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Xerox University Microfilms 300 North Zoob Road Ann Arbor, Michigan 43106 77-2478 PARTIN, Bruce Lynn, 1949- THE HORROR PLAY: ITS TRANSITION FROM THE EPIC TO THE DRAMATIC MODE, The Ohio State University, Ph.D., 1976 Theater Xerox University Microfilms, Ann Art»f.Michigan«ioe © 1 9 7 6 BRUCE LYNN PARTIN ALL RIGHTS RESERVED THE HORROR PLAYi ITS TRANSITION FROM THE EPIC TO THE DRAMATIC MODE DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Decree Doctor of Philosophy In the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Bruce L. Partin( B.A. , M.A. it it * * ft The Ohio State University 1976 Reading Committeei Approved By Dr. Roy H. Bowen Dr. Charles C. Ritter w-^ / Dr. John A. Walker yg jsf Adviser Department of Theatre This dissertation is affectionately and gratefully dedicated to my Parents. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to acknowledge the patient guidance, advice and assistance of the members of my Reading Committee: Drs. Roy H. Bowen, Charles C. Ritter and John A. Walker. iii VITA August 12, 1949 ........... Born - Meridian, Mississippi 1971 ...................... B.A., Mlllsaps College, Jackson, Mississippi 1972-1973 .................. Teaching Assistant, Memphis State University, Memphis, Tennessee 1973 . , . ................ M.A., Memphis State University, Memph1s , Tennes s ee 1973-1975 .................. Teaching Associate, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1975-1976 University Fellow, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio FIELDS OF STUDY Major Fieldt Theatre Studies in Theory and Criticism. Professors Donald Glancy and John Morrow Studies in History and Research. Professors Albert Johnson and Bradley White Studies in Production. Professors Roy Bowen, Henry Swanson, Keith Kennedy and Lance Goss iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page DEDICATION ............................................ It ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ..................................... ill VITA ................................................... iv INTRODUCTION.......................................... 1 Chapter T. HORACE WALPOLE (1717-1797) AND THE CASTLE OF OT R A N T O .................... 10 II. MATTHEW GREGORY LEWIS (1775-1818) AND TflJ^ J iO N K............................................................................ S'S IT I. FRANKENSTEIN ON ST A G E ......................... 103 IV, THE VAMPIRE ON STAGE ......................... \ 56 CONCLUS TO N S .................................................234 BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................ 240 v INTRODUCTION Men have been interested in the supernatural for almost as long as there have been men, and their fascina­ tion with spirits, demons, monsters and witches has con­ sequently been reflected in the various art forms that they have created. In the realm of dramatic literature that interest is manifested in the earliest extant plays-- the tragedies and comedies of the Greeks--in which various mythologic creatures are referred to or actually partici­ pate in the stage events and in which the gods themselves frequently become members of the dramatis personae. In any listing of the general characteristics of the Roman playwright Seneca, his preoccupation with ghosts and the macabre must be mentioned. In the drama that flourished under the Church's sponsorship during the Middle Ages such spiritual locales as Heaven and Hell were given physical reality on the stage, and it was the demonic region (Hell- mouth) that was usually the most elaborate and Impressive of the many settings depicted in the various cycle and Passion plays. Furthermore, according to many sources the most popular of the roles in the medieval plays--with actors and audiences alike--was that of Satan. The 2 Elizabethan playwrights--Shakespeare foremost among them-- made considerable use of supernatural elements, partic­ ularly ghosts and witches, partly because they were following Senecan models and partly--and probably more Importantly--because of the intense theaticality inherent In such devices. However, despite the long history of the supernatural as a supportive element on the stage, it was not until late in the eighteenth century that the type of play that this dissertation is intended to examine made its appear­ ance. While The Eumenldes has its Furies, The Frogs it denizens of Hades, Hamlet Its ghost and Macbeth its witches and ghosts, none of those plays could be said to be a play primarily about ghosts or witches or monsters or demons. They are not, in short, "horror plays." In all of those plays the various supernatural elements exist in a purely supportive capacity, but beginning with the stage adaptations of the novels of Horace Walpole and Matthew "Monk" Lewis such fanciful manifestations began to exist for their own sake and for the creation of an atmosphere of terror* hence, the birth of horror plays-- dramas in which the supernatural and eerie became the central focus and written with the prime aim of producing in the perceiver a pleasurable sense of terror. Walpole and Lewis wrote both novels and plays. To Walpole goes the credit for both the first Gothic novel, The Castle of Otranto (1764), and the first Gothic play. The Mvsterloua Mother (1768), While It was Walpole who made the idea of a horror novel both popular and accept­ able, It was Lewis who expanded on that beginning by writ­ ing the most influential and horrific of the Gothic dramas, The Castle Spectre (1797), (While Walpole's The Mysteri­ ous Mother contains some suggestions of unearthly manifes­ tations, its importance as a Gothic play lies almost entirely in its creation of atmosphere and in the horrific nature of its incestuous storyline, and it is more as a forerunner than as an example of the horror play that It Is included here.) Lewis's novel, The Monk (1796), had created a scandal and a resultant fame for its author that made the manager of Drury Lane eager to produce a play in something of the same vein by the notorious "Monk" Lewis, So eager was that manager, in fact, that--over the objec­ tions of all of the knowledgeeble theatre folk involved in the production--he allowed the playwright to present the apparition of a woman in a bloody gown in Act Four of the play, a figure much resembling the "Bleeding Nun" of The Monk and a portent of the monsters and demons that nine­ teenth-century audiences would not only accept but would positively relish,* Louis F. Peck, A Life of Matthew G. Lewis. (Cam­ bridge, M assach usetts!Harvard University Press, 1961), pp, 73-74. 4 The careers of Walpole and Lewis as novelist/drama* tlsts and the adaptation of their novels to the stage by others set the tone for the topic of this dissertation. Aristotle distinguishes between three modes of imitation* the epic in which the imitator Cauthor! speaks "at one moment in narrative and at another in an assumed charac­ ter" t the lyric in which "the imitator may remain the same throughout, without any such change"i and the drama* tic in which "the imitator may represent the whole story dramatically, as though they Cthe agents of the action"! 2 were actually doing the things described. The epic mode is obviously the one in which novelists are generally conceived to be working, and, naturally enough, it is in the dramatic mode that the playwright casts his creation. The plays examined in this study--with the possible exception of The Castle Spectre--all originated as either novels or short stories and were later adapted into play form by other writers. This dissertation proposes to study the changes made by the playwright in the shaping of the materials created by the novelist in the process