Gothic Roots: Vathek and The Old English Baron in 18th-Century Fiction

Introduction: Gothic Fiction and the Enlightenment

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, otherworldliness, 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, indeed, all of 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 the growing 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 relates Beckford's Vathek and Reeve's The Old English Baron to the early development of 18th-century English Gothic fiction and shows how the two works represent these two distinct strains.

Orientalism and Realism in Early Gothic Writing

Vathek is a story of supposedly Arabian origin. Its Orientalism roots it in the same kind of mystery and otherworldliness found in Brontë's Jane Eyre — the latter's mad woman locked in the attic, a common Gothic motif, conveys elements of Orientalism, as does the "gypsy" who arrives at the Hall to read everyone's fortune (Zonana 592; Bardi 31). The Old English Baron, meanwhile, takes the Gothic elements of The Castle of Otranto and provides a more realistic treatment of them, as was Reeve's stated 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 to maintain a reader's attention would be too great. By placing the realms of the fantastic squarely within reality — as Stoker does in Dracula by bringing the demonic presence home to London — the reader is given the sense that horror, the supernatural, the shock of murder, obsession, envy, sin, guilt, and revenge could all be found just below the surface of real life, if one were so inclined to look.

The Gothic as Reaction to Enlightenment Ideology

The Old English Baron is certainly an attempt to illustrate that fact. Reeve herself 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 Gothic fiction 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 discussed 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 Romanticism and attacking the ideology of Puritanism at the same time. As the Age of Enlightenment rejected the concept of sin — adopting a more naturalist view of reality — readers turned to Gothic fiction, which gave them the "sin" that Enlightenment rationalist philosophers had denied them (Jones 187). If the medieval world was practically cut off from them, at least they could encounter it in Gothic fiction and thereby find a reflection of the real reality they felt and knew existed, in spite of the propriety, manners, and rational discourse of the 18th century.

Works Cited

Bardi, Abby. "The Gypsy as Trope in Victorian and Modern British Literature." Romani Studies, vol. 16, no. 1 (Jun 2006): 31–42.

Bartolomeo, Joseph. A New Species of Criticism: Eighteenth-century Discourse on the Novel. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1994. Print.

Beckford, William. Vathek and Other Stories. Penguin PDF.

Jones, E. Michael. Libido Dominandi. IN: St. Augustine Press, 2000. Print.

Laux, John. Church History. New York: Benziger Brothers, 1943.

Reeve, Clara. The Old English Baron. Oxford PDF.

Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. The Literature Network.

Zonana, Joyce. "The Sultan and the Slave: Feminist Orientalism and the Structure of 'Jane Eyre'." Signs, vol. 18, no. 3 (Spring 1993): 592–617.