Occult Affects in the Mystery Fiction of the Fin De Siècle
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Western University Scholarship@Western Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository 8-20-2020 11:00 AM Material Witness: Occult Affects in the Mystery Fiction of the Fin de Siècle Thomas Matthew Stuart, The University of Western Ontario Supervisor: Dr. Steven Bruhm, The University of Western Ontario A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in English © Thomas Matthew Stuart 2020 Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd Part of the Feminist Philosophy Commons, History of Religion Commons, Literature in English, British Isles Commons, and the Literature in English, North America Commons Recommended Citation Stuart, Thomas Matthew, "Material Witness: Occult Affects in the Mystery Fiction of the Fin de Siècle" (2020). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 7292. https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/7292 This Dissertation/Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship@Western. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository by an authorized administrator of Scholarship@Western. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Abstract Material Witness: Occult Affects in the Mystery Fiction of the Fin de Siècle As the nineteenth century progressed, Spiritualism blossomed from a religious movement to a cultural moment. While it remained an object of faith or ancillary faith, Spiritualism became as well a voice for radical reform, parlour entertainment, means of negotiating an increasingly mediated world, and so forth. Combined with enthusiasm for occult knowledge, Spiritualism offered intricately interrelated modes of narrating our relation to a consistently present past, in light of a rapidly approaching future. My project reads this fin-de-siècle fascination as a sensibility. Occult figures and Spiritualist impulses, I argue, provide a vocabulary of feelings evoked in encounters with the mysterious. My dissertation turns to mystery fiction, examining the influence this occult sensibility has in narrating a criminal investigation’s material mise-en-scène. In my first chapter, I read the corpse in Richard Marsh’s thriller The Goddess (1900) as the centre of spreading similarities and sympathies, each marked by occult figures. I explore an anxiety toward dissolved boundaries expressed in the violent rupture of a murdered body and the further disruptions of definition and identity it initiates. My second chapter turns to the signature objects of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes canon. I tease out three items from “A Case of Identity” (1891) and The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902) to argue that the affects, history, and individuality of the clue parallel psychometric belief, particularly that our items inhere their vicinity, ownership, and interactions within their soul. Reading Anna Katharine Green’s novel The Filigree Ball (1903) in Chapter Three, I suggest the locked-room convention anxiously articulates the porous nature of domestic space. I suggest Green’s depiction of a room that repeats its violence stages the uncanny domesticity of a family that accepts its haunting. In my final chapter, Algernon Blackwood’s ghost story “The Empty House” (1906) prompts a reading of spaces in The Goddess, the Holmes canon, and The Filigree Ball. Each depicts rooms haunted by disembodied emotion, only available to the detective who adopts a mediumistic, negative affect. Throughout the project, the tales I examine consistently borrow occult affects to imagine a material world unexpectedly charged with lingering history and affective intensity. ii Keywords Affect theory; Blackwood, Algernon; Doyle, Arthur Conan; Detective fiction; Gothic literature; Green, Anna Katharine; Marsh, Richard; Nineteenth-century literature; Occult fiction; Spiritualism, history of. Summary for Lay Audience This dissertation examines the influence that occult and Spiritualist conventions had in late- nineteenth-century British and American mystery fiction. The fin-de-siècle fascination with occult knowledge and Spiritualist mediumship—one means of accessing that knowledge— informs the situations and language that mystery fiction employed to describe the mysterious and the unknown. In particular, mystery fiction shared Spiritualism’s interest in haunted objects and in the lingering presence of the past, and this shared focus emerges in the presentation and investigation of crime scenes. My project analyses the extent to which and the means by which some of the most noteworthy fictional detectives of the time—such as Sherlock Holmes—engage with corpses, crime scenes, and clues. They do so not just with their signature logic and astute observation, but also with a Spiritualist sensibility and a set of emotional responses that were best described in Spiritualist writings of the era. I further explore how detectives’ Spiritualist receptivity enables them to read the physical aspects of a crime for historical traces and emotional traces that are often, and surprisingly, critical to solving the mystery of the crime. iii Acknowledgments Nineteenth-century psychometry reminds us that no new thing comes into our world without bearing the quiet impressions of its origins. Both the primary materials and all the various hands that shaped them linger in the final work. Its existence intimates the social context and the care and the experience of those involved at every stage. These influences, intentions, and experiences work their way into the grain, and they become, eventually, the soul of this new object. The Spiritualists had no dearth of “proofs” to demonstrate this idea but if they needed yet another example, they need not have looked further than academic work. At every stage of writing this dissertation, its form and development have been influenced by a community of thoughtful, caring supporters for whom I am constantly grateful. I would like to thank my supervisor, Dr. Steven Bruhm, first. Dr. Bruhm’s was the first class I took, coming into my master’s programme, and the care, attention, and enthusiasm of his teaching practice and scholarship inspired my own decision to pursue a Ph.D. I am grateful for his thoughtful, evocative explorations of the Gothic and its intersections with noir and nineteenth-century crime fiction. His kind encouragement and incisive responses met my work wherever it had meandered. The interests that sparked this project arose in conversation with him and continued to develop in the same way. Mostly, however, I am grateful for his generosity with time: the long hours over cups of tea as we talked through a confusing question or complex point; the years that he devoted to this project. The guidance and encouragement of Dr. Bryce Traister were foundational to this project. His advice early on and the care with which he undertook to respond to my early forays on this project was immensely helpful. I am grateful, as well, to the unflagging enthusiasm and support of Dr. Donna Pennee and Dr. Manina Jones. Their advice on writing and their curiosity toward my scholarly work have had an immeasurable impact on this dissertation. A whole cohort of fellow graduate students made their mark on this project. Their friendship and care, as well as their suggestions and questions brought the following pages into being. In particular, I would like to thank Dr. Riley McDonald. His willingness to talk out any idea, no matter how strange or obscure, led me through many of the early briars of research into which I consistently fell. Dr. McDonald’s vast knowledge of horror literature and critical iv theory and his enthusiasm for new thought made these discussions a delight. I will always be grateful to the generosity and consistent, encouraging support of Dr. Fred King. Dr. Jeremy Colangelo made enlightening suggestions throughout and his desire to see me through this project and to assist me along the way were invaluable. Many, many others deserve to be mentioned, here, for their thoughtful responses and creative suggestions. My thanks to Meghan O’Hara, Marta Croll-Baehre, Emma Croll-Baehre, Emily Kring, Diana Samu- Visser, and Andy Verboom for all of your help over the years. This project was made possible by the financial support of the Western University Department of English and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. I would like to acknowledge my gratitude for these funding opportunities. The research for this project took place at two institutional libraries—those of Western University and the University of Victoria. I would like to express gratitude to their librarians. Their passion for their collections is remarkable as is the generosity with which they devoted their time to a confused, earnest graduate student. Finally, I would like to acknowledge the extraordinary support of my family: my brother Douglas Stuart, my father Roy Stuart, my mother Barb Stuart, and my fiancée Nahmi Lee. Unfortunately, I cannot. As with any mediumistic experience, psychometric or otherwise, there are influences and feelings that will exceed any articulation. Words cannot describe my gratitude. Their backing during this period and their unwavering confidence in the work have brought me through the process. They saw from the beginning what this project could be, and they devoted themselves tirelessly, daily to leading me to the same vista. All my thanks. v Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................... ii Summary