Female Gothic Histories: Gender, History and the Gothic

232 Pages·2013·1.559 MB·English

by  Diana Wallace

Gothic Literary Studies
Female Gothic Histories
Gender, History and the Gothic
Diana Wallace
University of Wales Press
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FEMALE GOTHIC HISTORIES
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SERIES 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 Arizona
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Female Gothic Histories
Gender, History and the Gothic
Diana Wallace
UNIVERSITY OF WALES PRESS
CARDIFF
2013
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© Diana Wallace, 2013
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any material
form (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic
means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of
this publication) without the written permission of the copyright owner.
Applications for the copyright owner’s written permission to reproduce
any part of this publication should be addressed to the University of Wales
Press, 10 Columbus Walk, Brigantine Place, Cardiff CF10 4UP.
www.uwp.co.uk
British Library CIP Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-0-7083-2574-2
e-ISBN 978-0-7083-2575-9
The right of Diana Wallace to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 79 of the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.
Typeset in Wales by Eira Fenn Gaunt, Cardiff
Printed by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham, Wiltshire
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CONTENTS
Preface vii
Acknowledgements ix
1 Introduction 1
2 The Murder of the Mother: Sophia Lee’s
The Recess (1783−5) 25
3 Be-witched and Ghosted: Elizabeth Gaskell’s
Gothic Historical Tales 67
4 Puzzling over the Past: Vernon Lee’s Fantastic
Stories 101
5 Displacing the Past: Daphne du Maurier and the
Modern Gothic 132
6 Queer as History: Sarah Waters’s Gothic Historical
Novels 163
Afterword 195
Notes 197
Bibliography 227
Index 243
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PREFACE
We need, as I argue in this book, a new theory of historical fiction
and a meta-narrative of its development which takes more seriously
its intimate relationship with the Gothic. Such an account would
allow us more accurately to assess the contribution women writers
have made to the genre and, conversely, its central importance to
thinking about women and history. I use the term ‘historical fiction’
deliberately here, rather than ‘historical novel’, because looking at
short fiction problematises many of the assumptions frequently
made about both historical novels and the Gothic.
As I argued in The Woman’s Historical Novel: British Women Writers,
1900−2000 (2005), women’s historical fiction has its roots in the
Gothic novel which precedes the work of Sir Walter Scott. Despite
evidence to the contrary, Scott is still commonly positioned as
the progenitor of the historical novel, even in such recent texts as
Jerome de Groot’s The Historical Novel (2010). Female Gothic Histories
extends the project of my earlier book in order to offer an alter-
native account of historical fiction as it has been developed and used
by women. It traces a female genealogy of Gothic historical fiction
from Sophia Lee’s The Recess (1783−5) in the late eighteenth century
through the short fictions of Elizabeth Gaskell and Vernon Lee,
to the work of Daphne du Maurier which inspired the ‘modern
Gothics’ of the 1960s, and finally to its most recent manifestation
in the hugely popular novels of Sarah Waters in the twenty-first
century.
Such a long time span – covering two and a half centuries – offers
both benefits and problems. On the benefit side it provides a slice
of the ‘long history’ which historians such as Gerda Lerner and Mary
Beard have suggested is necessary if we are to understand what
Beard called ‘woman as force in history’.1 Beard suggests in particular
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Preface
the need to go back beyond nineteenth-century ideologies which
so often shape our thinking about women. Indeed, I would argue
that one of the most valuable aspects of historical fiction is precisely
its ability to direct our vision into the past, and to enable an imagina-
tive engagement with other possibilities.
On the other hand, such a long view creates real problems in an
age when academics are increasingly specialised. Given that my own
period specialism is the early twentieth century, it seems a dangerous
thing to strike back as far as the late eighteenth century. It is, how-
ever, both important and invigorating to do such work. This book
is therefore indebted to the important work done by other feminist
literary critics on the beginnings of the historical novel, the national
tale and the Gothic in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth cen-
tury. Perhaps most importantly it builds on Ellen Moers’s eclectic
and innovative Literary Women (1976), written during the early years
of ‘women’s liberation’.2 It was Moers who first coined the term
‘Female Gothic’ and, although she did not discuss historical fiction
as such, she was intensely aware of the importance of history: ‘If ever
there was a time which teaches that one must know the history of
women to understand the history of literature’, she wrote, ‘it is now.’3
The same is still true today and, despite its now well-documented
limitations and omissions, her ground-breaking work remains an
important inspiration.
Notes to the Preface
1 Mary R. Beard, Woman as Force in History (New York: Macmillan, 1946).
2 Ellen Moers, Literary Women (1976; London: The Women’s Press, 1978).
3 Ibid., p. xiii.
viii
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