Haunted Presence: The Numinous in Gothic FictionAre ghosts, vampires, and other forms of “haunted presence” related to universal religious instincts? Are emotions that play a part in religious ritual and narrative similar to those in classical works of Gothic fiction such as Dracula, Frankenstein, The Turn of the Screw, and the tales of Edgar Allan Poe? Haunted Presence: The Numinous in Gothic Fiction reveals the intersection of Gothic literature and contemporary theories about the psychology of religious experience, positing that the two share the concept of the numinous, the human response of awe in the face of the eternal. Varnado offers a fresh and audacious analysis of the literature of the supernatural by employing insights derived from the philosophy of religious experience. Ranging from the Gothic novel of the eighteenth century to ghostly tales from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Varnado frames ghost stories as ontological challenge to the reader. The challenge is not in the form of philosophical proposition, however. Rather it is in the form of feelings and emotions that maintain a connection with the sense of reality. It is this area of reality that Rudolph Otto called the numinous—the feeling of the supernatural—that stands at the center of Gothic literature. An understanding of this unique category of experience, aligned with its associated concept of “the sacred and the profane,” exposes the purpose of ghostly literature and demonstrates the enduring relevance of this mesmerizing genre. |
Contents
1 The Literature of the Supernatural | 1 |
2 The Numinous | 8 |
3 The Gothic Novel | 20 |
4 Frankenstein | 42 |
5 Poe and Initiation into the Sacred | 60 |
6 The Numinous Aesthetic of Henry James | 77 |
7 The Daemonic in Dracula | 95 |
8 The Modern Period | 115 |
9 Analyzing the mysterium tremendum | 130 |
Notes | 134 |
| 149 | |
| 156 | |
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Ambrosio Ann Radcliffe appears archetypes artistic beautiful Castle of Otranto character cosmic creature critics daemonic dark disvalue Dracula dread Edgar Allan Poe elements Eliade emotion evil fantasy fascinans fear feeling genre ghost story Gothic fiction Gothic Flame Gothic Imagination Gothic literature Gothic novel governess H. P. Lovecraft Harker harmony of contrasts haunted castle Helsing Henry James Holy horror human Ibid Idea ideogram James's Jung Machen magic Mary Shelley Mary Shelley's Frankenstein Maturin Melmoth the Wanderer modern Monk monster moral mountain mysterious mysterium tremendum mystical narrator nature negative numinous numi numinous numinous literature numinous object numinous value occult Old English Baron ontological Otto called Otto's concept Oxford University Press passage Poe's preternatural reader realism reality Religion Rudolf Otto Sacred and Profane says scene sense spirit Stoker strange sublime suggests supernatural literature symbol themes traditions uncanny Van Helsing Varma Walpole Walpole's writers