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HAUNTING FEAR Literary encounters with medieval, renaissance, and gothic ghosts Cassandra Elaine Whittem, B.A. Hons. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0842-0777 Thesis submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Arts (Thesis Only). May 2018 School of Culture and Communication The University of Melbourne DECLARATION (i) The candidate declares that this thesis comprises only their original work towards the Master of Arts (Thesis Only). (ii) Due acknowledgement has been made in the text to all other material used. (iii) The thesis is fewer than the maximum word limit in length, exclusive of tables, maps, bibliographies and appendices as approved by the Research Higher Degrees Committee. Cassandra Elaine Whittem 24/05/2018 2 PREFACE (i) No work towards the thesis was carried out in collaboration with others. (ii) No work towards the thesis has been submitted for other qualifications. (iii) No work towards the thesis was carried out prior to enrolment in the degree. (iv) No third party editorial assistance was provided in preparation of the thesis. (v) No multi-authored publications or articles in preparation are included in the thesis. (vi) All following chapters are unpublished material not submitted for publication. (vii) Funding was provided by the ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions, in the form of a MA Top-up scholarship, Grant Number CE110001011. 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would first like to thank my thesis supervisors Professor Stephanie Trigg, and Professor Peter Otto. Thank you for your patient guidance, encouragement, and immense knowledge. I have learned so much from you both. Thanks also to Dr Stephanie Downes for taking me on in my supervisors’ absences. Your support and guidance has made me a better researcher. I would like to gratefully acknowledge the support provided by the ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions, in the form of a MA Top-up Scholarship (Grant Number CE110001011). I am also grateful for the community of excellent, passionate researchers that I have met through the Centre, and through The University of Melbourne’s Medieval Round Table, from whom I have learned so much. Finally I must express my profound gratitude to my friends and family. Thank you to my parents for your unfailing support over the last few years. Thanks to my siblings for nothing (I still love you). To my wonderful husband Josh and my wonderful housemate Kate, for your encouragement and for reading the entire thesis, thank you, and I’m sorry. Thanks to all the Mudcrabs for the ghost jokes. I couldn’t have done it without you. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION .................................................................................................................................................................... 2 PREFACE ............................................................................................................................................................................... 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................................................................... 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS ....................................................................................................................................................... 5 ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................................................................... 6 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................................................. 7 CHAPTER 1 | THE AWNTYRS OFF ARTHURE .......................................................................................................... 20 THE WEEPING GHOST .................................................................................................................................................................................. 20 TORMENTED LANGUAGE .............................................................................................................................................................................. 26 ARTHURIAN LEGEND ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 36 GRIM TIDINGS ................................................................................................................................................................................................ 51 CHAPTER 2 | HAMLET .................................................................................................................................................... 54 DARK THOUGHTS .......................................................................................................................................................................................... 54 THE SPECTRE ON THE PARAPET .................................................................................................................................................................. 59 VIOLENT PASSIONS ....................................................................................................................................................................................... 65 DIM SHAPES ................................................................................................................................................................................................... 78 CHAPTER 3 | THE CASTLE OF OTRANTO ................................................................................................................. 87 IRRATIONAL FEARS ....................................................................................................................................................................................... 87 VICISSITUDES ................................................................................................................................................................................................. 90 SUPERNATURAL REALISM ............................................................................................................................................................................ 96 FEMININE FEELINGS ................................................................................................................................................................................... 103 CONCLUSION .................................................................................................................................................................. 116 WORKS CITED ............................................................................................................................................................... 122 5 ABSTRACT The ghost is an enduring figure in literature, one that has appeared over centuries in a plethora of different forms. The power of the ghost as a literary figure and the key to its endurance lies in the intense, heightened emotion prompted by the moment of encounter between living and dead. When these moments of heightened emotion are depicted in popular cultural forms, changing cultural expectations governing the expression and representation of emotions are revealed. This thesis examines an emblematic text from three key periods in literary history: the anonymous fifteenth-century romance The Awntyrs off Arthure, William Shakespeare’s Hamlet (c.1605), and Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1764). It will examine the emotions with which each text engages, through the form, environment and genre in which the ghost appears, and through the language in which these are expressed. By comparing the representation of ghosts in these texts, this thesis offers new insight into the evolving representation and narrative function of the ghost in literary culture, and explores some of the different forms of emotional expression in response to the supernatural. 6 INTRODUCTION The words “Who’s there?” are the first to be spoken in Shakespeare’s Hamlet (2011, 1.1.1). As the scene unfolds, it becomes apparent that while this question may be answered by a man, the speaker entertains the possibility that the answer will be “a ghost”. For Bernardo, who answers it upon his arrival, it is a simple question. However, when the ghost appears, more complex questions are raised, implicitly even if not always explicitly, which trouble the fields of history, theology, and ontology. While acknowledging the importance of the changing theological and cultural contexts that mediate encounters with ghosts in literary and dramatic texts, this thesis focuses on the emotional content of these encounters. It will examine the confrontation with the ghost as a collision between states of being, which generates a particularly complex pattern of emotional responses. It will consider ghost encounters in three texts, with the first divided from the third by a period of over three hundred years, and investigate the similarities that link and differences that divide the kinds of emotions evoked by these encounters. Literary representations of ghosts are shaped by at least three things: theological and philosophical understandings, popular culture, and genre. There is a growing critical literature about the cultural history of the ghost that will inform my exploration of the emotions evoked by the ghost in literature. I will provide
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