Y3XTERNAL AND REAL, BUT NôT SZTPERNA-": TEE TERROR OF THE SOUL IN BROCKDEN BROWN AND POE David Martin Shaw A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of English University of Toronto @ David Martin Shaw 1999 National Library Bibliothèque nationale I*(of Canada du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographie Services services bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395. nie Wellington Ottawa ON K1A ON4 OttawaON K1A ON4 Canada Canada The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive permettant à la National Library of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or sell reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of ths thesis in microform, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfiche/film, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts fkom it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. "Externai and real, but not supernatural": The Terror of the Sou1 in Brockden Brown and Poe. Ph.D. Thesis, 1999. David Martin Shaw Graduate Department of English, ~niversityof Toronto Abstract William Hazlitt noted in 1829 that the works of Charles Brockden Brown "were a banquet of horrors," arguing that the lack of European Gothic settings in the New World produced a different vein in the history of the tale of terror, as "the genius of America is essentially mechanical and modern. " Brown was obliged to suit his Gothic narratives to his New World environment by explaining apparently supernatural elements as being fundamentally natural in origin. In this, Brown was heir to the Gothic tradition of William Godwin and Ann Radcliffe in advocating psychological and rational explanations, rather than to that of M. G. Lewis which espoused patently supernatural excesses. Edgar Allan Poe wrote fiction which was much more internalized than Godwin's or even Brown's, exploring terrors that were "not of Germany, but of the soul," placing the emphasis on psychological observation rather than grounding his tales in Brown's realistic locales. This dissertation will explore how Brown and Poe deviated from the European schools, with their rejection of Gothic trappings in favour of presenting the capacity for violence inherent in the human mind. The Gothic tradition is analyzed in Chapter 1, which details how Brown and Poe present an American translation of European terrors without resorting to the actual supernatural. Brown's novels are treated in Chapter 2, which examines his explanations of the apparently supernatural through such devices as ventriloquism and spontaneous combustion, along with religious mania. Poe's short stories are analyzed in Chapter 3, which depicts how he further internalizes Brown's exploration of unbalanced mental states with depictions of insanity, revenge, and mournful obsession. Brown's and Poe's works are compared in Chapter 4, which examines how both authors explore the phobias of premature burial and the loss of physical control, through somnambulism or mesmerism, as well as the terrors implicit in outbreaks of plague. Both Brown's subjective but rational realism and Poe's more romantic subjectivism emanate front the Gothic tradition. iii Table of Contents Paqe Introduction. ......m.............a..............m....m1 Endnotes ..................m..................... 15 Chapter 1: The Gothic Tradition ....................... 18 end no tes..................,.................^ 69 Chapter 2: Charles Brockden Brown ................ ..m. 83 end note^...........^..^..^^......^..^..^..^.^^. 151 Chapter 3: Edgar Allan Poe ........................... 168 Endnotes ............m.......m.....~..........~..229 Chapter 4: Brown and Poe - The Relationship .......... 238 end note^........................................ 277 Conclusion. ........................................... 284 Endnotes ............m.......~.....m...........~.295 Works Cited and Consulted ............................. 300 Introduction Charles Brockden Brown and Edgar Allan Poe reinvigorated the Gothic tradition in the New World by divorcing it £rom European trappings and machinery. Foremost arnong these Old World elements was a predilection for the supernatural. While the Gothic novel was conceived by Horace Walpole in the vein of the marvellous, the zenith of the genre mirrored the split between the uncanny and the supernatural, as witnessed by the works of Ann Radcliffe and Mo Go Lewis. Critical reaction to such writers, as well as to German works which achieved popularity in translation, tended to favour the more refined terrors of Radcliffe over the blood-and-thunder excesses of Lewis. Brown's works, written in the infancy of American literature, did not usher in an era of creativity, either in the Gothic tradition or in other types of fiction. Two decades after Brown's Gothic works appeared, the state of American literature prompted the jaundiced question of English critic Sydney Smith, "In the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American book?"' Shortly thereafter, when the works of writers of the American Renaissance dismissed the need for such a question, Poe continued the tradition of the uncanny, which had been abandoned by Brown. Given the paucity of Gothic materials in the New World, authorities such as William Hazlitt and James Fenimore Cooper bemoaned the lack of Gothic paraphernalia in America. However, a different view is prof fered by Henan Melville, who suggested that native writers should make the most of this potential disadvantage. For a discussion of how Brown and Poe reversed this potential disadvantage and created terror by avoiding the supernatural, not only is an examination of the Gothic tradition required, but a deiinition of tenns is necessary for such wosds as "supernatural," "uncanny," "fantastic," Gothic," and "allegory ." The earliest def inition of "supernatural" in The Oxford Enqlish Dictionan may be traced to 1526: "That is above nature; belonging to a higher realm or system than that of nature; transcending the powers or the ordinary course of nature. " A second meaning, which may be traced to 1533, is "More than the natural or ordinary; unnaturally or extraordinarily great; abnormal, extraordinary." Although the word was used to describe "Supernatural things" as early as 1587, it was not until 1729 that the word was used to refer to "A supernatural being." In addition, a use of the word from 1830 was the earliest example of "supernatural" being defined as "That which is supernatural" The original meaning of "uncanny, " traced to 1596, is "Mischievous, malicious. " By 1638, it had assumed the meaning of "Careless, incautious." The meaning, "Unreliable, not to be tnisted, " can be traced to the following year. It was not until 1773 that the word acquired the meaning, "Nat quite safe to trust to, or have dealings with, as being associated with supernatural arts or powers," in referring to persons. However , the c losely 3 related meaning, "Partaking of a supernatural character; mysterious, weird, uncomfortably strange or unfamiliar," only dates from 1843. Whereas the original def inition of the word, " f antastic, " as "Existing only in imagination; proceeding merely from imagination; fabulous, imaginary, unreal," can be traced to 1387, the meaning "Pertaining to, or of the nature of, a phantasm" was initiated by 1483. Its meaning, "Of or pertaining to phantasy, in its various psychological senses...as denoting either the faculty (and act) of apprehending sensible objects, or that of imagination; imaginative, " may also be traced to 1483. The word, "Gothic, " was defined originally, in 1611, as "Of, pertaining to, or concerned with the Goths or their language." Its definition, "Belonging to, or characteristic of, the Middle Ages; mediaeval, 'romantic, ' as opposed to classical, " dates f rom 1695, while its denotation of the architectural style of the late Middle Ages dates from 1641. The definition, "Barbarous, rude, uncouth, unpolished, in bad taste. Of tempes: Savage," may be traced to 1695. Finally, the original definition of the word, "alleg~ry,~traced to 1382, is "Description of a subject under the guise of some other subject of aptly suggestive resemblance." By 1534, it had assumed the following meaning: "An instance of such description; a figurative sentence, discourse, or narrative, in which properties and circumstances attributed to the apparent subject really refer to the subject they are meant to suggest; an extended or continued metaphor." With these definitions, it is possible to analyze the connection between the uncanny and the fantastic. Sigmund Freud undertakes a philological study of the German word, "unheimlich," literally "unhomely," but translated as "uncanny." He places it under "the subject of aesthetics" of "the theory of the qualities of feeling": The subject of the 'uncanny' is ...undoubtedly related to what is frightening - to what arouses dread and horror; equally certainly, too, the word is not always used in a clearly definable sense, so that it tends to coincide with what excites fear in general. Yet we may expect that a special core of feeling is present which