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Contents Introduction 1 1. Un-Categorising the Gothic 9 1.1 Contents Introduction 1 1. Un-categorising the Gothic 9 1.1 The Gothic novel: early British and Irish cases 23 2. Ireland as a challenge 53 2.1 Bogland 90 3. Stoker’s enigma 101 4. Re-evaluating Stoker’s The Snake's Pass 133 Bibliography 183 Sitography 193 Introduction This research originated from the combination of two main personal interests: a strong concern for the literary Gothic and a profound passion for Ireland, which led to the study of an author who merges both these elements in his life and especially in his work The Snake's Pass. While I learnt Gothic literature at university, I had the opportunity of seeing Ireland with my own eyes, thanks to a one-year scholarship as an Erasmus student. A few years later, on another visit to Ireland in 2016, I had the chance of witnessing the commemoration of the 1916 Easter Rising Centenary held in Dublin, during which I could visit the exposition at the GPO Witness History museum, which impressed me a lot with its memorial garden to the children killed in the rebellion. Saying that I felt overwhelmed and petrified does not quite render the idea. From the beginning, Ireland fascinated me in a number of aspects; for instance, I enjoyed its gorgeous landscapes and appreciated its warm and easy-going inhabitants. Yet, what impressed me most was the feeling that Irish people continually retain and recall their troublesome history, as if it still was an omnipresent and indisputable memory, something that always stands: whatever happens and whatever a person's mood is, the Irish always keep their historical heritage in mind. Starting with this idea, this study made me understand whether my impression was real or imaginary, as well as deepen how culture could - and can - leave a mark on the personality of a person. In addition, the actual concern about Brexit renders these issues more relevant than ever, since it is likely that the struggle between the English – with the Northern Irish – and the Irish might be renewed, restoring the ancient animosity and leading to further conflicts. As proved by the title of this thesis, my research is based on a sort of matryoshka structure, in the sense that my inspection initially started from the analysis of a broad theme, namely the Gothic; it later focussed on Ireland and Stoker; and eventually reached the core of this analysis, namely Stoker’s novel The Snake's Pass. Indeed, the first chapter analyses the Gothic in literature, from its origins to the period in which Stoker lived; the second chapter explores Ireland, in its historical and geographical features; the third chapter examines Stoker’s life and personality in relation to Ireland 1 and England; the fourth chapter investigates The Snake's Pass and put it in comparison with all the elements and aspects mentioned in the previous chapters. Finding and collecting the material for this study was not always an easy task, insomuch one can find a great deal of texts about the Gothic, Ireland, and Stoker; while there is little documentation about boglands and especially about The Snake's Pass. This may be due to the fact that Stoker’s reputation mainly comes from his masterpiece Dracula, which appears to surpass all his other works, thus moving The Snake's Pass to the background as a minor text, like a sort of experimental draft preceding his future masterpiece. For instance, The Snake's Pass was translated into Italian only once in 2007, and the publishing company Palomar has later stopped printing it; while there are plenty of translations of Dracula which are still published. Furthermore, it is noteworthy that, in almost all the critical documents concerning The Snake's Pass, there is not even the slightest mention to Dracula. In the first chapter, I analyse the Gothic starting from all the definitions that this term can incorporate depending on the context. Successively, I focus on the literary Gothic and its subgenres, investigating all the common features that render a text predominantly Gothic, such as a setting in the distant past, the uncanny, the Other, the sublime, the supernatural, and all the binary oppositions that are simultaneously complementary and contrasting. Far from attempting to give a definite characterisation of Gothic fiction, I aim at listing what readers can find in a Gothic text, with the awareness that any of the elements mentioned are accompanied by variants and nuances. Subsequently, I focus on Gothic prose and, after hinting at the difference between romance and novel, I proceed with the first records of Gothic novels in England and in Ireland, in an effort to counterpose the same narrative genre in these two countries; indeed, British Gothic literature consistently differs from the Irish one, due to the incontrovertible fact that literature inherently incorporates national identity and culture. My analysis ranges a period starting in the 1760s and ending in the 1860s, as this was the time lapse that provided Stoker with the Gothic tradition from which he drew upon his fiction, as well as the period in which he lived. As concerns England, I examine Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1764), Clara Reeve’s The Old English Baron (1777), Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), Matthew Gregory Lewis’ The Monk (1796). As regards Ireland, I explore the anonymous The 2 Adventures of Miss Sophia Berkley (1760), Thomas Leland’s Longsword, Earl of Salisbury (1762), Charles Robert Maturin’s Melmoth the Wanderer (1820), Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s Uncle Silas: A Tale of Bartram-Haugh (1864). In the second chapter, I inspect Ireland by focusing on two fundamental aspects: its history and its geography. I introduce the history of this country from its original inhabitants that came there from Scandinavia in 6500 BC, and proceed until the 1910s, the decade in which Stoker died. My purpose is to give a short summary of all the struggles and the troubles that Ireland - and the Irish - has had to deal with and face from its first occupation; conflicts that still nowadays are not properly solved and, I dare say, may be fomented by a new situation of instability and change, like Brexit, for example. As a point of reference for the study of Irish history, I mainly refer to the book Ireland (2014), by Joseph Coohill. Ireland endured several invasions: the first one occurred by the Indo-European people of the Celts, in 700-500 BC, which retained control for over one thousand years. Later, Ireland was conquered by the Vikings in 900 AD, and by the Normans in 1066, who were the authors of the very first time in which England got control over Ireland. Indeed, in 1171, the English king, Henry II, managed to submit Ireland to English power. Hence, from the twelfth century onward, Ireland began to witness a long period of troubles, domination, revolution, and challenges of all kinds, which mainly consisted in the conflict for power between Ireland and Britain. Initially, native Irish and Anglo- Irish (the descendants of the Normans) co-existed peacefully and even intermarried until 1494, when the Poynings’ Law was passed, namely a formal distinction between the Anglo-Irish and the Gaelic Irish, which proscribed the use of Irish customs and laws. Further on, the reign of the House of Tudor, (1485-1603), above all under Henry VIII and Mary I, was the author of Catholics persecution and introduced the system of plantation: a practice that dispossessed both Anglo-Irish and Gaelic Irish tenants of their land, and designated English and Scottish settlers as landlords in their places. Later, the rule of the House of Stuart, (1603-1714), precisely under James I of England, dramatically changed the question of landownership: Catholics lost a great deal of the land they had owned before. From the late seventeenth to mid-eighteenth century, a series of measures were passed to restrict Catholic worship and limit Catholics’ right to buy any land. This was the period when Catholics increased their request for land 3 reforms, independence from Britain, and Catholic Emancipation (the right to sit in the Irish parliament). In 1793, the British government granted Catholics the right to vote. In 1801, the Act of Union officially proclaimed the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. While Ireland was experiencing the Great Famine (1845-1852), caused by the potato blight, a number of associations were established to achieve Home Rule for Ireland, namely independence from Britain, and an Irish Parliament consisting of Catholic Irish, which would reduce rents, stop landlords’ evictions of tenants, and redistribute land. This was the time when Stoker was born. In 1916, Irish revolutionary struggle peaked with the Easter Rising, when about two thousand revolutionaries seized the General Post Office in Dublin and other strategic buildings in the city, proclaiming the Irish Republic. However, the British Army quelled the rebels in six days. The Easter Rising was a huge massacre: roughly five hundred people were killed and more than two thousand six hundred people were wounded. Successively, after various negotiations between the House of Commons and the Irish Parliament, the 1921 Anglo- Irish Treaty was signed: it established the Irish Free State as a self-governing dominion and the Province of Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom. In sum, Irish history was mostly concerned with fights about political and economic control over land issues, namely land ownership and management. Ireland has been unfortunate in its history and in its topography as well, given the high percentage of bogland over its soil, precisely one-sixth of the whole Irish country. I concentrate on this ecosystem and describe it, since it symbolically represents Ireland, apart from being the main character of The Snake's Pass.
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