realism and ritual in the rhetoric of fiction: anti- theatricality and anti

290 Pages·2016·1.46 MB·English

REALISM AND RITUAL IN THE
RHETORIC OF FICTION: ANTI-
THEATRICALITY AND ANTI-
CATHOLICISM IN BRONTË,
NEWMAN AND DICKENS
Sonia Fanucchi

A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the
Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements of Doctor of Philosophy.
Johannesburg, 2016.
ii

ABSTRACT
This thesis is concerned with the meeting point between theatre and religion in the
mid-Victorian consciousness, and the paradoxical responses that this engendered
particularly in the novels and thought of Dickens, Newman and Charlotte Brontë. It
contributes to the still growing body of critical literature that attempts to tease out the
complex religious influences on Dickens and Brontë and how this manifests in their
fiction. Newman is a religious writer whose fictional treatment of spiritual questions in
Callista (1859) is used as a foil to the two novelists. There are two dimensions to this
study: on the one hand it is concerned with the broader cultural anti-Catholic mood of the
period under consideration and the various ways in which this connects with anti-
theatricality. I argue that in the search for a legitimate means of expressing religious
sentiments, writers react paradoxically to the latent possibilities of the conventions of
religious ceremony, which is felt to be artificial, mystical, transcendent and threatening,
inspiring the same contradictory responses as the theatre itself. The second dimension of
this study is concerned with the way in which these sentiments manifest themselves
stylistically in the novels under consideration: through a close reading of Barnaby Rudge
(1841), Pictures From Italy (1846), and Villette (1852), I argue that in the interstices of a
wariness of Catholicism and theatricality there is a heightening of language, which takes
on a ritual dimension, evoking the paradoxical suggestions of transcendent meaning and
artificiality associated with performance. Newman’s Callista (1859) acts as a
counterpoint to these novels, enacting a more direct and persuasive argument for the
spiritual value of ritual. This throws some light on the realist impulse in the fiction of
Brontë and Dickens, which can be thought of as a struggle between a language that seeks
to distance and explain, and a language that seeks to perform, involve, and inspire.
In my discussion of Barnaby Rudge (1841) I argue that the ritual patterns in the
narrative, still hauntingly reminiscent of a religious past, never become fully embodied.
This is because the novel is written in a style that could be dubbed “melodramatic”
because it both gestures towards transcendent presences and patterns and threatens to
make nonsense of the spiritual echoes that it invokes. This sense of a gesture deferred is
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also present in the travelogue, Pictures from Italy (1846). Here I argue that Dickens
struggles to maintain an objective journalistic voice in relation to a sacramental culture
that is defined by an intrusive theatricality: he experiences Catholic practices and
symbolism as simultaneously vital, chaotic and elusive, impossible to define or to
dismiss. In Villette (1852) I suggest that Charlotte Brontë presents a disjuncture between
Lucy’s ardour and the commonplace bourgeoisie world that she inhabits. This has the
paradoxical effect of revitalising the images of the Catholic religion, which, despite
Lucy’s antipathy, achieves a ghostly presence in the novel. In Callista (1859), I suggest
that Newman concerns himself with the ritual possibilities and limitations of fiction,
poetry and theatre. These dramatic and literary categories invoke and are ultimately
subsumed in Christian ritual, which Newman considers the most refined form of
language – the point at which detached description gives way to communion and
participation.

Keywords: Victorian literature, Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë, John Henry
Newman, ritual, religion, realism, theatricality, anti-Catholicism
iv

DECLARATION
I declare this dissertation my own unaided work. It is submitted for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy in the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. It has not
been submitted before for any other degree or examination in any other university.

Sonia Fanucchi
20th day of May 2016
v

DEDICATION
To my husband: for helping me believe.
vi

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my warmest thanks to my supervisor, Prof. Victor
Houliston, who first inspired me to pursue a degree in Literature and who opened my
eyes to the wonders of the Victorian literary universe when I was still an undergraduate
student. I have benefited immeasurably from his intellectual guidance, encouragement
and patience during this process and will forever be indebted to him for his kindness and
support as my supervisor and mentor.
I would also like to thank my colleagues in the Wits English Department for their
patience and professional support and especially Prof. Libby Meintjes, in her role as
Head of the School of Literature, Language and Media. I further greatly benefited from
the writing retreats organised by the School and the Postgraduate Centre, which provided
me with the space and time to pursue my research away from lecturing responsibilities.
Finally, I would like to thank my family: my father, Piero, sister, Sylvia, brother,
Dario, Robbie, and my beloved nieces – thank you all for your love, support and good-
humored encouragement these last few years. To my dear Mother, Patrizia: my gratitude
for your unwavering encouragement and inspiration is inexpressible. My Nonni – though
you are now beyond time’s veil, I will always carry your wisdom with me and am proud
to have been loved by you. My husband, Leonard: it is only because of your unfailing
love that I have had the strength to persevere, “to strive, to seek, to find, and not to
yield”.
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CONTENTS
ABSTRACT
  ii

DECLARATION
  iv

DEDICATION
  v

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  vi

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL
 NOTE
  ix

INTRODUCTION:
 The
 Myth
 of
 Secularity
  1

Survey
 of
 Mid-­‐Victorian
 attitudes
 to
 Religion,
 Catholicism
 and
 Drama
  1

Some
 theoretical
 Perspectives
  11

Brief
 introduction
 to
 the
 novels
  17

Definition
 of
 terms
  18

CHAPTER
 ONE:
 The
 Attraction/Repulsion
 of
 the
 “Visible
 Invisible”:
 a
 Survey
 of

Mid-­‐Victorian
 Anti-­‐Theatricality
 and
 Anti-­‐Catholicism.
  20

Theatre,
 Tractarianism
 and
 anti-­‐Catholicism
  42

Anti-­‐Catholicism
  53

Conclusion
  67

CHAPTER
 TWO:
 Pantomimes,
 Games
 and
 “Amens
 in
 the
 right
 place”:
 Dickens,

Theatricality
 and
 Religion
 –
 the
 Biographical
 Evidence
  69

Dickens
 and
 the
 theatre
  69

Dickens,
 religion
 and
 ritual
  79

Theatricality
 in
 the
 novels
  91

CHAPTER
 THREE:
 “Ghosts
 of
 ghosts
 of
 ghosts”:
 Melodrama
 in
 Barnaby
 Rudge

(1841).
  97

The
 Raven
  99

Barnaby
  106

The
 anti-­‐Catholic
 riots
  116

Conclusion
  128

CHAPTER
 FOUR:
 Catholic
 Culture
 and
 Intrusive
 Theatricality
 in
 Pictures
 From

Italy
 (1846)
  132

CHAPTER
 FIVE:
 A
 “mighty
 revelation”:
 Catholic
 Ghosts
 and
 the
 Ambivalent

Attraction
 of
 Sham
 Theatre
 in
 Villette
 (1852)
  165

“Our
 Plays”:
 Charlotte
 Brontë’s
 attitudes
 to
 the
 theatre
  165

Villette:
 Vashti
 and
 M.Paul’s
 Vaudeville
  171

Charlotte
 Brontë
 and
 Catholicism
  174

Anti-­‐Catholicism
 in
 Villette
  178
viii

The
 Nun
 of
 Villette
 –
 the
 gothic,
 realism
 and
 theatricality
  188

Conclusion
  195

CHAPTER
 SIX:
 An
 Apologia
 for
 Ritual
 in
 Newman’s
 Callista
 (1859)
  200

Newman
 and
 the
 Imagination:
 the
 importance
 of
 poetry
 in
 the
 life
 of
 the
 soul
  201

Poetry
 and
 Ritual
  204

Callista
  209

Pagan
 and
 Christian
 ritual
  220

Conclusion
  230

CONCLUSION
  233

Instress
 and
 inscape
 in
 Hopkins’s
 thought
 and
 poetry
  233

Brontë
  242

Dickens
  249

Newman
  253

Instress,
 ritual
 and
 realism
  257

Concluding
 thoughts
 about
 theatricality,
 realism
 and
 ritual
  259

BIBLIOGRAPHY
  264
ix

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Quotations from Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of The Riots of Eighty (1841) are taken
from the Penguin edition edited by John Bowen (London: Penguin Books, 2003).
Quotations from Pictures From Italy (1846) are taken from the original edition of
American Notes and Pictures From Italy that was published by Bradbury & Evans
(London: Bradbury & Evans, 1846).
Quotations from Villette (1853) are taken from the Penguin edition edited by
Helen M. Cooper (London: Penguin, 1994).
Quotations from Callista: A Tale of the Third Century (1859) are taken from the
Longmans, Green edition (London, New York: Longmans, Green, & Co, 1891).
The 1611 Authorized King James Version (AV) is used for all biblical quotations
and references. References to the Bible use the standard abbreviation as found in the
Shorter Oxford English Dictionary.
1

INTRODUCTION: The Myth of Secularity
Survey of Mid-Victorian attitudes to Religion, Catholicism and Drama
In his essay collection entitled Realism, Ethics and Secularism George Levine
suggests that the most important question facing the Victorians was an ethical one: “how
might one lead a meaningful, good, and satisfying life in a world from which God has
disappeared?”1 He argues that the Victorians were attempting to make sense of a world
from which the comforting sea of faith had withdrawn, that they were thrown into “moral
anarchy and despair” by their increasing secularism, by the paradoxical sense that as they
“tried to wrench themselves free from traditional religion”, they were unable to escape
the dualism between “knowledge and ethics, knowledge and value”.2 The driving force
behind novels of the nineteenth century for Levine is therefore a search for “value”, a
“non-theistic enchantment” where religious order is imitated but “gods are not allowed”. 3
An overarching concern for Levine in his essays is to explore the complex and
entangled relationship between science and literature and he therefore develops his
argument from an impressive analysis of scientific naturalism at the time: among others,
his focus is on the writings of the naturalists Thomas Henry Huxley, John Tyndall and W.
K. Clifford and their connection with George Eliot and G. H. Lewes, in their passionate
search for a non-transcendental truth. His discussion of scientific naturalism is ultimately
consistent with his theory of the Victorian novel as “domesticating” and demystifying, a
transferral of the “powers of Romantic poetry” into the domestic and social space where
moral questions are revised and revisited from a secular perspective.4
Levine’s emphasis on progressive secularisation in Victorian literature is not in
itself a new idea and, until relatively recently, had become something of a critical
commonplace among nineteenth century scholars. It was the subject of J. Hillis Miller’s
notable The Disappearance of God: Five Nineteenth Century Writers which was written

1 George Levine, Realism, Ethics and Secularism: Essays on Victorian Literature and Science (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2008), p. vii.
2 Ibid., p. 16.
3 Ibid., p. 60.
4 Ibid., p. 212.