Breaking News: Clarie Clairmont Memoir Recently Discovered--Disses Shelley and Byron!

The following article, from the Daily Mail (UK) discusses a forgotten memoir recently discovered by Claire Clairmont, written in her 70's.  In the work she blasts both Byron and Shelley as "monsters," and sheds new light on the relationship between the group in the fateful year of 1818.  Read more! 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1261350/Lord-Byron-described-free-love-worshipper-monster-ex-lover-newly-discovered-memoir.html

Close Reading Questions for Le Fanu's "The Familiar"

(at right: Arnold Bocklin's painting, "The Sacred Wood" (1882), a once famous painter of the fantastic, mythical, and supernatural).

1. According to the OED, the word “familiar” has several possible denotations, including:

• 1. a. Of or pertaining to one's family or household. (Now rare, and with mixture of other senses.) Of an enemy: That is ‘of one's own household’: lit. and fig. Of habits: Pertaining to one's family life, private, domestic

• 1. d. familiar angel: a guardian angel. familiar devil, spirit: a demon supposed to be in association with or under the power of a man.

• 8. Free, as among persons intimately acquainted, unceremonious; occas. Too free, taking liberties with; also in to make familiar with.

• B. b. An officer of the Inquisition, chiefly employed in arresting and imprisoning the accused.

How might all of one of these definitions help us read or interpret the story? What is ultimately so “familiar” about Barton’s condition?

2. Unlike Mr. Jennings, Barton is a hardened heretic, and even after numerous visitations, he insists, “I can’t pray…there is something within me that will not pray…The idea of an eternal Creator is to me intolerable—my mind cannot support it” (61-62). What role do you feel Barton’s skepticism plays in the story? Does he ultimately undergo a transformation?

3. Is “The Familiar” a story of the uncanny—or simply a ghost story? Do the events and visitations have elements of the uncanny, or does the fact that other people see it—or think they see it—remove this from the realm of psychoanalysis (or metaphysical medicine)?

4. Why do you feel the “frame” of Dr. Hesselius has been almost entirely removed from this story, existing only at the very beginning and end of the story? Is there a reason we hear this story almost completely second-hand, instead of from the doctor’s personal observations?

Paper 2.2: "Sublime Philosophy"

Note: the questions for "Green Tea" are below this post...

In his work, Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction, Johnathan Culler defines theory as something that is “reflexive, thinking about thinking, an enquiry into the categories we use in making sense of things, in literature and other discursive practices” (15). With this definition in mind, it is important to remember that any reading is naturally a “theory” that can help us relate to or contextualize a literary work. The Gothic is particularly receptive to literary theory, as it is a fundamentally subversive genre which delights in mirrors, mazes, and masks. Using a theoretical lens, such as feminism, helps us ask specific questions about a book’s genesis, purpose, expression and audience—reminding us that literary works only remain vital as we re-read them and re-interpret them for future generations.

Using your close reading in Paper 2.1 as a basis, choose one of the following theoretical approaches. Also consider which one best informs your reading, so you can seamlessly incorporate your “thesis” into this paper. All of the prompts below are borrowed from Chapter 4 of Stevens’ The Gothic Tradition, which discusses theory and the Gothic novel.

A Feminist Reading: discuss “the relative silence, or, at the very least, passivity, of female characters” in these 19th century Gothic texts. What role does this play either in reinforcing female stereotypes or criticizing a patriarchal (male) power structure? Consider the Creature’s “femininity,” or the roles of the largely mute Elizabeth and Justine…or the much more powerful Carmilla in Le Fanu’s story.

A Psychoanalytic Reading: discuss how these texts deal with “the psychologically divided self, especially when the “id” (the appetite driven emotional basis of life) is in conflict with the “ego” (the conscious sense of self) or the “super-ego” (the sense of morality, sometimes construed as the conscience).” For example, you might consider how consciously these stories reveal man’s “forgotten phase,” which has been suppressed by civilization and English society (ex: Le Fanu’s The Familiar: “So little a matter, after all, is sufficient to upset the pride of skepticism and vindicate the old simple laws of nature within us” (47).

A Marxist Reading: discuss “how, in terms of the class struggle, various characters may become “outsider” figures, feeling alienated from their social context—their fellow human beings.” For example, is the Creature a symbol for the “ugly, inhuman lower classes,” that is naturally repugnant to the aristocratic lover of beauty, Frankenstein? Or is the Creature’s transformation (and murderous rage) symbolic of the danger of educating the lower classes?

Ideas and Sources to Consider:

• Consider the Contextual Documents at the back of Frankenstein as well as Freud’s “The Uncanny”

• Consider the intro essays on each theory at the back of Frankenstein, as well as the critical essays that accompany them

• Use Stevens’ The Gothic Tradition, esp. Chapter 4, which discusses theory and its application to Gothic fiction

• Use the blog entries on cultural context as possible sources

• Check the library—we have Shelley’s Journals and other documents related to her life and works

REQUIREMENTS: 4-6 pages…use of other primary and secondary sources (not counting the class texts)…proper MLA citation throughout…due Friday, April 16th by 5pm

Close Reading Questions for Le Fanu's "Green Tea"

(to left: Eli Grasso's drawing of a Gothic castle (2010), which has nothing to do with Green Tea specifically, but I wanted to show off my 5 year-old's artistic prowess!)

1. “Green Tea” seems contradictory in its obsession both with quasi-scientific detail and more arcane spirituality, such as Swedenbourg’s Arcana Caelestia. How does the work reconcile these two points of view, and does one ultimately “cancel out” the other?

2. At the end of the story, Dr. Hesselius writes that “I have not, I repeat, the slightest doubt that I should have first dimmed and ultimately sealed that inner eye which Mr. Jennings had inadvertently opened…I have never yet failed” (39). Why do we get this extended disclaimer? How does this affect how we read Hesselius as a narrator?

3. How do Freud’s theories in “The Uncanny” play into this work? What passages or ideas from it can help us interpret Le Fanu's intentions? Note that Freud wrote quite a bit after “Green Tea” was written, so Le Fanu could not have read it…though the two may have been thinking along the same wavelength.

4. Consider the title, “Green Tea” itself: why does Le Fanu call our attention to it, when it plays a relatively minor role in the story? What does this say about the story or the characters who inhabit it? Is this all merely a case of bad tea?

Gothic Soundtrack: Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique (1830)

(at left: Eugene Delacroix's portrait of Berlioz)

Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) is a truly Romantic composer, with a liberal pinch of the Gothic as well.  Inspired by the grandiose vision of Beethoven, he wrote music chiefly for orchestra, and often for gigantic forces; on one occassion, he asked for as many as 400 instruments to play one of his works (at the time, a typical orchestra had about 30).  Berlioz read voraciously--including many Gothic works--and found his greatest inspiration in stories of ghosts, curses, old legends, and of course, tormented love.  He wrote a vocal symphony based on Romeo and Juliet, and opera on Much Ado About Nothing, and another symphony/concerto (a symphony with a large role for solo viola) loosely based on Byron's Harold in Italy.  However, his most celebrated work was autobiographical, based on the drama (largely imagined) of his own tortured love life.  In 1827, Berlioz attended a performance of Hamlet by a touring English theatre company; he didn't understand more than a few words of English, but this didn't prevent him from becoming instantly smitten by the actress playing Ophelia, Henrietta Smithson.  Berlioz was a man of extreme sensibility, and he immediately imagined a torrid love affair between the two, and attempted to woo her through intermediaries (and his own music).  She left Paris along with the company soon afterwards, but upon her return a few years later, he had written his magnum opus, the Symphonie Fantastique (Fantastic Symphony--not that it was "great," but that it was "fantastic"--sublime, unusual, uncanny!).  The symphony, in five movements, was preceeded by the following synopsis by Berlioz:

"A young musician of morbid sensibility and ardent imagination in a paroxysm of love-sick despair has poisoned himself with opium.  The drug, too weak to kill, plunges him into a heavy sleep accompanied by strange visions.  His sensations, feelings, and memories are translated in his sick brain into musical ideas and images.  The beloved one herself becomes for him a melody, a recurrent theme that haunts him everywhere."

The symphony opens with a "theme" which represents Henrietta, and undergoes several transformations throughout the work.  The first movement is a melancholy, haunted movement, which sets the scene for his love and his opium-induced trance.  The second movement is a ball scene, where frenzied dancing occurs as he searches for his beloved.  The third movement is a set in the countryside, where the composer is assuaged by the comforting powers of nature--until a distant storm intervenes (cue the sublime).  The fourth movement is stirring, martial music, as the hero is swept up into a frenzied "battle" with his imagination.  This is immediately followed by the trumpets signaling the "dies irae," a famous medieval melody that accompanied the Catholic mass--literally, the "day of wrath."  This theme conjures up a movement that Berlioz suggested was a "black mass," an orgy of witches and goblins led by his beloved, who has become grotesque and "uncanny."  Her theme appears in this movement transformed, no longer comforting but mocking him.  A new theme is taken up by the orchestra, which is the orgy proper; soon, the dies irae sounds at the same time and the two themes crash into one another, dashing toward the inevitable finale, where Berlioz writes the artist is brought to the scaffold by his beloved and decapitated!

In 1830, she attended the premier of this work, though was unaware of her role in inspiring it.  As Berlioz writes in his memoirs, "So astonished was she at the unprecedented murmur of conversation which she was plainly the object, that without being able to account to herself for it, she was filled with a kind of instictive terror, which moved her powerfully...When I came in panting and sat down beside her, she, who until then had doubted whether she were not mistaken in the name at the head of the program, saw and recognized me.  "It is the same," she said to herself.  "Poor young man.  No doubt he has forgotten me.  I hoped that he has."  The symphony began and created a tremendous impression.  The success and the passionate character of the work were bound to produce, and did in fact produce, an impression as profound as it was unlooked for upon her." 

This is only partially true; according to other sources, she was fairly horrified by her "role" in the symphony, and only came to speak with him by degrees.  Nevertheless, they did eventually marry (though he spoke little English and she little French), though it was not a happy marriage.  Perhaps the only true result of the relationship is the symphony itself, which is a high water mark of musical Romanticism, and a fitting companion to Frankenstein, Kubla Khan, and de Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium Eater. 

A You Tube link to a performance by the NHK Symphony (Japan) of the 4th movement is below:

Close Reading Questions for Freud's "The Uncanny" (handouts are in my box if you missed class on Thursday)

(at right: Rene Magritte's painting, The Blank Check, 1965.  Uncanny, eh?).   

Freud published this influential essay in 1919, which is a hundred years after Frankenstein; nevertheless, it has profoundly transformed how we read earlier literature and the Gothic in particular. The essay is an imaginative tour de force, as it combines psychoanalysis, literary analysis, and elements of a short story—the feminist critic Helene Cixous called it “a strange theoretical novel.” Hopefully, reading this essay will remind you that the critical can be creative, and the speculative can be theoretical. You might want to look up several Freudian terms used without context in this essay, such as ego, superego, pleasure principle, etc.

NOTE: I left out Part I of the essay which is only 3-4 pages long and concerns various definitions of the word “uncanny” in German and other cultures. Note that in German, das Unheimliche is “uncanny,” whereas das Heimliche is “homely” or “familiar,” which is a “double” relationship that does not exist in English.

Answer TWO of the following…

1. In the opening pages of the essay, Freud offers a close reading of E.T.A Hoffmann’s story, “The Sandman.” What is the purpose of this close reading—what is he trying to prove or reveal about the uncanny from this reading?

2. According to Freud, why do people typically describe an experience or event as “uncanny,” and what psychological motive lies behind it? Why might he link this to “a primitive phase in our mental development”(143)?

3. Toward the end of Part II, Freud writes, “an uncanny effect often arises when the boundary between fantasy and reality is blurred, when we are faced with the reality of something that we have until now considered imaginary, when a symbol takes on the full function and significance of what it symbolizes” (150). How might this statement (and the argument he makes in this passage) relate directly to our studies of the Gothic?

4. Why does the uncanny function differently in literature than in real life? What rules or principles affect a sense of the uncanny in literature, and how might fairy tales (using his example) be somehow exempt from the uncanny, whereas works like The Vampyre and Frankenstein are not?

Frankenstein: Contextual Documents (pp.190-223)

(at left: Henry Fuseli's painting of Ariel from Shakespeare's The Tempest)

Readings: Godwin, Caleb Williams; Wollstonecraft, Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman; Paracelsus, On Creation; Rousseau, Emile, or Education; Davy, A Discourse, Introductory to a Course of Lectures on Chemistry; Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther.

Easy question this time: Choose TWO of the above readings and explain how they provide useful context for reading/interpreting some aspect of Frankenstein.  Be specific--show how individual passages and ideas from the excerpts relate to the novel, and influence what we read either in small passages or the entire work.  Remember, Shelley read all of these works prior to writing Frankenstein, which means that even subsconsiously (though more likely, quite consciously) these works were eager co-collaborators. 

As a bonus, here are some works that she recorded as reading in her Diary from the years 1815-1816, just prior to and during the composition of Frankenstein.  These are only a FEW of the many works she consumed in this relatively short period of time--she was a voracious reader, and probably slightly in compeition with her husband; she kept a strict record of all the books both read, and if we trust her accounting, she always came out ahead!  You might consider visiting some of these works as primary sources for your Paper #2, especially if you've already read them.  Note how many Gothic works occur in these formative years!  Also, some of these works she was merely re-reading, such as works by her parents. 

SELECTED READINGS OF MARY SHELLEY (from her Journals):
1815: Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther; Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire; Ovid's Metamorphoses; The Arabian Nights; Wordsworth's Poems; Spenser's The Fairy Queen; Charles Brockden Brown's Wieland (an American Gothic novel); Rousseau's Confessions; Beckford's Vathek; Milton's Paradise Lost; Sir Walter Scott's Waverley; Swift's A Tale of a Tub; Lives of Abelard and Heloise; The New Testament; Coleridge's Christabel and Other Poems; Shakespeare's Plays (doesn't say which ones); Alexander Pope's translation of The Iliad; Voltaire's Micromegas; Chaucer's Canterbury Tales; Plutarch's Lives; George Ansons's Voyages Around the World; Lewis's Tales of Wonder (Matthew "Monk" Lewis--author of The Monk); Radcliffe's The Castle of Udolpho...

1816: Livy's History of Rome; Euripides' Plays (doesn't say which ones); James Machperson's Ossian poems (he was a poet who claimed he had discovered the "lost" Celtic epics, which he claimed were written by a Homeric bard named Ossian--later discovered to be a fraud); Mungo Park's Journal of a Journey in Africa; Byron's Seige of Corinth; Godwin's Caleb Williams; Montesquieu's Persian Letters; Rousseau's Emile, or Education; Edgeworth's Castle Rackrent; Cervantes' Don Quixote; Richardson's Pamela and Sir Charles Grandison; Swift's Gulliver's Travels; Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding; Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman...