Chivalry in Gothic Literature.

The idea of chivalry and the chivalric codes seem to be rather prevalent in the increasingly popular "gothic" novels of the late 1700's. There was, of course, a resurgence in appreciation for that which is "medieval." And of all things typically medieval, there was perhaps nothing more recognizable than the knight in shining armor. However, the affinity for chivalry, in particular, is more than a simple case of turn of the century nostalgia. The characteristics of the chivalric code spoke to the gothic writers in a unique way.

Consider this brief distillation of chivalry. "Training designed to fit the noble youth to become a worthy knight, a just and prudent master, and a sensible manager of an estate." (1) Although such a definition may be overly simplistic, it communicated the essence of the attraction the gothic writers may have felt for the ideals of chivalry.

To be worthy, courageous, honest, and prudent, may have been, at the turn of the century, elements that these writers found so obviously lacking in their own society. Looking to the past -- or everything that was ideal about the past -- may have provided a framework for improvement in the present.

Enthusiastic Chivalry in Clara Reeve's The Old English Baron.

This early gothic novel, supposedly set in the late medieval period, provides the reader with a character who, from very early on, seems to embody every desirable construct of the chivalric code. Consider this passage from the first pages of the novel.

After the death of [Sir Philip's] Prince, he entered into the service of the Greek Emperor, and distinguished his courage against the encroachments of the Saracens. In a battle there, he took prisoner a certain Gentleman, by name M. Zadisky, of Greek extraction, but brought up by a Saracen Officer; this man he converted to the Christian faith; after which he bound him to himself by the tyes of friendship and gratitude, and he resolved to continue with his Benefactor. After thirty years travel and warlike service, he determined to return to his native land, and to spend the remainder of his life in peace: and, by devoting himself to works of piety and charity, prepare for a better state hereafter.(2)

Reeve, with this description, has painted the reader a portrait of the perfect knight. If, indeed, the character seems slightly unbelievable at this point, one should not be surprised. For in her description of Sir Philip, Clara Reeve fell prey to a trap which many other gothic writers were unable to avoid. The conception of chivalry which the gothics harbored was an idealistic one. They were so looking for a role model from times past that they wanted to believe that the flawless knight did exist. This overly sentimental treatment of chivalry in Reeve's novel serves to prove that elements of horror and the supernatural were not the only things employed with enthusiastic embellishment.

Consider some further examples of Sir Philip's chivalric nature. Early on, during the journey to seek out his dear friend Lord Lovel, Sir Philip's old servant dies.

Sir Philip was under great concern for the loss of his servant, and some for himself being alone in a strange place; however he took courage, ordered his servant's funeral, attended it himself, and, having shed a tear of humanity over his grave, proceeded alone on his journey.(3)

However, in true chivalric forrn, Sir Philip does not abandon his duties there. On the way home he, "stopped at the place where his faithful servant was buried, and caused masses to be said for the repose of his soul".(4) Sir Philip more than fulfills the "just and prudent master" requirements of the chivalric code.

Throughout Reeve's novel, one finds mounting evidence that this gothic writer, at least, views chivalry in light of what she wished it were, rather than the harsh reality of what it had been.

Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto.

Like Reeve's Old English Baron, Walpole's novel reads at times like a manual of perfect chivalry. In the story, one is subject to the heroism and courage of young Frederic who, in the end, turns out to be the true heir to the castle. In such a character we see the way in which the gothic writers treated chivalry as something of an innate gift. Although we do not realize Frederick's true station until most of the story has passed, it becomes apparent at that point that he has been a model of chivalry all along. And so, whether or not this young man was actually raised by the chivalric codes, the fact that he, by his birthright, is more than just a peasant automatically grants him some sort of chivalric predisposition. Frederic enacts every chivalric cliché one could think of right down to helping a damsel in distress.

Walpole also presents the flip side of the chivalric argument. Whereas Manfred is indeed the present ruler of Otranto, and, as far as we know for a great part of the story, rightfully so, he is illuminated in a very unflattering light. His rule is based on rage rather than reason, and he pursues some rather unchivalric intentions -- the divorce of his wife, and the intended marriage to his dead son's fiancée being but one such example. Walpole seems to be saying that even though Manfred is the supposed head of the household, it takes more than lands to govern for one to be considered chivalric. Remember that our definition of chivalry depends upon justice, prudence, and sensibility -- characteristics most definitely lacking in Manfred.

In Otranto, as in The Old English Baron, chivalry is based upon an ideal rather than a reality. This enthusiastic treatment of chivalry, and indeed most things medieval, seems to run right through most gothic literature of the late 1700's.

References

1. John Gardner, The Life and Times of Chaucer (New York: Vintage, 1977), p. 91.
2. Clara Reeve, The Old English Baron (London: Oxford University Press, 1967), p. 7
3. Ibid., p. 8
4. Ibid., p. 22

The Old English Baron by Clara Reeve is important today because of the way in which she treated the supernatural. Reeve wrote The Old English Baron twelve years after Walpole's The Castle of Otranto was published and Reeve herself asserted that her novel was the literary offspring of Walpole's novel.(1) The novel, like Walpole's, aims at a medieval background: haunted castles, knights in armour and magic. However, even though there are many similarities between the two novels in their use of a medieval background, their treatment of the supernatural differs. Rather than treating the supernatural as Walpole does as normally incredible happenings that are accepted as fact, which is how Walpole's characters react, Reeve's supernatural events receive natural explanations.(2) Reeve's idea of how the supernatural should function in Gothic fiction becomes a basis for Radcliffe. In the introduction to the novel Trainer states:

Clara Reeve's name is remembered today only in association with this one novel and yet without her decisive intervention to make possible supernatural fiction which does not do violence to human reason, the new direction taken by Ann Radcliffe would have been unthinkable.(3)

Why doesn't she treat the supernatural in the same way as Walpole?

As James trainer in his introduction states:

She disapproved of the masculine elements of violence and horror although she accepted fear as something positive, since the reader's fullest pleasure is derived from the contemplation of the fear being experienced by the character while knowing all the time that no real evil would befall him.(4)

Reeve's main concern was bringing supernatural incidents into the realm of probability. For this reason she renounces such improbabilities found in Walpole's novel as "a ghost in a hermit's cowl and a walking picture."(5) By eliminating all supernatural incidents save one ghost, she sought to bring her story within the utmost verge of probability.(6)

How did Walpole react to the novel of one of his disciples?

Walpole was perhaps The Old English Baron's harshest critic. He received it with "distain", and described it as "totally void of imagination and interest."(7)

Religious Parallels between Arthurian legend, The Castle of Otranto, and The Old English Baron.

The idea of withdrawing to a monastery after a military and sinful life resolved the moral problems of such a life. This ending is a "satisfactory ideological resolution to the stresses and strains of the arthuriad."(8) Both Lancelot and Guenevere withdraw to a religious life after Arthur's death.

In The Castle of Otranto, after Manfred kills his daughter, his wife and he decide to spend the rest of their lives in monasteries. "In the morning Manfred signed his abdication of the principality with the approbation of Hippolita, and each took on them the habit of religion in the neighbouring convents."(9)

In The Old English Baron, Walter the murderer is given the option of banishment or a life in a monastery. However, the Gothic writers do not entirely uphold the medieval notion of a noble figure to shelter in the monastery in his/her later years, but:

the emphasis is rarely placed on the going to the convent or the monastery. The emphasis is rather, on the going away from sorrow, indigence or wearying responsibilities. Religious life is regarded, not as a state affording opportunity for increased spiritual activity and closer union with God, but as a condition providing a place of repose and a means of escape from all that has made life in the world unhappy for the person who contemplates leaving it. As in the case of Reeve and Walpole the characters hide in some monastic gloom . . . to atone . . . for crimes"'(10)

Connection between the Supernatural and Religion

The relationship between the supernatural and religion is shown in the figure of Father Oswald. Although Father Oswald does not actually possess the solution to the mystery of the haunted apartment he plays a key role in assisting Edmund to uncover the truth. By physically accompanying Edmund into the haunted apartment, Father Oswald who represents religion helps Edmund discover the truth about the supernatural incidents of the haunted apartment. Therefore, the connection between religion, the supernatural and providence is made.

Providence

A common medieval characteristic is the belief in Providence or destiny. The sword in the stone legend reflects this medieval idea of providence. Only the young Arthur is able to pull the sword out of the stone even though many tried. This idea of providence is echoed in Reeve's novel in the incident of the locked closet. Both Joseph the servant and Father Oswald attempt to unlock the hidden closet and fail. But the lock is released on Edmund's first try. To Joseph and Oswald the lock opening for Edmund clearly shows that this is Edmund's adventure and destiny.

Alchemy and the Philosopher's Stone

It is proposed by critics such as John Reed that advances in the fields of science helped to encourage a renewed value of the medieval supernatural-science of alchemy. Reed said

Late eighteenth century interest in science actually encouraged an interest in the occult, for scientific experiments had revealed to men that they were surrounded by wonderful and invisible forces . . . Even alchemy continued to fascinate many with its symbolic language and trust in the occult.(6)

During this revival various secret societies began to develop, many of which were concerned with refining and popularizing the study of alchemy.

Alchemy first surfaced in Western Europe in the twelfth century but originated in the Orient. Through chemistry and mineralogy (and some astrology) it was believed by alchemists that man could create the philosopher's stone or lapi exilus, which could turn anything it touched to gold, cure all diseases and give eternal life and youth to its possessor. The philosopher's stone has also been linked with another famous convention of medieval literature, the Holy Grail. Cavendish remarks that both are "mysterious object[s] of gigantic power and a spiritual state" which stand "for a 'golden' spiritual condition, the highest and most perfect conceivable, which was the state of union with God or of virtually being God."(7) Cavendish also records the similarity between the Grail hero and the alchemist: "Like the Grail hero, the alchemist trod his own path to salvation, independently of the Church, and was consequently suspect."(8) This description can be readily applied to the main character of Godwin's Gothic novel, St. Leon.

Godwin's St. Leon and the Supernatural

Godwin incorporates the supernatural in St. Leon in a pragmatic way, emphasizing the "marvellous" over the "fantastic." Godwin asserts that "[t]here is nothing that human imagination can figure brilliant and enviable, that human genius and skill do not aspire to realize" and that the philosopher's stone is a product of man's ingenuity. Godwin uses the supernatural as a "sensational narrative device"(9) to create a unique structure in which he can argue his political and social views. The society that Godwin describes through St. Leon, however, is one which favours "the study of God and the profounder secrets of nature" (i.e. alchemy) over "the investigation of his own miserable existence" (i.e. politics, the mundane world).(10)

Old Man /Alchemist as Merlin

Although Godwin undermines the supernatural importance of the philosopher's stone and alchemy, in St Leon his description of the elderly alchemist has a distinctly fantastical quality. He describes the old man as a "venerable sage" and during the point at which he is about to share his "great secret" he resembles the shape-shifting Merlin of Arthurian legend:

Observe him in a quiet and unanimated moment, you might almost take him for a common beggar . . . But when his soul was touched in any of those points on which it was most alive, he rose at once, and appeared as a giant. His voice was the voice of thunder . . . His eye-beam sat upon your countenance, and seemed to look through you. You wished to escape from its penetrating power, but you had not the strength to move. I began to feel as if it were some mysterious and superior being in human form. . ." (11)

Also like Merlin, he is associated with the forest, and his hiding in the woods during the rainstorm is similar to Merlin's time as "wild man of the woods."

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Sir Walter Scott described Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818) as 'a novel upon the same plan with St.Leon' in its concern with individual isolation and alchemical conventions.'(12) St Leon says: "Fatal legacy! Atrocious secrets of medicine and chemistry! . . . I possessed the gift of immortal life; but I looked on myself as a monster that did not deserve to exist."(13) Shelley's Victor Frankenstein is placed in much the same position, even though alchemy has supposedly been rejected in favour of "natural philosophy." Early in life, Frankenstein demonstrates a fascination with supernatural alchemy and actively searches for the "elixir of life" and attempts the "raising of ghosts and devils".

References

1. Raymond Chapman. The Sense of the Past in Victorian Literature. London: Croom Helm, 1986. (4, 7).
2. Ibid, 18.
3. Ibid, 17.
4. Margaret L. Carter. Spectre or Delusion? The Supernatural in Gothic Fiction. Michigan: UMI Research Press,1987. (5)
5. Ibid, 5.
6. John R. Reed. Victorian Conventions. Ohio: Ohio University Press,1975. (441).
7. Richard Cavendish. King Arthur and the Grail. New York: Taplinger Publishing Co.,1985. (161).
8. Ibid.
9. Reed, 442.
10. William Godwin. St.Leon. NewYork: Oxford University Press,1994. (2).
11. Ibid, 136.
12. Pamela Clemit in her introduction to St Leon, World's Classic's edition as noted above. (xvii)
13. Godwin, pp. 362-3. Quoted on page xvii of Clemit' s introduction.

Sonya, Jodi, Tracey, Michael
Gothic Fiction
November 1995