also new layers concept of Gothic (2018: pp. 33–34). The monstrous Gothic of implications added on due to new historical events. In this figures that represent patriarchal oppression stand out as one of article, I will analyse a selection of passages from Alan Moore’s the examples of the critical potential of the Gothic. A famous case graphic novels and argue for a Blakean reading of these in order is Montoni in Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794); to bring out the elements derived from William Blake Blake also created monstrous patriarchal mythological figures to (1757–1827). criticise what he saw as an ideology of monarchical rule, state Through these analyses and the identification of common religion and war. Gothic elements, this article will focus on the parallels between Antiquarianism, especially Northern Antiquities, a 1770 the Gothic and monstrous metamorphosis and grotesque1 ima- translation of PH Mallet’s study, and James Macpherson’s gery, as metaphors derived from their preoccupations with the pseudo-bardic ‘Ossian’, which celebrated a native rather than changeable nature of perceptions, the dismantling of ideological classical epic tradition, made a strong impression on Blake. The notions of morality, and the combination of imaginative and attraction for a Gothic medieval aesthetics was felt in architecture political freedom and revolution. Identifying similarities and as well, where there was an obsession to imitate the style in new differences in the parallels will help define Moore’s construction buildings (Punter and Byron, 2004: p. 9), an extravagant example of Blake as an artistic predecessor whose construct reflects mainly being the medieval-inspired castle the antiquarian Horace Wal- reverence and inspiration. pole had built at Strawberry Hill (p. 10). Similarly, Gothic ele- The association between Blake and Alan Moore (1953–) stems ments influenced eighteenth-century painters, many of whom primarily from the authors’ common choice of a medium that foregrounded the visual expression of passion and irrational combines the visual and the verbal. By virtue of this association, psychological states (p. 36), which often translated into mon- Blake is often especially admired in the realm of comic book art. strous and fantastical rather than naturalistic forms and figures. Alan Moore’s oeuvre is teeming with numerous intertextual Henry Fuseli, a formative influence and friend of Blake, exem- allusions, quotations and visual references to Blake, not to men- plified this tendency and made art inspired in non-classical tion the fact that he composed a performance piece about the mythologies, including monstrous imagery, such as Thor Bat- Lambeth poet, called Angel Passage (2000).2 Moore himself has tering the Midgard Serpent (1790). often spoken in interviews about his interest in Blake and his Blake himself was highly invested in the Gothic across his works (see Whitson, 2006), and he is often considered today an career, from sketching and engraving Gothic monuments in ambassador of Blakean poetics, judging by his recently published Westminster as an apprentice to James Basire (Bentley, 2004: pp. afterword to the catalogue of the latest (and one of the greatest) 16–17; Baulch, 2018: p. 36), through writing his own Gothic Blake exhibitions, held at Tate Britain (London), which he centres poetry (such as ‘Fair Elenor’ (1783)), illustrating graveyard poets around Blake’s The Ghost of a Flea. Moore’s use of Blakean such as Edward Young and Robert Blair, and adopting Gothic references to explore the topic of evil, to revisit literary tradition, modes and scenery in Jerusalem (1804–c.1820). Among his first to defend a redemptive and imaginative concept of sexuality and sketches are also found drawings based on scenes from the history their similar strategies in combining the visual and the verbal in a of Britain (see Bindman, 1973: pp. 33–37), which challenged way that encourages active and dynamic readings have already contemporary antiquarian rejection of miracles and myths (pp. been explored by Whittaker (2007), Di Liddo (2009: p. 179) and 40–41). Benjamin Heath Malkin presented Blake’s Gothic as a Green, (2011, 2012) respectively. Moore’s methods, especially his ‘simplicity and purity of style’ in his 1806 A Father’s Memoirs of use of literary references and profuse description in the scripts he his Child (Bindman, 1973: p. 30). Baulch analyses Malkin’s bio- writes for the artists with whom he collaborates (Murray, 2018: graphical portrait of Blake as a Gothic poet to show how Blake’s locs. 6059, 6127), give his graphic novels a distinctively literary imaginatively excessive and monstrous Gothicism diverged from quality. The present article finds specific relationships in Blake Malkin’s neoclassical Gothic (2018: p. 35), while Bundock and and Moore’s uses of Gothic technologies of monstrosity (Hal- Effinger give an ample catalogue of examples of the Gothic and berstam, 1995: pp. 2; 22), and reflects on the extent to which they monsters in Blake’s visual art (2018: p. 9). contribute to hegemonic constructions of the monster or use Alongside other Romantics, he significantly contributed to these technologies to disrupt cultural norms and antecedents. ‘shaping the Gothic’ (Punter, 1996: p. 87) and ‘articulat[ed] a set Halberstam’s argument and Eagleton’s account in Holy Terror of images of terror, which were to exercise a potent influence over (2005) of evil as a consequence of the distortion of reason provide later literary history’ (p. 87). Blake’s representations of evil, the critical framework that shapes the interpretations in this transgression, and his horrible and grotesque imagery emphasise article. the ‘horror of domination and political violence’ (Botting, 2014: The late eighteenth-century witnesses the high tide of the p. 89) and the ‘distortion’ caused either by an excessive rational Gothic