These are the slides from the Romancing the Gothic Lecture on Ghosts. 'I Ain't Afraid of no Ghosts: Spectres, Spooks and Frauds.'
I discuss the developing trends in ghost belief up to the eighteenth century and how these manifest in different Gothic texts, looking at the development of the portrayal of the Ghost in the Gothic.
3. The Ghast of Gy
• The creeping horror of a woman
tormented by a ghost…
• Priests to the rescue
• 200 helpers to surround the house
• Theology break
• More theology
• A bit more theology
• Solution: 300 masses. A warning of
necessary penance. ‘My wife can
never have sex again.’
5. Hellequin’s Army
So, tell us what you saw, Wachelin
There was a mob of peasants to start with. I took them for looters
Naturally
Then thousands of women on horses. With nails in their butts
In their butts?
Red hot nails. They were bobbing up and down on them
I see… do go on
Then there were priests, monks, bishops, abbots…all moaning
There must be some mistake!
No mistake. I saw them as clear as day. Last there came a massive army.
They were riding as if off to battle. A massy throng!
6. Hellequin’s Army
Well, so… you saw an army pass?
Hardly. I wouldn’t have been frightened out of my skin by that. Fairly
regular occurrence in these times. What scared the crap out of me was
that…
What? And mind your language.
I knew a lot of them. They were men and women I’d lived
alongside…until they died! And then there were others being tortured…
As they walked?
Yes… or were carried. Demons sat among them, tormenting them
Dear Lord! But Wachelin, you’re bleeding!
I tried to take a horse as proof but they stopped me
You tried to take a horse!? What’s wrong with you!?
No comment
7. Hellequin’s Army
So that’s how you were injured?
No, no. That was from this knight, William of Glos, he saved me from
the others. Then I refused to help him right the wrongs he’d done in life
because he was a right bad ‘un and I don’t help bad ‘uns
But the families he wronged…?
Moving on!
How did you escape?
My brother saved me!
Your brother Robert? He’s dead… oh, I see.
Yeah, he’s working out his term in purgatory, you see
Purgatory?! Perfect. I do love a bit of theological propaganda. Now get
yourself home and rest Wachelin.
*Faints*
8. Ghosts and Purgatory
‘The world of ghosts was remarkably well-ordered, secured and explainable
both doctrinally and logically’ (Shane McCorristine)
• Temporary state after death
• Returned to warn
• Returned to plead
• Very lucrative!
9. Post- Reformation Rejection of Purgatory
Unscriptural
John Veron – The Hunting of Purgatory to Death - 1564
Unscrupulous
John Hartcliffe – A Discourse against Purgatory - 1686
12. The Demonological Interpretation(Jo Bath and John Newton)
‘All ghosts … are not men’s souls, but evidently
devils that amuse themselves thus to deceive the
people with false claims and lies, or unnecessarily
to frighten and trouble them’
Luther, ‘Easter Sunday, or Third Easter Day’
13. The Changing Nature of the Threat
Catholicis
m
Atheis
m
Deism
Irreligi
on
Dissenter
s
14. Anti-Sadducean Literature
• Joseph Glanvill – Saducisimus
Triumphatus – 1681
• Thomas Tryon – A Treatise on
Dreams and Visions - 1689
• John Aubrey – Miscellanies -
1696
• Daniel Defoe - An Essay on the
History and Reality of
Apparitions – 1727
• Anon. – Life after Death - 1758
15. Useful Little Ghosts
‘It contains a most certain proof of
the immortality of the soul and
divine providence.’ (Addison)
• Evidence of the soul
• Evidence of life after death
• Evidence of providence (under
providential control)
• Support of the integrity of the
bible
23. The Ghost of Samuel and the Witch of Endor
1 Samuel 28: 3 -25
For
• You can’t simply pick and choose –
to deny the ghost is to deny the
bible
• To deny the bible is to fall into
atheism
• Consistent with God’s providence
• Consistent with our understanding
of the soul
• Source of knowledge about ghosts
Against
(Taken from Anti-Canidia)
• Spirits can’t cross back
• Good people can’t be controlled by
evil
• Spirits can’t be seen
• Spirits can’t talk without a tongue
• Why would God speak through
Samuel when he’s refused to speak
to Saul through living prophets?
• Witch’s hoax
24. Critiques of the Ghost
• They’re a waste of a miracle
• Logical inconsistencies
• Creates ‘superstitious awe’ rather than ‘religious love’
• Further investigation would disprove them
• Catholic propaganda
• The stuff of ‘servants and nursemaids’ (John Locke)
• No theological explanation
25. Investigating the Ghostly
Principal Dramatis Personae:
William Kent
Elizabeth Lynes
Fanny Lynes
Richard Parsons
Elizabeth Parsons
Supporting characters: Samuel Johnson, John
Douglas, George Macaulay, Captain Wilkinson,
James Penn and John Moore.
The mere openness to belief has detrimental
consequences
Oliver Goldsmith – The Mystery of the Cock Lane
Ghost Revealed - 1742
The Cock Lane Ghost
26. Famous Cases
Public Infidelity and Private Belief
• 1761-2 – Bristol
• The Lamb Inn Case
• A case of possession?
• Clergy war!
• The Charge of ‘fanatical scepticism’
• The triumph of folk magic
Headless Alarm
• 1804
• St James Park
• 2 Coldstream guards hospitalised
• A murdered lady in a red dress
The Hammersmith Ghost
• 1803
• A ghost in a sheet
• Francis Smith and Thomas Millwood
28. Increasing Secularisation
Charles Taylor – The Secular Age – 2007
Secularism is best defined not as the separation of Church and State or
the decline of ‘faith’ or ‘faiths’ but rather as a ‘pluralism of outlooks,
religious and non- and anti-religious’.
In a secular society, ‘we cannot help but be aware that there are a
number of different construals, views which intelligent, reasonably
undeluded people, of good will, can and do disagree on’.
29. Break Time
Time to question your visiting spirit and pry open their secrets…
30. Welcome Back to The Castle of Otranto…
See also: a haunted portrait, a giant sword, a sainted former owner sailing
off up to heaven, disembodied voices…
Well… would you look at that history coming back to haunt us…
31. The Ghosts of Otranto
• Relics of Catholic superstition
• Seemingly ‘fit’ to the time
• Rejection of the supernatural
• Agents of providence
• Monstrous supernatural –
Monstrous providence
• Ghosts as agents of theological
critic
33. The Explained Supernatural
‘It is extraordinary, that a writer thus gifted should, in all her works
intended for publication, studiously resolve the circumstances, by
which she has excited superstitious apprehensions, into mere physical
causes. She seems to have acted on a notion, that some established
canon of romance obliged her to reject real supernatural agency; for it
is impossible to believe she would have adopted this harassing
expedient if she had felt at liberty to obey the promptings of her own
genius.’
Thomas Noon Talfourd
34. Some examples…
Novel The signs What you think it is What it is
A Sicilian
Romance
Cries and groans
A light in the castle
window at night
The Mysteries of
Udolpho
Mysterious music with no
source
The Italian Magically disappearing
monk, mysterious blood-
stained clothing, doom-
laden warnings
A ghost, obvs
An omen that presages
death
The mum…she’s been
locked up for a couple of
decades
Laurentini… the nun who
killed her aunt
A mysterious ghost monk
foretelling doom and
being generally creepy
A mysterious real monk
foretelling doom and
being generally creepy
35. Three models
The Castle of Wolfenbach The Mysteries of Udolpho The Necromancer
Eliza Parsons Ann Radcliffe Karl Friedrich Kahlert
1793 1794 1794
36. Eliza Parsons – Mathilda, Girl Detective
The Case so far…
Name: Matilda
Occupation: Fleeing from uncle
Subject of report: Suspicious warnings from servants,
chains clanking in the night, a locked off wing…
‘The ghosts never come down stairs…they
were some of your high gentry, I warrant’
37. I ain’t afraid of no ghosts!
• ‘She did not suffer her mind to dwell on the causes
being supernatural, she conceived there must be
some mystery which, on the following day, … she
resolved, if possible, to explore.’
• ‘As I never had my mind occupied by any ghosts
and could not conceive any actions of my life had
subjected me to the terror of supernatural
visitations, I believed there must be some other
cause … for the noise’.
• ‘if we perform out duties towards God and man …
Providence will always preserve us from evil’.
• No belief in ghosts
• Apparitions are
possible
• Providence
controls them
• The good have
nothing to fear
• Providence and
ghosts are
incompatible
38. For a fool deceives himself…
Volkert
Hermann and Hellfried
The Austrian and the Lieutenant
39. A Fools Deceives Himself
• Hellfried’s story – missing money, visiting mothers and raising the
dead…
• Hermann’s story – a wild hunt, a glowing ghost, a hideous trap…
• The Lieutenant’s story – a wild hunt, a haunted inn…
• The Austrian’s story – rumours of ghost raised from the dead,
magically forcing a soul to cross great distances, a haunted inn…
40. A Fools Deceives Himself
‘It’s all either deceit or the
effects of a deluded fancy.’
Or then again…
I had ‘always treated with
scorn such supernatural
events. I believe
nothing…that I have not seen;
let us make a trial how far the
common talk of his
supernatural arts deserves to
be credited.’
‘I will forgive thee, I will
pronounce thee my
benefactor, my saviour,
only speak, tell me I am
not deceived!’
41. Superstitious Fools… Anti-Catholic Ghost Revelations
Ann Radcliffe – The Italian – 1796
External manipulation
The Necromancer
Lieutenant: I fear lest I may ‘drag
into the gulf of perdition many of
my fellow creatures’.
‘Helllfried, too, is awaiting the
solemn morn of resurrection’
Internal error
42. Fantastic Hesitation
The person who experiences the event must opt for one of two
possible solutions, either he is the victim of an illusion of the senses, of
a product of the imagination – and laws of the world then remain what
they are; or else the event has indeed taken place, it is an integral part
of reality – but then this reality is controlled by laws unknown to us…
The fantastic occupies the duration.
The fantastic is that hesitation experienced by a person who knows
only the laws of nature, confronting an apparently supernatural event.
Tzvetan Todorov
44. What’s ‘affective theology’ when it’s at home?
Affective theology refers to the use of emotion to enforce or reinforce
theological arguments.
What’s it’s got to do with fantastic hesitation and Ann Radcliffe?
Elongating fantastic hesitation creates doubt, enquiry and uncertainty which
can outlast the text but, more importantly, forces use to engage with
extrafictional strategies of interpretation.
An example?
It would be my pleasure…
45. A story in three parts
(Explained or fantastic?!)
• ‘We are not enjoined to believe,
that disembodied spirits watch
over the friends they have loved,
but we may innocently hope it’.
• Emily’s thoughts dwelt on the
probable state of departed spirits,
and she remembered the affecting
conversation, which had passed
between St Aubert and La Voisin,
on the night preceding his death’.
• The chair
• The unidentified noise
• The letter
46. The Affective Theologies of the Explained Supernatural
• Parsons
• Rejection of fantastic hesitation
• A view of providence which has no place for the ghost – possibility of the
demonological interpretation
• Kahlert
• Falsely extended fantastic hesitation
• Danger of belief
• Theological and material repercussions of ghost belief
• Radcliffe
• Fantastic hesitation
• Affective confrontation with extra-fictional interpretative strategies
• Emphasis on issue of personal identity after death, immortality of the soul,
interpretative practice
51. The Supernatural in Gaston de blondeville
Ghost Knight (beckons, glows, glowers,death
points)
Mysterious disappearing minstrel
… and a magical
pageant.
Magically appearing (and
disappearing blood)
Justice’ appearing in fire on a sword (thenin
blood)
Plus…magicmusic, repentantghosts, moving
tapestries, dissolving corpses, disappearing
jewellery, magical amulets, disembodied
voices…
52. A Problem of Interpretation
How strike a phantom, which, though armed with the
deadly weapons of malice, was invulnerable as the air
– the phantom of sorcery? (Fifth Day and Night)
‘He came here, fortified against the evidence, to abide
by his first opinion’ (Sixth Day)
53. The Importance of Possibility
1) The Archbishop recognises the true supernatural
2) The Archbishop differentiates between supernatural
manifestations
• Evil spirits vs. ghosts
• Magic and witchcraft discredited
• God’s intervention possible
• Spirit’s allowed to return possible
54. Spectacular Ghosts
Mary Shelley – On Ghosts – 1824
I never saw a ghost except once in a dream
(grief, love, fear, the unknown)
2 eye-witness testimonies
Demon cats
55. A Turn to the Spectacular
Matthew Lewis – The Monk – 1796
The Bloody Nun
He ‘gazed upon the spectre with horror
too great to be described. [His] blood
was frozen in [his] veins’.
56. The Spectacular Ghost
Phantasmagoria Ghosts on the Stage
James Boaden – Fountainvaille
Forest – 1794
Matthew Lewis – The Castle
Spectre – 1797
Charles Maturin - Bertram; or The
Castle of St. Aldobrand - 1816
57. The Rise of the Ghost Story
• Household words – Christmas
editions
• Incredible rise of ghost story
publication
Elizabeth Gaskell
Henry James
Vernon Lee
Sheridan Le Fanu
Margaret Oliphant
58. A Changing World…
• Spiritualism
• Mediums
• Ghost Photography
• The Society for Psychical
Research - 1882
• Affective
• Fantastic
• Horrifying
• Terrifying
• Aesthetic
• Spectacular
• Interrogative…
59. Break Time
Time to question your visiting spirit and pry open their secrets…
60. Bibliography
Primary Sources
Anon. – The Ghost of Guy translated and retold by Richard Scott-Robinson -
http://www.eleusinianm.co.uk/olde-bokes/yellow-book-of-calbourne/pdf/ghost-of-guy.pdf
Anon. - Anti-Canidia; Or, Superstition Detected and Exposed – 1762
Anon. – Life after Death - 1758
Joseph Addison -The Spectator: A New Edition - (1711/2) – 1860
John Aubrey – Miscellanies - 1696
Daniel Defoe - An Essay on the History and Reality of Apparitions – 1727
Charles Dickens – A Christmas Carol - 1843
Joseph Glanvill – Saducisimus Triumphatus – 1681
Oliver Goldsmith – The Mystery of the Cock Lane Ghost Revealed - 1742
John Hartcliffe – A Discourse against Purgatory – 1686
David Hume - ‘Superstition and Enthusiasm’
Martin Luther - ‘Easter Sunday, or Third Easter Day’ - Church Postil 1544 - trans. by John Nicholas Lenker (1905
61. Bibliography
Eliza Parsons – The Castle of Wolfenbach – 1794
Alexander Pushkin – The Queen of Spades - 1834
Ann Radcliffe – Gaston de Blondeville – 1826
Ann Radcliffe – The Italian - 1796
Ann Radcliffe – The Mysteries of Udolpho – 1794
Ann Radcliffe – The Romance of the Forest - 1792
Ann Radcliffe – A Sicilian Romance – 1790
Clara Reeve – The Old English Baron – 1778
Mary Shelley – On Ghosts - 1824
Noon Talfourd - ‘Memoirs of the Authoress’ in The Posthumous Works of Anne Radcliffe - 1833
Thomas Tryon – A Treatise on Dreams and Visions - 1689
John Veron – The Hunting of Purgatory to Death - 1564
Horace Walpole – The Castle of Otranto - 1764
62. Bibliography
Secondary Sources
Anon. ‘The Medieval Walking Dead’ on Medievalists.net - https://www.medievalists.net/2013/10/the-
medieval-walking-dead/
Barry, Jonathan, ‘Public Infidelity and Private Belief?’ in Beyond the Witch Trials: Witchcraft and Magic in
Enlightenment Europe – 2004
Bath, Jo and John Newton, ‘“Sensible Proof of Spirits”: Ghost Belief During the Later Eighteenth Century’ in
Folklore – 2006
<http://www-tandfonline-
com.ezproxy.mmu.ac.uk/action/aboutThisJournal?show=aimsScope&journalCode=rfol20>
Sasha Handley – Visions of an Unseen World - 2007
Shane McCorristine - Spectres of the Self, Thinking about Ghosts and Ghost Seeing in England, 1750-1920 –
2010
Charles Taylor - A Secular Age – 2007
Tzvetan Todorov – The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to Literary Genre - 1975
