Diabolical Literature: Questioning the Morality of Modernism by Ilona Urquhart BA (Hons) Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Deakin University November, 2014 Acknowledgements Thank you to Geoff, my supervisor, for your support, patience and wisdom during my candidature. I feel any attempt to convey how much I appreciate your assistance will be inadequate—I cannot imagine a better supervisor. I really appreciate the support I received from Deakin when I was forced to delay my candidature, and would like to thank Belinda Lee, Robyn Ficnerski, Rheanne Hogema and Janine Truter in particular. I would also like to thank other Deakin staff and students who helped me with the thesis, or helped me to get away from the thesis for a while: David McCooey, Alyson Miller, Janine Gibson, Jo Langdon, Dylan Nickelson, Mitch Cunningham, Autumn Royal and Paul Belanger. Thank you to my family (McCarters and Urquharts) for your ongoing love and support as I worked on the thesis. Lastly, to my husband Cameron: I could write pages on the things you have done for me. Thank you. Note A forthcoming book chapter has been drawn from Chapter Three of this thesis: Urquhart, I 2015, ‘The Diabolical Evasion of the Censor in Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita’, in N Moore (ed.), Censorship and the Limits of the Literary: A Global View, Bloomsbury Academic, New York. Table of Contents Introduction ................................................................................................................. 1 The Devil is in the Details: Diabolical Literature in its Literary, Socio-Cultural and Philosophical Contexts .............................................................................................. 12 Introduction ....................................................................................................... 12 The Contribution of Literature to the Lifeworld in the Philosophy of Jürgen Habermas ........................................................................................................... 15 Why Modernism? .............................................................................................. 23 Ghosts, Spectres and Demons: Supernatural Metaphors in Literary Studies .... 27 The Personification of Evil? .............................................................................. 33 The Paper Devil ................................................................................................. 36 The Devil’s Party ............................................................................................... 39 Conclusion ......................................................................................................... 44 The Morality of Being a Reader ............................................................................... 46 The Devil in the Book: Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray ....................... 47 Introduction ....................................................................................................... 47 Aesthetics versus Ethics and Morals ................................................................. 50 The Centrality of Individualism to Wilde’s Thought ........................................ 55 The Responsibility of the Reader ...................................................................... 58 The ‘Soul’ in Wilde ........................................................................................... 61 The Absent Devil ............................................................................................... 67 Conclusion ......................................................................................................... 71 Humbert Humbert, the Devil’s Plaything: Vladimir Nabokov’s Literary Games . 73 Introduction ....................................................................................................... 73 Succès de scandale ............................................................................................ 77 Puzzles and Traps .............................................................................................. 82 Nabokov’s Methods of Deceit ........................................................................... 84 The Duplicity of Language ................................................................................ 87 Controlling the Reader ...................................................................................... 89 ‘Aesthetic Bliss’ and Moral Education ............................................................. 97 Conclusion ....................................................................................................... 101 The Morality of Being a Writer............................................................................... 103 The Gospel according to the Devil; or, Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita ................................................................................................................. 104 Introduction ..................................................................................................... 104 Devils and Demons in Russia .......................................................................... 108 ‘The Devil Only Knows’ ................................................................................. 111 The Master and Margarita and Censorship .................................................... 116 Authorship as a Moral Obligation ................................................................... 117 Deducing the Narrator ..................................................................................... 120 Diabolical Narration ........................................................................................ 125 A Diabolical Gospel ........................................................................................ 128 Conclusion ....................................................................................................... 131 A Tale of Two Fausts: Thomas Mann’s Exploration of Artistic Responsibility ... 133 Introduction ..................................................................................................... 133 The Faustian Composer ................................................................................... 136 The Unreliable Biographer .............................................................................. 139 Interpreting Adrian’s Laughter ........................................................................ 142 Confronting the Unknown ............................................................................... 148 Serenus’ Guilt .................................................................................................. 152 The Responsibility of the Writer ..................................................................... 155 Conclusion ....................................................................................................... 160 The Morality of Secular Literature ......................................................................... 162 The World as the Devil’s Book: Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose ............... 163 Introduction ..................................................................................................... 163 Medieval Anxiety ............................................................................................ 167 Solving the Unsolvable ................................................................................... 170 Living with Unlimited Semiosis ...................................................................... 176 Books in Dialogue ........................................................................................... 179 Who Killed the Author? .................................................................................. 182 Eco’s Solution ................................................................................................. 188 Conclusion ....................................................................................................... 191 Salman Rushdie’s ‘Faustian Contract in Reverse’ ................................................ 193 Introduction ..................................................................................................... 193 Interpreting the ‘Rushdie Affair’ ..................................................................... 197 Rushdie’s Devils .............................................................................................. 202 A Novel about Migrant Identity? .................................................................... 207 The Words of ‘Satan Rushdy’ ......................................................................... 213 The Right to Tell Stories ................................................................................. 220 Conclusion ....................................................................................................... 223 Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 225 APPENDIX .............................................................................................................. 232 On Excluding Dostoevsky ............................................................................... 232 References ................................................................................................................ 237 ABSTRACT Abstract In my thesis I argue that there is a definite but previously unnoticed tendency for literary modernists