Yes, I disappeared off the face of the planet, but not into any haunted houses (if my own house is haunted, it hasn't let on). Nevertheless, I have returned, zombie-like, with this year's Halloween reading list--namely, the Gothic and horror stories on the syllabus for the nineteenth-century short fiction course I'm teaching this semester. (I should note that these are not "Gothic greatest hits," but "Gothic suiting other themes in this course, which is not primarily about the Gothic.")
- Mary Shelley, "The Mortal Immortal": Shelley's self-parody of Frankenstein, featuring jealousy, alchemy, incompetent scientific assistants, and potion-related errors.
- Sarah Scudgell Wilkinson, "Ethelred and Lidania": Gothic chapbook whose main plot line appears to owe something to Jephthah's vow (Judges 11:30-40). Involves what I guess are supposed to be Druids, and features a rather annoying deus ex machina.
- ---, "Oakcliffe Hall, or the Fatal Effects of Feudal Quarrels": another Gothic chapbook set during the reign of Henry VIII. One of those stories in which what turns out to be the Big Problem could have been solved quickly had someone, you know, spoken up.
- David Lyndsay, "The Bridal Ornaments: A Legend of Thuringia": in order to win his beloved, a knight needs to retrieve some lost jewels. The initial manifestation of the spirits seems to owe a lot to the falling helmet in The Castle of Otranto. Also an example of the Gothic adage that it's a good idea to make sure that your bridegroom is a) alive and/or b) human prior to marrying him.
- Elizabeth Gaskell, "The Old Nurse's Story": probably Gaskell's best-known tale of the supernatural, featuring a haunted house and a classic creepy little girl ghost. As always in Victorian ghost stories, it's the servants who know what's up.
- Mary Elizabeth Braddon, "At Chrighton Abbey": Braddon takes a subtle dig at Jane Eyre in this ghost story, in which the rather mundane haunting takes second place to the narrator's repressed jealousy and desire.
- J. S. Le Fanu, "Schalken the Painter": Another example of the dead bridegroom trope, probably inherited from Gottfried Burger.
- ---, "Carmilla": One of the nineteenth century's most famous vampires.
- W. H. Ainsworth, "The Spectre-Bride": Look, when your boyfriend makes you swear a vow like that, you should probably be...worried, maybe?
- Rudyard Kipling, "The Phantom 'Rickshaw": a decidedly unpleasant man's adulterous dalliance ends in the woman's death. And then, as you might expect, she comes back...
- Edith Nesbit, "From the Dead": a self-centered man reacts badly when he discovers his wife tricked him (with the best of intentions). Things go downhill rapidly from there.
- Henry James, "The Romance of Certain Old Clothes": sisterly jealousy persists beyond the grave.
- Oscar Wilde, "The Canterville Ghost": Wilde good-naturedly shreds the entire fabric of the nineteenth-century ghost story.
Welcome back!
I hope we'll see you more often than every six months.
There's a very good film inspired by Schalken the Painter.
Posted by: ROGER ALLEN | October 28, 2020 at 10:41 PM