The Gothic Ideology

Diane Hoeveler

Description

The Gothic Ideology argues that in order to modernize and secularize, the British Protestant imaginary needed an 'other' against which it could define itself as a culture and a nation with distinct boundaries. The 'Gothic ideology' is identified as an intense religious anxiety, produced by the aftershocks of the Protestant reformation, the Catholic Counter-Reformation, and the dynastic upheavals produced by both events in England, Germany, and France, and was played out in hundreds of Gothic texts published throughout Europe between the mid-eighteenth century and 1880. This book is the first to read the Gothic ideology through the historical context of both King Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries and the extensive French anti-clerical and pornographic works that were well-known to Horace Walpole and Matthew Lewis. The book argues that Gothic was thoroughly invested in a crude form of anti-Catholicism that fed lower class prejudices against the passage of a variety of Catholic Relief Acts that had been pending in Parliament since 1788 and finally passed in 1829.
Table of Contents List of Figures Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter One: Anti-Catholicism and the Gothic Ideology: Interlocking Discourse Networks Chapter Two: The Construction of the Gothic Nun: Fantasy and the Religious Imaginary Chapter Three: The Spectre of Theocracy: Mysterious Monks and "Priestcraft" Chapter Four: The Foreign Threat: Inquisitions, autos-da-fe, and Bloody Tribunals Chapter Five: Ruined Abbeys: Justifying Stolen Property and the Crusade against Superstition EPILOGUE: Penny Dreadfuls and the (Almost) Last Gasp of the Gothic

Sujets

• Religion
• Christianisme
• Literary Criticism
• Idioma inglés
• English
• Anglais

Informations

• Publié par: University of Wales Press
• Date de parution: 15 mai 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781783160495
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 9 Mo

Extrait

THE GOTHIC IDEOLOGYSERIES PREFACE
Gothic Literary Studies is dedicated to publishing
groundbreaking scholarship on Gothic in literature and film. The Gothic,
which has been subjected to a variety of critical and theoretical
approaches, is a form which plays an important role in our
understanding of literary, intellectual and cultural histories. The
series seeks to promote challenging and innovative approaches
to Gothic which question any aspect of the Gothic tradition or
perceived critical orthodoxy. Volumes in the series explore how
issues such as gender, religion, nation and sexuality have shaped
our view of the Gothic tradition. Both academically rigorous
and informed by the latest developments in critical theory, the
series provides an important focus for scholarly developments
in Gothic studies, literary studies, cultural studies and critical
theory. The series will be of interest to students of all levels and
to scholars and teachers of the Gothic and literary and cultural
histories.
SERIES EDITORS
Andrew Smith, University of Sheffield
Benjamin F. Fisher, University of Mississippi
EDITORIAL BOARD
Kent Ljungquist, Worcester Polytechnic Institute Massachusetts
Richard Fusco, St. Joseph’s University, Philadelphia
David Punter, University of Bristol
Chris Baldick, University of London
Angela Wright, University of Sheffield
Jerrold E. Hogle, University of ArizonaThe Gothic Ideology
Religious Hysteria and Anti-Catholicism
in British Popular Fiction 1780–1880
Diane Long Hoeveler
UNIVERSITY OF WALES PRESS
CARDIFF
2014© Diane Long Hoeveler 2014
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without clearance from the University of Wales Press, 10 Columbus
Walk, Brigantine Place, Cardiff, CF10 4UP.
www.uwp.co.uk
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978–1–7831–6048–8
e-ISBN 978–1–7831–60495
The right of Diane Long Hoeveler to be identified as author of this
work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 79
of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Typeset by Prepress Projects Ltd, Perth, UK
Printed in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham, WiltshireCONTENTS
List of Illustrations vii
Acknowledgements ix
Introduction 1
1 Anti-Catholicism and the Gothic Ideology:
Interlocking Discourse Networks 15
2 The Construction of the Gothic Nun: Fantasies and
the Religious Imaginary 51
3 The Spectre of Theocracy: Mysterious Monks and
‘Priestcraft’ 98
4 The Foreign Threat: Inquisitions, Autos-da-Fé and
Bloody Tribunals 147
5 Ruined Abbeys: Justifying Stolen Property and the
Crusade against Superstition 197
Epilogue: The Penny Dreadful and the (Almost) Last
Gasp of the Gothic Ideology 247
Notes 265
Bibliography 293
Appendix: Anti-Catholic/Gothic Titles 321
Index 343LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Figure 1.1: Gissey de Bordelet, Histoire du Père Jean
Baptiste Girard Jésuite, et de la Delle Marie-Catherine
Cadière, divisee en 32 planches 34
Figure 2.1: Chapbook version of Eliza, or the
Unhappy Nun 67
Figure 2.2: Frontispiece to The Nun; or, Memoirs of
Angelique; An Interesting Tale 73
Figure 2.3: Frontispiece to The Legends of a Nunnery 87
Figure 3.1: FFather Innocent 112
Figure 4.1: Frontispiece to Brompton Revelations 151
Figure 4.2: Climactic scene from G. W. M. Reynolds’s
The Bronze Statue, or The Virgin’s Kiss 154
Figure E.1: Mysteries of a London Convent 248
Figure E.2: Poster advertising the production of Le
Diable au Couvent by Eugène Hugot 261ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Writing a book is often a lonely and haphazard journey,
frequently full of potholes and dead ends. The composition
of this book, however, was a pleasure, filled with charming
vistas, intriguing interludes, and challenging but exhilarating
jaunts into new territory. It is my pleasure here to thank the
people who made this trip so enjoyable: Marquette University’s
Committee on Research awarded me a three-year Way-Klingler
Humanities Fellowship to travel to archives and libraries in
America and Europe in order to gather the primary texts used
here, and for that support I am immensely grateful. In Paris I was
hosted by Pascale Sardin at the Institut du Monde Anglophone,
Université Sorbonne Nouvelle - Paris 3, and I would like to
thank the audience there for asking me such probing questions
during my visit; in Germany I was hosted by Norbert Besch,
the man with a treasure trove of Gothic arcana at his fingertips;
and in Toulouse I was hosted by Maurice Lévy, the late great
French Gothicist who allowed me to digitize his French Gothic
collection before it was shipped to the University of Virginia in
2012. In England, I was hosted by Chloe Chard and twice by
Nora and Keith Crook, and I will always be grateful for their
hospitality and kindness to me.
The scholarly Gothic/Romantic community has embraced
my work and made me feel particularly supported. Special
thanks go to Robert Miles, David Punter, Anne Williams,
Steve Bruhm, Bill Hughes, Andrew Smith, Avril Horner, Sue
Zlosnik, Dale Townshend, Angela Wright and Tina Morin.
Colleagues who have read my work or have always been
generous with their time are Stephen Behrendt, Marshall Brown,
Fred Burwick, Benjamin Colbert, David Collings, Jeff Cass, The Gothic Ideology
Jeff Cox, Gary Dyer, Nancy Goslee, Jonathan Gross, Nicholas
Halmi, Regina Hewitt, Jeff Kahan, Gary Kelly, John Mahoney,
Victoria Nelson, Richard Sha, Douglas Thomson, Jack Voller
and Judith Wilt. I am particularly grateful to David Salter and
Marie Léger-St-Jean for reading drafts of this work at an early
stage and offering helpful advice and encouragement. Several
sections of this book were originally presented at conferences
held by the British Association of Romantic Studies, the
International Gothic Association, the International Conference
on Romanticism, the Humanities Center at DePaul University,
and the North American Society for the Study of Romanticism.
Scholars and librarians who have helped me track down
images and references and have gone above and beyond in
answering my frequent queries are John Adcock, Elizabeth James,
Louis James, Andrea Lloyd, Michael Ferber, Michael Gavin,
Justin Gilbert, Steve Holland, Denis Paz, Elizabeth Denlinger,
Patrick Scott, John Selby, Nancy F. Sweet and Stephen Karian.
My research assistants at Marquette – Brian Kenna, Abby Vande
Walle, Camilia Cenek and Robin Graham – did the hard work
of converting digital material to Word files for my use. Rose
Fortier transferred most of the chapbooks discussed in this book
to the online site, ‘The Gothic Archive’. I am immensely grateful
for her technical savvy. Joan Sommer at Marquette University’s
office of interlibrary loan handled more requests than I am sure
she cares to remember, and I would like to thank the librarians
and curators who were extraordinarily patient when I was such
a persistent presence at a variety of libraries: the British Library,
Cambridge University Library, the Bodleian Library, Oxford,
the Sadleir–Black collection at the University of Virginia Library,
the Pforzheimer Collection, the New York Public Library, the
Library of Congress, the Bibliotèque-Nationale-Richelieu and
Tolbiac, and the Bibliothèque-musée de l’Opéra-Paris.
I am also indebted to the editors of Religion in the Age of
Enlightenment and European Romantic Review for permission to
republish materials originally printed in different versions in
those venues. At the University of Wales Press, I would like to
acknowledge the skilful editorial work of Sarah Lewis and Sian
Chapman. Thanks also to Andrew Davidson and Claire Rose
xAcknowledgements
at Prepress Projects. I am also immensely grateful to Professor
Jerry Hogle of the University of Arizona, who served as the
press’s external reader and provided astute and very helpful
critiques during the publication process. At Marquette, I am
grateful for the support of my dean, Fr Philip Rossi, SJ. And, as
always, it is a pleasure to thank my beloved and loving family,
David, John and Emily Hoeveler.
xiK
Introduction
Falsis terroribus Implet [Torture my breast with fictions]
Epistles (Horace, 1749: II. 398)
Getting its history wrong is part of being a nation.
What Is a Nation? (Renan, 1990: 12)
The cover of this book, an illustration from Purkess’s 1848
penny dreadful adaptation of Matthew Lewis’s vehemently
anti-Catholic novel The Monk (1796), depicts very clearly the
hysterical energy that was brought to the issue of religion in what
1was supposedly a progressive era. Representing the climactic
moment in the text when the Franciscan monk Ambrosio
seizes his sister Antonia by the hair just after raping her in the
catacombs beneath his Madrid monastery, the illustration spoke
to the general public’s pervasive fears about the presence of an
increasing number of Catholic clergy in a Britain that was by this
time thoroughly invested in a form of nationalistic Protestantism.
This scene of a sadistic monk raping, torturing and murdering
a young innocent woman (and in this case, unbeknownst
to him, his long-lost sister) was continually reprinted in the
penny press throughout the century, while depictions of The
Monk’s perverse and violent attacks on his mother and sister
were persistently popular tropes in Gothic texts, so frequently
repeated that one marvels at how the populace could not have The Gothic Ideology
been quickly sated with their depiction. However, quickly sated
they do not seem to have been. Variations on this representation
have continued to appear in hundreds of literary texts for over
200 years, seemingly in direct contradiction to claims recently
made by Franco Moretti (2009). Using more than 7,000 novels
from several different countries published over a 160-year
per