Gothic Literature in 18th Century England

Relationship of "The Old English Baron" and "Vathek" to 18th Century English Gothic Fiction

The rise of Gothic fiction in English literature coincided with the advent of the Romantic Era at the end of the 18th century and beginning of the 19th century. Gothic masterpieces such as Shelley's Frankenstein, Lewis's The Monk, and Stoker's Dracula would capture the imagination by fueling it with the flames of horror, suspense, other-worldliness and mystery. These elements are significant because the Age of Enlightenment had been characterized by a cold, objective, analytical focus on nature and humankind. It had been based on the concept that reason was sufficient to explain all events in the world and in fact all creation. Yet as Shakespeare's Hamlet reminded readers, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy" (Shakespeare 1.5.167-168). Part of this interest in the Gothic was inspired by tales from the Orient, which serves as the subject of Beckford's "Vathek." Another part of this interest was a reaction to the Puritanism of the times: the Gothic genre represented the mystery of iniquity and sin that lurked just below the surface of people and events, simultaneously attracting and repulsing them -- urging them to look and yet frightening them into wanting to run. This paper will relate Beckford's Vathek and Reeve's "The Old English Baron" to the early development of the 18th century English Gothic fiction and show how the two represent these two strains.

"Vathek" is a story of supposedly Arabian origin. Its Orientalism roots it in the same kind of mystery and otherworldliness as Bronte's Jane Eyre (the latter's mad woman locked in the attic, a common gothic motif or trope, conveys elements of Orientalism -- as does the "gypsy" who shows up at the Hall to read everyone's fortune) (Zonana 592; Bardi 31). "The Old English Baron" is a story that takes the gothic elements of "The Castle of Otranto" and provides a more realistic take on them, as was Reeve's intention (Bartolomeo 100). In both cases, there is a desire on the part of the gothic writer to set the tale in a setting that is at least somewhat realistic. It is in fact the mixture of realism and the fantastic that gives the gothic genre its inherent power to thrill. Were it wholly fantastic, its allure would not be as powerful: the charms would be obvious and the suspension of disbelief required for maintenance of one's attention too great.

However, by placing the realms of the fantastic squarely in reality (Stoker does so with Dracula -- bringing the demonic presence home to London), the reader is given the sense that the horror, the supernatural, the shock of murder, obsession, envy, sin, guilty and revenge could all be found just below the surface of real life if one were so inclined to look. "The Old English Baron" is certainly an attempt to illustrate that fact -- since Reeve felt that "Otranto" had gone too far in its fantastical elements: "the machinery is so violent, that it destroys the effect it is intended to excite. Had the story been kept within the utmost verge of probability, the effect had been preserved, without losing the least circumstance that excites or detains the attention" (Bartolomeo 100). This admission by Reeve that the point of the gothic is to excite indicates that the reading audiences of the late 18th century had grown tired of the rational, realistic epistolary works of popular fiction and now wanted something that spoke of those more sinister urges that were not spoken of in polite society. The Age of Enlightenment had, in other words, had its fill of reason and now wanted to remember what it meant to feel something. The gothic was giving rise to Romance and attacking the ideology of Puritanism at the same time.

In spite of Reeve's claim that the gothic genre should be more rooted in reality than Walpole made it seem in "Otronto," the text of "Vathek" begins with an almost exaggerated sense of the power of the main character (namely his wrath) -- to the point that the reader may feel compelled to think that the narrative is in line with a Tall Tale. For example, Vathek's angry eye is described as being "so terrible, that no person could be to behold it; and the wretch upon whom it was fixed, instantly fell backward, and sometimes expired. For fear, however, of depopulating his dominions and making his palace desolate, he but rarely gave way to his anger" (Beckford 29). The humorous manner in which Beckford concludes his description indicates that the gothic author was not averse to providing the reader of the genre a sense of fun. Indeed, the gothic was designed to give pleasure in a way that the early 18th century English literature did not: it focused more on the sensational, emotional, and imagination-rousing ability of words that could create whole new worlds within the here and now. Vathek's origin in the Orient, however, does what Stoker achieves in Dracula -- the bridging of settings (one local and one foreign). While Vathek is set entirely in the Middle East (Turkey), the fact that it is being read in English is enough for the reader to feel transported and yet localized within his own region. The story itself is a window into another world: unlike Reeve's "Old English Baron," however, it has no business actually being set in England.

The exaggerated nature of the gothic genre that Walpole launched is instinctively picked up on by Beckford, as everything about Vathek is an exaggeration: he has not one palace but five -- each dedicated to one of the five senses and the pleasures that can be obtained by them. This obsession with pleasure and feeling is a dominant part of the gothic as well, pushing so against the grain of Enlightenment ideology (which emphasized the brain and the mind over feeling). For Vathek, it is not enough to be sensually gratified, however; he also wants to be enlightened and thus pursues scientific aims -- especially those that concern the mysteries of the universe (which is why he builds a tower so that he can study astrology). Vathek, in this sense, is a carbon copy of what Europeans since Galileo were doing all throughout the Enlightenment -- studying science, nature, and even dabbling in alchemy. Vathek is in a way the embodiment or representation of Enlightenment man, cast in the mold of a caliph (an Oriental) so as to seem mysterious and foreign -- yet really no different from any modern man (contemporary of Beckford) who put on a veneer of science and learning but underneath had all the same impulses, urges, desires, and cravings that every human creature has as a result of the what the medieval world called Original Sin (Laux 47). That the Age of Science and the Age of the Enlightenment rejected the concept of sin to a large degree (adopting a more naturalist take on reality) could explain why readers turned to gothic fiction: this genre gave them the "sin" that they were denied by the Enlightenment rationalist philosophers (Jones 187). If the medieval world was cut off from them practically speaking, at least they could get in gothic fiction and thereby find a reflection of the real reality that they felt and knew existed in spite of the propriety, manners, and rational discourse of the 18th century. In gothic fiction, the English reader could identify himself and the true nature of reality -- even if the texts themselves contained exaggerated forms and figures.

Cementing these exaggerated or grotesque figures in reality was important for Reeve for this very point: it allowed her to make sense of the themes and concepts she was exploring in the gothic genre. Coming from the Enlightenment perspective, she did not want to push too hard into violence and horror and merely turn the narrative into a sensual, sensationalistic antidote to dull reason. She wanted to combine the two -- the mysterious and the real -- in a way that could leave the door of reason open just a tad to the possibility of that which was beyond reason, yet not so much that the rational minded reader would feel overwhelmed by passion or irrationality (both would come later in the 19th century, as Romanticism came full bloom -- especially in the works of the Russians like Dostoevsky and Gogol).

The development of 18th century English gothic fiction was a stepping stone between these two historical movements -- first came the Enlightenment's emphasis on reason and science, rejecting the medieval ideology of faith and doctrine on sin and revealed truth, seeking instead to find a new truth regarding human nature (or at least to justify human nature's many contradictory facets, as Rousseau would do); second, would come the Romantic Age -- a return, if not to the mystical and religious fervor of the medieval era, then at least to the nostalgia associated with the medieval -- particularly the medieval ruins that dotted the English countryside reminding the natives of an early time, an almost now ancient history, an era where faith had a great deal of influence in political, social, and economic spheres. "Otranto" and Reeve's "Old English Barron" are both set in medieval castles, as is "The Monk," Dracula for some of the tale, and many other gothic narratives. Even Jane Austen would set her final work in a gothic castle, though her work would be a gentle satire of the genre. The point here is that 18th century English gothic fiction developed as part of a cultural pendulum swinging, which first swung away from medieval Catholicism towards humanistic reason and naturalism, then which swung back (not to Catholicism but rather to a sense of spirituality undefined by dogmas and unruled by orthodoxy -- something mythic, sinister, demonic, uncontrolled, related to the passions and yet entirely enticing and captivating because it dwelled in the realm of the senses).

As "The Old English Baron" is set in the medieval era, it is clear that the pendulum is swinging back in that direction, away from the Enlightenment and back into a time when people still believed in the supernatural. The setting -- a castle -- enables the narrative to be both grounded in reality and yet transcendent in the sense that it invites the imagination to pursue a higher course of thought, one that travels beyond the scope of reason and engages with the creatures of the night. Reeve's narrative is not particularly dramatic or suspenseful and lacks all of the fun and exaggerated elements that "Vathek" contains -- nonetheless, it is an example of how the gothic became a staple of English literature in the 18th and later the 19th century: it touched upon that one, forbidden topic -- the past -- and the type of un-Puritan entertainment that characterized another English author's works -- Shakespeare. His plays were distinctly anti-Puritan (Twelfth Night skewers Malvolio, who represents the new Puritanical Age and the forthcoming Enlightenment). Edmund's quest in "Old English Barron" raises issues of loyalty (the servant Joseph becomes one of his supporters as he begins to confront the mystery of the castle) and secrecy -- both of which inspire the imagination and the heart. The concept of the haunted rooms (one which Shakespeare also explored in plays like Macbeth, where the ghost of Banquo returns to haunt the murderous Macbeth) is another staple of the gothic genre helped to fuel the genre throughout the end of the 18th century: the novelty of ghosts and spirits was a welcome delight for readers, who perhaps missed the development of the gargoyle themes that were everywhere in gothic architecture in the medieval era. Thus, the gargoyles, the grotesque, the spirits, the demons, the ghosts, the mysteries haunting dark corners and rooms, the church, the otherworldly -- all of this was combined and connected in the English gothic literary form. Both "Vathek" and "The Old English Barron" helped to develop these themes in very different ways -- yet each contributed to the overall course of gothic literature in England by emphasizing particular attributes. "Vathek" emphasized the exaggerated forms qualities of character and the dangers of pursuing beyond reason the pleasures of the flesh and probing the dark mysteries of the universe. (Shelley would return to this conceit in Frankenstein -- but Marlowe had to some extent already laid the foundations for this conceit with Dr. Faustus in the century prior).

The supernatural element that runs through "The Old English Barron" maintains a subtle influence, even as the rational side of Reeve takes over to explain the events of the narrative. There is for instance, the moment when the doors simultaneously fling themselves open as though to welcome the hero Edmund. Yet, the confession of Lord Lovel (thinking he is on his deathbed) draws a straight line to the medieval (or Catholic) custom of repentance and confession: Lord Lovel confesses to the murder and hiding of the body (another Shakespearean theme, which appears in Hamlet, who stashes the body of Polonius in the castle so that no one can find it till he tells where it is). The ingenious twist that Reeve provides the reader is that Lord Lovel does not die and upon realizing that he is not dying attempts to take back his confession -- but of course it is too late. His efforts, however, indicate the psychological strain and contradiction that would develop throughout much of 18th century English gothic fiction -- that of the psychological angle -- the problems that the psyche encounters when attempting to deal with or reject these compulsions (whether they are to confess and make right one's soul or to deceive and hide the truth; to pursue sensual pleasure, or to deal with the demonic directly -- psychology would become a dominant theme in gothic literature).

Most importantly, however, these early gothic works "Vathek" and "Old English Barron" would reinforce a moral principle that the Enlightenment Age had to some extent lost. Vathek ends up in hell for his pursuits (just as Don Giovanni ends up there as a result of his refusal to repent for his womanizing) and Beckford tells the reader clearly that Hell is for those who lose Hope: "Their hearts immediately took fire, and they at once lost the most precious of the gifts of heaven: HOPE" (Beckford 97). For Reeve, the moral principle also embraces hope, as well as loyalty and charity: looking to the coming years, Sir Philip tells the Barron: "You hold it in trust for a future grandchild," said he, "whom I hope to live to endow with it" (Reeve 133). These words indicate that the moral principle underlining the gothic narrative is that which allows the gothic genre to really exist in the first place: it acts as a reinforcement of the ideas and principles that the gargoyles and catechisms of the Old World, gothic churches once gave the people in architecture -- now in 18th century England, the novelists were giving it to the people in the form of the written word.

In conclusion, "Vathek" and "The Old English Barron" both helped to develop the 18th century English gothic genre by steering readers away from the Enlightenment Age towards an era that would focus on and embrace more directly the idea of something beyond human reason running not just through the world but through the hearts and minds of humans themselves. These writers touched on the moral, the spiritual, and the sensual, depicting in an almost epic manner (like a Baroque work of art) the battles between good and evil that would take place within the human soul. Vathek would lose the battle and end in Hell, while Edmund would win the battle, retain life and hope and have a future to look forward to.

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