Ewan Fernie Argues That the Demonic Tradition in Literature Offers a Key to Our Most Agonised and Intimate Experiences

The Demonic Are we either good or bad, and do we really know the difference? Why do we want what we cannot have, and even to be what we’re not? Can we desire others without wanting to possess them? Can we open to others and not risk possession ourselves? And where, in these cases, do we draw the line? Ewan Fernie argues that the demonic tradition in literature offers a key to our most agonised and intimate experiences. The Demonic ranges across the breadth of Western culture, engaging with writers as central and various as Luther, Shakespeare, Hegel, Dostoevsky, Melville and Mann. A powerful foreword by Jonathan Dollimore brings out its implications as an intellectual and stylistic breakthrough into new ways of writing criticism. Fernie unfolds an intense and personal vision, not just of Western modernity, but of identity, morality and sex. As much as it’s concerned with the great works, this is a book about life. Ewan Fernie is Professor of Shakespeare Studies at the Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham, UK, author of Shame in Shakespeare, and joint General Editor of the Shakespeare Now! series. Redcrosse, his latest, collaborative project, is a new poetic liturgy for St George’s Day, which has been performed in major cathedrals and by the RSC, and a book published in 2012. ‘Provocative and profound – a thrilling and radical account of the allure of the demon in us all.’ Salley Vickers, author of Miss Garnet’s Angel ‘Ewan Fernie’s study of the demonic in canonical literature is an original and exciting work of scholarship. Beautifully written, and continuously engaging, this book surprises the reader at almost every turn with insights into literature that remain in the mind and change how we think of poems and narratives we thought we knew well.’ Kevin Hart, Edwin B. Kyle Professor of Christian Studies at the University of Virginia, USA ‘That the word “evil” contains within itself the word “live” is merely a lexical accident, but that the demonic might yet reveal what it means to truly or fi nally live is the profound mystery at the heart of Ewan Fernie’s book, which, in brilliantly ranging right across the Western literary canon, succeeds in alerting us to the sheer vitality in our cultural inheritance of demonic experience, or what Fernie calls the “life that is opposed to life”. And in this life-against-life Fernie fi nds or senses a way of being-in-the-world that we might not only dare to call truly human but even, perhaps and paradoxically, good or divine.’ John Schad, Professor of Modern Literature at the University of Lancaster, UK ‘With dazzling range and depth, Ewan Fernie has tackled a subject that we ignore at our peril: the demonic. He not only mines cultural resources – from Luther to Kierkegaard, from Marlowe to Dostoevsky, from Nietzsche to Schreber – to examine the experience of the demonic, but more: with his compelling prose, Fernie manages to create the experience of the demonic for us. This is not a book for the faint of heart. It reveals the relationship of the demonic to contemporary thought on negativity, to the darkness of possession, and to the transcendence of the sacred, showing that “sainthood is perilously close to damnation”. This book immeasurably enhances our understanding of the problem of evil.’ Regina M. Schwartz, Professor of English and Law, Northwestern University, USA ‘The Demonic: Literature and Experience is a bold, trailblazing book of formidable intellectual scope and ethical intensity. Through radical reappraisals of masterpieces by Shakespeare, Milton, Goethe, Dostoevsky and Mann, and through dialogues with thinkers as diverse as Luther, Hegel, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard and Freud, it reveals the demonic as a vital force in our daily lives that we disavow to our cost. A passionate, seductive defence of the dark side by a critic committed to making literature matter.’ Kiernan Ryan, Professor of English Language and Literature, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK The Demonic Literature and experience Ewan Fernie Foreword by Jonathan Dollimore First published 2013 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2013 Ewan Fernie The right of Ewan Fernie to be identifi ed as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identifi cation and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Fernie, Ewan, 1971– The demonic : literature and experience / Ewan Fernie ; foreword by Jonathan Dollimore. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. 1. Demonology in literature. 2. Devil in literature. 3. Demoniac possession in literature. 4. Sex in literature. 5. Desire in literature. 6. Literature–History and criticism. I. Title. PN56.D465F47 2013 809'.9337–dc23 2012018130 ISBN: 978-0-415-69024-9 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-415-69025-6 (pbk) ISBN: 978-0-203-08230-0 (ebk) Typeset in Baskerville by Saxon Graphics Ltd, Derby Contents List of illustrations vii Acknowledgements ix Note on references xi Foreword by Jonathan Dollimore xiii PART ONE Demonic negativity 1 1 Dark night of the soul 3 2 Luther: man between God and the Devil 34 3 Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus 45 4 Demonic Macbeth 50 5 Satan (and demonic sex) 69 6 A justifi ed sinner 81 7 Dostoevsky’s demons 87 8 Thomas Mann as Dr Faustus (via Love’s Labour’s Lost) 115 9 She Devil 142 10 Loving the alien 148 PART TWO Turnabout and dialectic 151 11 Kierkegaard trembling 153 12 Nietzsche: a demon that laughs 160 13 The marriage of heaven and hell 165 14 Demonic dialectic: Boehme, Schelling, Hegel 169 vi Contents PART THREE Possession 181 15 Introduction 183 A. The agony in possessing 189 16 Angelo 191 17 Claggart 201 18 Possessing a child 208 19 Possessing god 209 20 Christ the possessor 213 B. The possessed 217 21 Introduction 219 22 Donne 220 23 Poor Tom 223 24 A Freudian interruption 237 25 The devils of Loudon 240 26 Jane Lead 245 27 The Master of Petersburg 253 28 Schreber 264 Notes 285 Index 304 List of illustrations 0.1 Gustav Doré, illustration from Paradise Lost, Edmund Ollier, The Doré Gallery (London: Cassell, Peter and Galpin, 1870), engraving 112, Cadbury Research Library: Special Collections, University of Birmingham. xiii 1.1 Louis Raemaekers, ‘The Adoration of the Magi’, Plate One, in The Great War: A Neutral’s Indictment, One Hundred Cartoons, with appreciation by H. Perry Robinson and descriptive notes by E. Garrett (London: The Fine Art Society, 148 New Bond Street, 1916), Cadbury Research Library: Special Collections, University of Birmingham. 15 3.1 Ian McKellen as Dr Faustus in Dr Faustus (Royal Shakespeare Company touring production, 1974). Joe Cocks Studio Collection © Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. 45 4.1 Jonathan Slinger as Macbeth and Aislin McGuckin as Lady Macbeth in Macbeth at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon (Royal Shakespeare Company, 2011). Image courtesy of Photo Stage (www.photostage.co.uk). 50 5.1 John Martin, illustration from Paradise Lost, in John Milton, The Poetical Works of John Milton, with a life of the author by William Hayley in 3 volumes, vol. 1 (London: John and Josiah Boydell and George Nicol, 1794–7), illustrating Book II, line 1 (facing p. 37), Selbourne Collection, care of Cadbury Research Library: Special Collections, University of Birmingham. 73 7.1 John Martin’s illustration from Paradise Lost, in Milton, The Poetical Works, illustrating Book IV, line 505 (facing p. 124). 109 9.1 Julie T. Wallace in The Life and Loves of a She-Devil (1986) © BBC Photo Library. 142 viii List of illustrations 15.1 Mikhail Vrubel, The Demon and Tamara (1890–1). Used by permission of The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia. 183 23.1 B. Reading (engraver), ‘Edgar’, T & H Rodd, 17 Little Newport Street, May 1820, in William Shakespeare, The plays of William Shakespeare illustrated (London: Boydell, 1815 [i.e. 182–]), unpublished extra-illustrated edition, vol. xiii, facing p.107, Cadbury Research Library: Special Collections, University of Birmingham. 223 28.1 Image of Daniel Paul Schreber from A Dictionary of Hallucinations, edited Jan Dirk Blom (Berlin: Springer, 2010), p. 461. Used by permission of the publisher. 264 Acknowledgements Insofar as it breaks with specialism and other academic decorums, this book has needed friends and supporters. I have benefi ted as always from fellow Shakespeareans but others have helped with German and Russian materials, theology and philosophy, literature I am less than expert in. All have given and engaged beyond expertise, which by nature is a limited thing. They include: Harry Acton, Zorica Bečanović–Nikolić, Jaq Bessell, Maurizio Calbi, Christie Carson, Farah Karim Cooper, Michael Dobson, Tobias Döring, Hugh Grady, Paul Edmondson, Rana Haddad, Robert Hampson, Andreas Höfele, Andrew Brower Latz, Kate McLuskie, David Ruiter, John Schad, Liam Semler, Andrew Shanks, Boika Sokolova, Andrew Taylor, Stanley Wells and Sarah Young. My employers have afforded opportunities to explore demonic literature with students, among whom I have to single out David Paxton and Adam Seddon for stimulating suggestions.

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