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Gothic Economics: Gothic Literature and Commercial Society in Britain, 1750–1850

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Gothic Economics: Gothic Literature and Commercial Society in Britain, 1750–1850 Gothic Economics: Gothic Literature and Commercial Society in Britain, 1750–1850 by Caroline Winter B.A., Hons., University of Toronto, 2004 M.A., University of Toronto, 2005 A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the DeGree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of EnGlish © Caroline Winter, 2020 University of Victoria All rights reserved. This dissertation may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or other means, without the permission of the author. Gothic Economics: Gothic Literature and Commercial Society in Britain, 1750–1850 by Caroline Winter Supervisory Committee Dr Robert Miles, Supervisor Department of English Dr. G. Kim Blank, Departmental Member Department of English Dr. Simon Devereaux, Outside Member Department of History ii Abstract Although the sensational world of Gothic literature may seem to have little to do with the “dismal science” of economics, readers and critics have long recognized connections between Romantic-era political economic discourse and Gothic novels, from the trope of the haunted castle on contested property to Adam Smith’s metaphor of the spectral “invisible hand.” This study, the first sustained investigation of economics and the Gothic, reads Romantic Gothic literature as an important voice in public debates about the economic ideas that shaped the emerging phenomenon of commercial society. Drawing on Charles Taylor’s notion of the modern social imaginary, it argues that the ways in which Gothic literature interrogated these ideas continues to inform our understanding of the economy and our place within it today. Each chapter focuses on an economic idea, including property, coverture, credit, debt, and consumption, in relation to a selection of representative Gothic texts, from Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1764) to Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights (1848). It analyzes these texts—primarily novels, but also short fiction, nonfiction, and poetry—in the context of political economic writings by Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and others. Through this analysis, this study argues that economic ideas are foundational to the Gothic, a mode of literature deeply engaged with the political, cultural, social, and economic upheavals that characterize the Romantic Age. iii Table of Contents Supervisory Committee .................................................................................................................. ii Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... iii Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................... iv List of Figures ................................................................................................................................ vi Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................................... vii Dedication .................................................................................................................................... viii Introduction: Gothic Economics ..................................................................................................... 1 The Gothic .......................................................................................................................... 8 Modern Commercial Society ............................................................................................ 20 Chapter 1: The Gothic Property Romance from The Castle of Otranto to Wuthering Heights .... 34 Property, “the Grand Enchantress of the World” .............................................................. 38 Competing Modes of Ownership in Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto ................ 45 Clara Reeve’s The Old English Baron .............................................................................. 52 Charlotte Smith’s The Old Manor House (1793) and the Gothic Property Romance ...... 64 Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights and the Disenchantment of Property ........................ 70 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 81 Chapter 2: “The Air and Attitude of a Montoni!”: Northanger Abbey, The Mysteries of Udolpho, and the Marriage Market ................................................................................................... 83 The Marriage Market in Commercial Society .................................................................. 85 Reading Catherine Morland .............................................................................................. 87 Montoni as an Economic Gothic Villain .......................................................................... 99 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 121 Chapter 3: Money, Credit, and the Willing Suspension of Disbelief in William Godwin’s St. Leon................................................................................................................................. 123 The Suspension of Disbelief and the Explained Supernatural ........................................ 135 William Godwin’s St. Leon (1799) and the Philosopher’s Stone ................................... 142 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 159 Chapter 4: Dreadful Debts: The Economic Origins of the Literary Vampire ............................. 161 The Age of Debt .............................................................................................................. 162 “Political Vampyres” ...................................................................................................... 165 Frances Burney’s Cecilia and Domestic Vampires ........................................................ 180 iv Charlotte Smith’s Marchmont and Legal Vampires ....................................................... 191 The Modern Economic Vampire and Commercial Society ............................................ 204 Chapter 5: Blood Sugar, “Transformation,” and the Dehumanizing Potential of Consumption ......................................................................................................................................... 206 Blood Sugar and the Consumable Body ......................................................................... 211 Mary Shelley’s “Transformation” and the Fungible Body ............................................. 230 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 240 Conclusion: Post-Romantic Gothic Economics .......................................................................... 242 Marx and Engels’ The Communist Manifesto and the Spectral Proletariat .................... 243 The Frankenstein Economy ............................................................................................ 249 Gothic Economics Revisited ........................................................................................... 260 Works Cited ................................................................................................................................ 262 v List of Figures Figure 1 Transcription of “Extract of a Private Letter from Vienna” ...................................... 166 Figure 2 Transcription of “To Caleb D’Anvers on The Craftsman of 20 May, 1732.” ........... 173 Figure 3 A bar graph showing the number of items The Economist that contain the word “frankenstein” by decade from 1843 to 2019 ............................................................. 253 Figure 4 A pie graph showing instances of the word “frankenstein” in The Economist between 1843 and 2019, categorized by type ........................................................................... 254 vi Acknowledgements Many people contributed to this research project, but there is space here to name only a few. Thanks, first, to my supervisor, Robert Miles, who helped me transform a simple question about a Gothic novel into this dissertation. Thanks, too, to the members of my Candidacy Exam and Supervisory Committees: Eric Miller, G. Kim Blank, and Simon Devereaux, and to my external examiner, Deidre Lynch. This research was conducted with the support of a Doctoral Fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and a Graduate Student Scholarship from the Hugh Campbell and Marion Alice Small Fund for Scottish Studies. I am thankful for the awards and funding that have enabled me to travel for research and to attend conferences, which has been a highlight of my graduate experience. I am grateful to my colleagues in the English Department, especially Colleen Donnelly, for helping me survive the first year of my program; Adrienne Williams Boyarin for advising me and helping me with all my applications; Stephen Ross for the research opportunities, the advice, and the help in the final stretch; and my fellow grad students and friends for all their support along the way. Thanks, too, to Ray Siemens and my colleagues in the ETCL for cheering me on. I am also grateful to my family—I could not have done this without you. Heartfelt thanks to my parents, Eileen and John Baird, for inspiring my love of reading and for everything else. Thank you to my boys, Jason and Dylan,
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