Subsequently, the text acts as a good example of the late Victorian prototypical Gothic novel that presents themes that challenge key cultural narratives. He argues that Lord Henry’s true philosophy is one of “inaction… beyond good and evil… Lord Henry never acts and never falls” (124). The results can be seen in Tennyson’s fairy poems of the early 1830s, Charlotte Brontë hiding guilty secrets in the Gothic towers of Thornfield in Jane Eyre (1847), and the way Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Pit and the Pendulum' (1842) cruelly reconstructs the torture-chambers of the Spanish Inquisition. If women’s lives are confined to the home, they are perhaps more likely to tune into sad feminine afterlives still housebound after death. The story begins with the arrival of mysterious Mrs Graham at the long-dilapidated Wildfell Hall. For example, the portrait briefly acts as a moral compass that mirrors the soul after the death of his fiancé, Sybil Vane when Dorian realizes the underlying nature of the portrait; “but here was a visible symbol of the degradation of sin. Within this moment, Dorian briefly removes the influence of the portrait by locking it up, so he can freely publicly observe his hedonistic lifestyle without the shame of the portrait’s degradation thus subscribing to the influence of Lord Henry rather than Basil. Book Description. The text does not begin with a skin-crawling atmosphere typical of other popular Victorian Gothic horror texts so this event that sparks the decline of Dorian is one that is intended to shock the spectator. USA: New York University Press, 1998. London: Routledge, 1998. Just one little boy in the story's long Scottish summer twilight sees what the girl sees: 'yon windy yonder in the library that is nae windy.' Lord Henry presents Dorian with an obscure book without a title that in his youth had shaped many of his opinions that he promotes (19). The result of this was a call for social segregation of the working class for any further successful development of London suburbs (Ackroyd 523). Wilde had intended the text to be simultaneously controversial and provocative as a critique of Victorian aesthetic obsession with beauty and its culturally believed correlation with moral sensibility. With the influence of the portrait removed, Dorian finds himself captivated by this new influencer (102). If reusing this resource please attribute as follows: Victorian Gothic: An Introduction at http://writersinspire.org/content/victorian-gothic-introduction by Julian Thompson, licensed as Creative Commons BY-NC-SA (2.0 UK). Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray is a key example of these trends in Victorian Gothic literature. Oxford: European Academic Publishers 2003. In the Victorian era, Gothic novels even provided an outlet for exploration of sexuality, as seen in Edgar Allan Poe’s 1849 poem, “Annabel Lee.” 6. Kingston, Angela. Its origin is attributed to English author Horace Walpole, with his 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto, subtitled (in its second edition) "A Gothic Story". It is this dramatic irony and treatment of the portrait as if it were an autonomous being that sets the foundation for the symbiotic relationship that Dorian develops with the portrait as a reflection of his soul and the proposition of the portrait acting as a rival that Dorian is jealous of and cannot overcome or escape. Norfolk: New Directions Books, 1947. Noté /5. Oscar Wilde, 'The Canterville Ghost' (1887), The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891) Arthur Conan Doyle, 'Lot No 249' (1892) But these texts were considered disturbing and were something that you read behind closed doors and hid under your mattress as a sensational controversial piece of erotic literature that you would not show to anyone else. However, Twitchell does not take into account that Dorian’s attic is where the true face of the Gothic monster resides and where the climax of Basil’s murder eventually takes place after Dorian reveals the painting’s nature. The point of the vampire is of course to introduce some notion the exchange of bodily fluids, 'slippery blisses' (Keats) that cannot at this time be mentioned in wholesome fiction. However, the Gothic tropes used earlier in the eighteenth century in texts such as Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho were transported and interwoven into many late-nineteenth century narratives. The influence of religion over the general populace was also subject to change; the focus on scientific research into the origins of creation, and post-Enlightenment rationale claimed that religion was part of prior superstition before natural phenomenon could be explained through the scientific process. H. Rider Haggard, She (1885) But there is no window. A deeper level of this is Basil’s inability to separate Dorian from the portrait in the second chapter where he states that, “as soon as you (Dorian) are dry, you shall be varnished and framed, and sent home” (25). Though Dorian engages in a hedonistic lifestyle that is never fully explored in the initial text, leaving much to the imagination, Dorian’s reputation in the public sphere does fall under scrutiny and scandal. The text contends that influence is a predominantly negative force. London: Routledge 2005. 1764 The Castle of Otranto: The first Gothic novel. This also meant that the once physically separated social classes now lived closer together than ever before. About as domestic as you can get is the setting of Madelene Yale Wynne's 'The Little Room'(1895) in which a 'little room' in a New England farmhouse regularly morphs into a china closet. As Lara Whelan states, the picturesque nature of the city became a representation of progress (100). It was a period of revolution; the steam engine changed the nature of transport, industry and the economy which also lead to rapid urbanization as the rural working class and immigrants began to migrate to the city center for refuge and work in the growing industrial city which held a population of over three million toward the end of the nineteenth century (Schwarz 1-2). In his dream world he thinks he escapes the hangman's noose and returns to his family. 7- In the chaste Victorian era, Gothic literature provided an outlet for the exploration of sexuality. Thomas, Donald. The vampire is often gender-switched too, as with the eponymous heroine of J. Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla (1872) or Mary Elizabeth Braddon's terminally ill but eternally living 'The Good Lady Ducayne' (1896). One that is harder to identify that could exist right next to the spectator to challenge the Victorian duality of morality and beauty through the paradox of Dorian’s influential sinful nature yet unblemished physicality. Anne Bronte, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Much of Poe’s writing and poetry depicts eerie, supernaturalistic scenes and elements. Scholars such as Fred Botting, Joseph Carroll, Richard Ellman, and Angela Kingston discuss the conflict between “homoeroticisms correlation with male sexual phycology and the Christian ethos of good and evil as Wilde conceives it” that seemed to correlate with this secularisation (3). Lord Henry reinforces this point by bluntly suggesting to Dorian upon meeting him that “there is no such thing as a good influence… all influence is immoral…” (18). New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2007. Gothic fiction, which is largely known by the subgenre of Gothic horror, is a genre or mode of literature and film that combines fiction and horror, death, and at times romance. This appears in the trope of the doomed romance, as in Edgar Allan Poe’s “Annabel Lee,” or in the appearance of a demonic lover figure, such as the bloodthirsty vampire in Bram Stoker’s “Dracula.” The Picture of Dorian Gray is a comedy of manners and a horror of beauty that corrupts the soul and the picture acts as a mirror to the soul to show the monster within. During this course, you'll: develop the skillset required to work in the heritage industry, the arts and media. The history of Gothic literature dates back to 18th century England. Basil is at the center of this ironic juxtaposition, often composing monologues about beauty and then referring to Dorian’s personality (13). It's where your interests connect you with your people. Range of extracts and activities. Gilbert, Palmela K. Mapping the Victorian Social Body. Likewise, Dorian Gray’s immorality makes him monstrous though, unlike previous iterations of the monstrous Gothic antagonist that donned a grotesque aesthetic, Dorian is considered beautiful. 'The past is not dead, it is not even past.' Here the heroine, like Lewis Carroll's Alice, creates dream visions through the looking-glass window she can see across the street. Together the two symbolize the resounding influence that the two men have had over Dorian’s development. Like all literature, late 19th century Gothic literature is to some degree a product of its social and cultural environments. Thomas Hardy, 'The Withered Arm' (1888), 'Barbara of the House of Grebe' (1893) A favourite quotation in Victorian ghost-stories is Hamlet's 'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.' Basil makes this assertion to Lord Henry by saying, “…don’t spoil him (Dorian). Oscar Wilde doubled his hero in The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), where an immortal young aesthete goes about the dark parts of town with impunity, while his double, in the form of an increasingly grotesque work of art hidden in an attic, does his suffering for him. The American writer Mary E. Wilkins, a prolific writer of good ghost stories, has a particularly poignant one, 'The Lost Ghost', in which a confused and shivering wraith-child is looking for her mother – for any warm, living mother. The Living Dead: The Study of the Vampire in Romantic Literature. Buckton, Oliver S. Secret Selves: Confession and Same-Sex Desire in Victorian Autobiography. The Victorians became very aesthetically focused on surfaces and surface beauty. This branch of scholarship typically argues that the text offers “two competing visions of human nature… the first derives from the aesthetic doctrines of Walter Pater, and the other from a traditional Christian conception of the soul” (2). Whereas Dorian naively enacts Lord Henry’s philosophy whilst maintaining the façade of his manners and morality within the Victorian social landscape. The vampire makes a spectacular come-back. M. R. James, an accomplished scholar and academic in his day-job, very fond of this quotation, plants half-forgotten demons in cellars and dusty tomes, suggesting that men of learning, like Dr Jekyll, should be careful what they wish for, or at least search for. 'The Willows' (1908)is about the unbearable swishing of trees on a canoe holiday down the Danube, while 'The Wendigo' (1910) takes us to Northern Ontario where an exhausted Kanuck tracker is snapped up by a vengeful Algonquian Demon, twenty-five feet high. Achetez neuf ou d'occasion However, the pleasure quickly turns to paranoia as Dorian feels that he cannot leave the country or house for very long in case someone comes across his secret (112). This fascination with this juxtaposition also extended to the home which was an example of how individuals could occupy both public and private space (30). Victorian Goth. Punter, David. These texts were controversial as they often scrutinized and critiqued social and cultural structures of the period and simultaneously sensationalized them with romantic notions, sexual depravity, immorality, and grotesque monstrous forms. However, it is important to note that Lord Henry does not necessarily believe every word that he states, nor does he live by his own philosophy. Don’t try and influence him. Where other Gothic texts seek to expose insecurities of external pressures or anxiety, Wilde illuminates the danger of the superficial morality inherent with the confines of the fast progressing industrial urban empire. The Victorian era is defined as the years of Queen Victoria's rule from 1837 to 1901 and is defined by advanced scientific discoveries and burgeoning cultural questions of moral values. Subsequently, public faith in Christian Orthodoxy began to wane in the wake of Enlightenment rationalist thinking that deliberately undermined the church and the monarchy. About | Accessibility | Legal Notice | Privacy, Creative Commons - Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license, Inspirational literature from the University of Oxford. The mummy is periodically brought to life by its owner, when it does service as a kind of hit-man, persecuting other undergraduates. 'Atavism', fear of regression to an earlier, less civilised state – the knights, we are told, belong back in 'Catholic times' – was a fear Victorian Gothic regularly played on. They are black novels. The Gothic in mainstream Victorian fiction. Science as a discipline had existed for some time, but had steadily… It was this hypocritical nature that Wilde seeks to expose with his challenge to the cultural normative. The Fall of the house of Usher is one of the most famous Victorian Gothic novels and Poe was the first writer to introduce psychological madness into gothic fiction. Lessons (to follow Sublime and Early Gothic Fiction) enabling students to understand key features and identify contextual factors that impact Victorian Gothic. The literature of the Victorian age (1837-1901) entered a new period after the romantic revival. “Withered, Wrinkled, and Loathsome of Visage: Reading the Ethics of the Soul and the Late-Victorian Gothic in the Picture of Dorian Gray.” In Victorian Gothic: Literary and Cultural Manifestations in the Nineteenth Century, edited by Ruth Robbins and Julian Wolfreys. The major setting for scenes as depicted in Gothic literature are Victorian style huge mansions. Lovecraft, "The Picture in the House" (1920). New York: State University of New York Press 2004. While other Gothic novels portray Victorian London was the embodiment of the empire to be invaded or corrupted due to its virtuous civility and morality and supreme nature, Oscar Wilde maintains that the city as an environment is already corrupted through its population’s moral ambiguity and unethical practices despite its beautiful aesthetic. Poe's Gothic world was imported from Europe, but there was by now plenty of past to exploit in America. Whelan, Lara Baker. Conan Doyle has a wonderful tall story of an Oxford undergraduate who, lacking social skills, makes up for it by keeping a mummy in his room. M. R. James, 'O Whistle and I'll Come to you, my Lad', 'Casting the Runes', 'Lost Hearts' (all published 1904) London Profile Books, 2018. Victorian Hauntings: Spectrality, Gothic, the Uncanny and Literature | Julian Wolfreys (auth.) In our world this is a fantasy, indulged and then abruptly curtailed as he drops through the air to his death. Their love of medieval, classical and biblical myths and legends — coupled with the romance of the Pre-Raphaelites, gothic literature (Romanticism), great strides in archaelogy and even a fascination with magic and the occult — permeated into all aspects of Victorian life, from architecture to clothing and most certainly names. Intriguingly some people see it as one, some as the other, a girl remembers a peacock design all her life that is invisible to others, and family arguments grow out of the uncertainty. Meanwhile Gothic had become so influential that we can detect its elements in much mainstream Victorian fiction. References and further Victorian Gothic texts to explore: Nathaniel Hawthorne, 'Young Goodman Brown' (1835) As the two key signifiers of art of the nineteenth century, the book acts as a road map for Dorian into his immortality as he attempts to mirror Lord Henry’s philosophy. Bram Stoker, 'The Judge's House' (1891) However, he indicates that Wilde was not interested in terrorizing his readers as he was in “saying something quite specific about the dynamics of artistic creation” (173). Or so the old people tell her. A Guide to the Gothic by Jack Clark is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted. Edouard Roditi specifies that the perversion of Lord Henry’s true doctrine a key element to the text. Noté /5. Guy, Josephine M. The Victorian Age: An Anthology of Sources and Documents. Scholars such as Jerrod Hogle, Kenneth Womack, specifically evaluate the use of the Gothic and its inherent supernatural elements as the tool of Wilde to express his ethical criticism of society and artistic culture (169). The arts became a fixation of the Victorian middle-class population who believed that morality and virtue could be taught through its sophisticated appearance and could be simultaneously mirrored in the public forum. The novel’s theme of aestheticism is a critique of  Victorian moral panic. They’re … No Man’s Land, Elder Gods and Monsters: The Modern Gothic from 1900-1932. Reay, Barry. North Carolina University of North Carolina Press 1998. Not all Victorian Gothic packs its ambiguity into phantom rooms, or behind liminal windows and doors. Stevenson uses Gothic doubling in The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), where the middle-aged, highly moral Doctor proves no match for his cynical, youthful and violent other self. Nathaniel Hawthorne re-imagines ancestral New England as a place of frowning grey elders, Black Magic and Puritan guilt. Gothic literature began in the mid-eighteenth-century with Horace Walpole’s ‘The Castle of Otranto’, which is widely considered to the first true work of Gothic fiction (‘The Castle of Otranto’). Robert Louis Stevenson, 'The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde' (1886) Find books Amelia B. Edwards, 'The Phantom Coach' (1864) London in the Nineteenth Century. Giles, Steve, and Maike Oegel. However, the genre did not truly take off until the Victorian era, which spanned most of the nineteenth-century. Achetez neuf ou d'occasion United States: Duke University Press, 1981. With suggestive blood transfusion come other sexual symbols from the deep past, like the medieval legend of Vlad the Impaler which inspires Dracula, with its body-piercing stakes, or the stone rapists in Edith Nesbit’s story 'Man-Size in Marble' (1896), two statues of brutal Norman knights which come alive at Halloween and stomp from the church to their former home in which a young couple are honeymooning. Wilde identifies these hypocritical dualities of beauty and immorality, the sublime and the grotesque, and influence and the monstrous, and creates Dorian Gray as the embodiment of these observations and how a monstrous individual can remain morally infallible if they are physically beautiful. Beasley, Edward. J. Sheridan Le Fanu, 'Authentic Narrative of the Ghost of a Hand' in The House by the Churchyard (1861), 'Green Tea' (1872), Carmilla (1872) Much of this could be attributed to class reform, as the middle classes were beginning to gain wealth, power and ambition to rise in the social stratosphere through education and industrialization. It expresses a commentary on many of the issues surrounding the sole aesthetical nature of Victorian society but also the issues that Wilde had to deal with personally, surrounding social expectations and his own identity and sexuality. Ambrose Bierce, 'Incident at Owl Creek Bridge' (1890), 'The Eyes of the Panther' (1897) To further understand the context of The Picture of Dorian Gray, it is important to understand the social issues present within Victorian society. It is only after that the portrait is removed from view that Dorian finds the book that Lord Henry has sent him. 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