University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research: Department of English English, Department of 8-2013 Illuminating the Darkness: The Naturalistic Evolution of Gothicism in the Nineteenth-Century British Novel and Visual Art Cameron Dodworth University of Nebraska-Lincoln Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/englishdiss Part of the Literature in English, British Isles Commons Dodworth, Cameron, "Illuminating the Darkness: The Naturalistic Evolution of Gothicism in the Nineteenth- Century British Novel and Visual Art" (2013). Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research: Department of English. 79. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/englishdiss/79 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the English, Department of at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research: Department of English by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. ILLUMINATING THE DARKNESS: THE NATURALISTIC EVOLUTION OF GOTHICISM IN THE NINETEENTH- CENTURY BRITISH NOVEL AND VISUAL ART by Cameron Dodworth A DISSERTATION Presented to the Faculty of The Graduate College at the University of Nebraska In Partial Fulfillment of Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Major: English (Nineteenth-Century Studies) Under the Supervision of Professor Laura M. White Lincoln, Nebraska August, 2013 ILLUMINATING THE DARKNESS: THE NATURALISTIC EVOLUTION OF GOTHICISM IN THE NINETEENTH- CENTURY BRITISH NOVEL AND VISUAL ART Cameron Dodworth, Ph.D. University of Nebraska, 2013 Adviser: Laura White The British Gothic novel reached a level of very high popularity in the literary market of the late 1700s and the first two decades of the 1800s, but after that point in time the popularity of these types of publications dipped significantly. However, towards the end of the nineteenth century, the British Gothic novel rebounded in popularity, though not to the level of the early 1800s. This dissertation seeks to address why the publication of truly Gothic novels in Britain decreased during the middle of the century, only to increase once again at the fin de siècle. What this dissertation discovers is that the primary focus on Gothicism in the early Gothic novels in the late 1700s and very early 1800s is no longer given a primary role in the Realist novel, as the unreality and supernaturalism of the early Gothic novel is not conducive to the emerging focus on the real. However, the British Realist novel does indeed maintain more realistic aspects of the Gothic, and therefore expresses the Gothic as a mode rather than as a primary focus of expression. This dissertation looks to relevant works of visual art from the European Continent and Britain in order to establish a network of international, interdisciplinary influence in the Realist movement of the mid-nineteenth century, particularly focusing on the element of Gothicism in that network. As Realism evolves into Naturalism, that international, interdisciplinary network of influence is again revealed in the nineteenth- century novel and visual art of select works from the Continent that had major influence on the novel and visual art of Britain, particularly in terms of the role of Gothicism within that network of Naturalistic evolution. This dissertation establishes that it is as a direct result of Gothicism’s role within this Naturalist network of influence that the British Gothic novel rebounds in popularity at the end of the nineteenth century. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Illustrations v-vii Introduction 1-33 Gothic Illumination and Evolution Chapter 1 34-90 Frankenstein and the Enlightened Gothic Novel of Ideas Chapter 2 91-166 The Descent into Darkness: The Gothic as Subtext to Realism Chapter 3 167-204 Wuthering Heights and the Naturalistic Evolution of the Gothic Monster Chapter 4 205-286 The Gothic Evolution of Naturalism Works Cited 287-300 v LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 1 80 Henry Fuseli, The Nightmare, 1781, oil on canvas, Institute of Fine Arts, Detroit. Figure 2 83 John Martin, Bridge over Chaos, 1826, illustration for Paradise Lost. Figure 3 85 Édouard Manet, Olympia, 1863, oil on canvas, Musée d’Orsay, Paris. Figure 4 105 Unknown, 1851, from “Illustrations of Street Art” No. I. Tufts Digital Library: http://hdl.handle.net/10427/54589 Figure 5 106 Unknown, 1851, from “Illustrations of Street Art” No. II. Tufts Digital Library: http://hdl.handle.net/10427/54588 Figure 6 107 John Everett Millais, The Woodman’s Daughter, 1850-1851, oil on canvas, Guildhall Art Gallery, London. Figure 7 108 Emily Mary Osborn, Nameless and Friendless, 1857, oil on canvas, Royal Academy, London. Figure 8 112 Anna Blunden, ‘For Only One Short Hour’, 1854, oil on canvas, Society of British Artists, London. Figure 9 119 Jean-François Millet, The Sower, 1850, oil on canvas, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Figure 10 120 Jules Breton, The Weeders, 1868, oil on canvas, Joslyn Museum of Art, Omaha, NE. Figure 11 121 Gustave Courbet, The Stone Breakers, 1849, oil on canvas, New Masters Gallery, Dresden. Figure 12 122 Henry Wallis, The Stonebreaker, 1857, oil on canvas, Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery. vi Figure 13 124 Honoré Daumier, The Third-Class Carriage, 1862, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. Figure 14 135 Joseph Mallord William Turner, Limekiln of Coalbrookdale, c. 1797, oil on canvas, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT. Figure 15 136 Philip James de Loutherbourg, Coalbrookdale by Night, 1801, oil on canvas, Science Museum, London. Figure 16 146 Ford Madox Brown, Work, 1852-1863, oil on canvas, Manchester City Art Galleries. Figure 17 215 Cécile Douard, Coal Gleaners, 1891, oil on canvas, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Mons, Belgium. Figure 18 220 George Frederic Watts, The Irish Famine, c.1850, oil on canvas, Watts Gallery, Compton, Guilford, UK. Figure 19 221 Luke Fildes, Applicants for Admission to a Casual Ward, 1874, oil on canvas, Royal Holloway College, Egham, UK. Figure 20 224 Vincent van Gogh, Head of a Peasant Woman with White Cap, March-April 1885, oil on canvas, Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller, Otterlo, Netherlands. Figure 21 227 Vincent van Gogh, The Potato Eaters, 1885, oil on canvas, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam. Figure 22 243 Hubert von Herkomer, Hard Times, 1885, oil on canvas, Manchester City Art Gallery. Figure 23 244 Hubert von Herkomer, On Strike, 1891, oil on canvas, Royal Academy of Art, London. Figure 24 246 George Clausen, Head of a Peasant Woman, 1882, oil on canvas, Private Collection. Figure 25 247 George Clausen, Winter Work, 1883, oil on canvas, The Tate Gallery, London. vii Figure 26 279 Frank Holl, The Song of the Shirt, 1875, oil on canvas, Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter, UK. Figure 27 283 Jan Luyken, “Decapitation of Wolfgang Binder, Scharding, Bavaria, 1571” from Religious Persecutions, 1685. Figure 28 286 Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, 1859, ed. J. W. Burrow (Harmondsworth, England: 1968), 160-161. 1 INTRODUCTION GOTHIC ILLUMINATION AND EVOLUTION In Bram Stoker’s classic vampire tale, Dracula (1897), the Count turns and threatens his pursuers, claiming “‘[m]y revenge is just begun! I spread it over centuries, and time is on my side’” (263). The myth of the vampire—and particularly Stoker’s contributions to the myth—serves as an effective metaphor for the very genre of Gothicism in which that myth frequently appears. Stoker’s Count Dracula can change into a bat, a wolf, a pack of rats, or even a cloud of mist. Like the vampire, Gothicism is a shapeshifter, with seemingly eternal life. Gothicism can appear in multiple forms, and it can also span over multiple time periods and disciplines, existing in a constant state of reanimation, much like the undead vampire, zombie, mummy, golem, Frankenstein’s monster, or multitude of other characters that populate the pages of Gothic novels, the media of visual art, and the celluloid of Gothic films. Indeed, Gothicism has appeared in many forms and disciplines, ranging from various iterations in visual art, film, historical representations, and also various literary representations across poem and prose. If anything, Gothicism can be viewed as an example of the evolution of the history of ideas, as expressed by Arthur O. Lovejoy in The Great Chain of Being (1936): Finally, it is a part of the eventual task of the history of ideas to apply its own distinctive analytic method in the attempt to understand how new beliefs and intellectual fashions are introduced and diffused, to help to elucidate the psychological character of the processes by which changes in the vogue and influence of ideas have come about; to make clear, if 2 possible, how conceptions dominant, or extensively prevalent, in one generation lose their hold upon men’s minds and give place to others. (Lovejoy 20) Gothicism can indeed be understood as an intellectual fashion that has changed in vogue and influence from its conception to its intellectual position in current society, as well as in relation to its many changes and stages of evolution over the centuries. Gothicism is more profound than its flashier, more well-known supernatural signifiers—ghosts, goblins, demons, etc.—as, despite its shapeshifting, interdisciplinary tendencies, it has at least maintained several core principles and ideas that not only connect the various manifestations of the Gothic throughout history and discipline, but that also reveal the Gothic to be far more philosophical than typically thought. At its most basic, the primary and most consistent idea represented by and explored in the Gothic is the concept of fear. Sigmund Freud attempts to explore this idea of fear in his analysis of the uncanny: [The uncanny] is undoubtedly related to what is frightening—to what arouses dread and horror; equally certain, too, the word is not always used in a clearly definable sense, so that it tends to coincide with what excites fear in general.