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MIRRORS:
LITERARY REFLECTION
AS PSYCHIC PROCESS

By

Linda Sue Singer Bayliss

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of English

1984

©

Copyright by
LINDA SUE SINGER BAYLISS
1984

ABSTRACT
MIRRORS:
LITERARY REFLECTION
AS PSYCHIC PROCESS
By

Linda Sue Singer Bayliss

Although critics have frequently dealt with doubles in
literature, they have not extensively examined the charac-
teristic environment ixxxahich literary mirroring occurs to
see whether it, too, might reflect the more obvious doubling
of central figures. The present study considers the doub-
ling impulse in literature on a larger scale as a mani-
festation of a mythic mode typified by the subject matter.
Separate chapters discuss three related novels of doubling,
M. G. Lewis' The Mnnk, E. T. A. Hoffmann's Dig 31111313 fies
Ihnfifilfi and James Hogg's.Ih£ EnilaL£.M£inL§ and anfifififiinnfi
of a Justified Sinnen, to demonstrate that a mirroring
effect is inherent in diverse areas of the text, including
structure, narrative technique, juxtaposition of different
genres or languages and ambiguities of spatiotemporal rela-
tions. Indeed, like Gothic portraits that come to life, the
texts even intrude uncomfortably into the detached security
of their readers to suggest that the text itself is an

enigmatic doppelganger of its audience.

Linda S. Bayliss

To adequately describe this milieu of the mirror, an
ancient deity, Hermes, is invoked as guide. Hermes might
very well be considered the patron of this literary double-
dealing, since his attributes parallel and amplify those
literary contexts which seem to resist the limitations im-
posed upon them by characteristic patterns of human expec—
tation; he is also the patron of literary critics' henman;
antics. Hermes' realm of uncertainty is characterized by
sudden discovery and and sudden loss; one of the most
uncertain and miraculous events in human experience is the
sudden revelation of meaning and one of the most frustrating
is the inability to convey meaning. Hence the reflections
in and of literary works like these suggest the reflective
processes of the human psyche whose apparent splittings and
mergings of subject and object make criticism paradoxically

relevant and irrelevant.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A dissertation is a monumental endeavor and obviously
requires the input of a great number of people, whether in
person or via written works. My textual mentors have been
given credit in the Notes and Bibliography, but several
people who provided significant help in fashioning raw ideas
into a sturdier fabric deserve special notice. I wish to
thank R. Glenn Wright, my committee chairperson, who was
always encouraging and helpful, but never content with any-
thing less than quality. Howard Anderson provided compre-
hensive and careful critiques Of several drafts which helped
crystallize and clarify much of the material. Robert Uphaus
was always enthusiastic and supportive. Richard Benevenuto
was also helpful in reminding me to direct my work to the
questions of a wider audience and in giving thoughtful and
precise criticism.

I wish also to thank my husband, William, for immense
perseverance and a great deal of assistance in putting the
final product together. My son, Brennan, deserves thanks
for his tolerance when his every request was met with "when
my thesis is doneJ‘ And, finally, my appreciation goes to
Jerry Doute, who introduced me to computers, without which

this thesis might be no more than a distant dream.

iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF FIGURES vi
CHAPTER 1: VARIETIES OF DOUBLE VISION 1
Introduction 1
Mirror Images: The Double 8
Some Reflections on Mirrors--Magic and Mundane 20
Hermes Psychopomps 25
Hermetic Sympathy for the Devil in Romanticism 30
CHAPTER II: MULTIPLICITY AND m m 36
Why This Novel? 36
Criticism: Ambiguity and Conflict 39
Novel and Novelty in Vision 45
Sympathetic Structure: Architectural Anatomy 50
Duplicity and Duplication 5'4
The Marriage of Myth and Mimesis 61

Mirror Images: Literary Experiments in Telling and Re-
Telling 77

CHAPTER III: m 25111.5 m: HOFFMNN'S MARRIAGE 01‘”
BEAVER up HELL 97

The Ursprungs of Hoffmann's Text 97

Criticism: The Child Confronts the Parent 109
Tr‘anslation As Paradigm 114

Reproduction As Paradigm 127

Reproduction Of Time and Space 155

vi

CHAPTER IV: VERSION AND INVERSION: HOGG'S .QQNEESSIQNS 174
Introduction 17H

m 196

Translation and Inversion 207

Excursions into Time, Space and Causality 219

Family Portraits: Hogg's Reproduction of His Pre-
decessors 225

Reproducing Scenes 242

Mediating Mirrors 2117

CHAPTER V: TELESCOPING PATTERNS OF THE PSYCHE 252
Cleaving: A Paradigm 2511

Affirmations and Denials of Distance 258
Hermetic Initiation 263

Snakes 265

AFTERNORD 276

NOTES 278

BIBLIOGRAPHY 288

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Callot's Temptation Of. SL Anthonx ----- ““4

vi

CHAPTER ONE
VARIETIES OF DOUBLE VISION

I came to feel that what we call simply
dream and imagination might represent
the secret thread that runs through our
lives and links its varied facets; and
that the man who thinks that, because he
has perceived this,tu3has acquired the
power to break the thread and challenge
that mysterious force which rules us, is
to be given up as lost.

Introduction

Like spiders, some Romantic writers spin attractive
webs that prove much more difficult to penetrate than they
appear to be at first glance. These colorful, labyrinthine
literary webs seem fragile, loosely layering old, dusty, and
apparently useless filaments with the tar-sticky new strands
of empiricism in a confused tangle of overlapping frame-
works. For the Hindus, the spider is the great creator-
goddess of the illusive world, Maya. For the Romantic
writer she becomes a metaphor for the creator of literature
Spinning out tales. That pale, grey spider at the center of

2 Sooner or

the web is the moon goddess in many myths.
later, trapped in the complexities of the web, each victim

Will confront the moon-spider--this emblem of creative and

2

destructive reflection. The Romantic author, too, lies
hidden near the center of the web, never very far away from
the reader, always closer and stronger than the delicacy of
the encompassing filaments would suggest. And like the
goddess the author reflects the light which is provided:
whether absolute paralysis or a new form of creative release
will follow depends upon the reader's assumptions about the
web. The spider itself does not seem to care. Destruction
and creation are its contrary motions: it must spin webs so
that is what it does.

In this thesis I will explore three inter-related no-
vels: In: Mimic. A Remance (1796) by Matthew Gregory
Lewis;3 Dis Elixifinfi fififi Ifinfifils (1816) by Ernst Theodor
Amadeus Hoffmann and The Pniyate Memginfi and Confessigns at
a Justified Sinnen (182N)u by James Hogg. The author of

each of these novels seems to weave an intricate web of
relevant and irrelevant material which creates as much con-
fusion and disorientation in the reader as in the characters
who undergo the various ordeals of the plots. Illusion,
deception, inversion, and ambiguity characterize the struc-
ture and style of many Romantic and Gothic works. In addi-
tion, some novels like the ones under consideration also
address the complex processes of perception and conception
that make these illusive creations so fascinating to the
reader. By evoking predictable responses in the reader
based upon expectations derived from previous reading or
from innate, archetypal "sets," the author is able to

heighten the readers' awareness of these processes

3
themselves and the way in which they influence the reading
of the novel.

There can be little doubt that the reader, like many of
the characters in these novels, is often identified with the
seeker in an initiatory mystery. The name "Cowan," which is
very close to George's surname and is connected explicitly
with Robert in Hogg's Cenfeesignee was a term customarily
applied to the uninitiated Freemason. There is, as I will
suggest, every reason to think that the readers of eachiof
these novels are "Cowans" who have not been admitted to
insight. But while the neophyte may think that the purpose
of all this ambiguity is to attune the reader to "true"
insight, he/she may instead discover that "truth" is an
irrelevant term in these chaotic literary realms: there are
as many truths as there are seekers. Hence, as Hoffmann
suggests in the quote at the beginning of this chapter, if
we wish to think of these novels as enlightenments or ini-
tiations, we have to abandon any notions that the initiate
will be provided with a magic thread to get him/her safely
through the maze and back to everyday business-as-usual
Instead, this type of novel is itself a riddle about rid-
dles; its structure reflects its content because it is con-
cerned with process rather than product. Each of these
authors is always busy with the milieu of the mirror--that
instant at which one thing becomes unaccountably confused
with another, when expectations are upset, causality over-
turned and customary truths inverted: the liminal moment.

Each of the three novels that I will discuss in detail

u

explores the violation of boundaries. These liminal motifs
include mirroring (since the mirror renders boundaries ambi-
guous) and the related phenomena of doubled and multipled
characters. In addition, there are interpenetrations of
past, present, and future as well as ambiguities in spatial
and causal contexts. Sexual motifs--particularly rape and
incest-constitute further borderline conjunctions invoking
both material and social violations. And then there are the
violations of the expected boundaries of the text itself:
the mating of myth and mimesis; the mixing of genres and the
complicated framing and re—framing of narratives so that
beginnings and endings are never really clear-cut. And next
there are the incestuous relationships among various texts
and their forebears which are particularly well expressed by
the relations among the three novels I will discuss. Fin-
ally, there is the intentional violation of the usual dis-
tance between reader and text. Hogg's Cenfeseiens provides
a particularly effective example<n?this commerce between
seemingly autonomous systems.

It will be useful, I think, to look briefly at Hogg's
work to illustrate this treatment of ordinarily inviolable
boundaries. The web that connects (or seems to connect)
every aspect of life is an especially pertinent metaphor in
each of the three sections of Hogg's Cenfeeeiene. The first
mention occurs in the Editor's Narrative just prior to the
meeting of the two brothers at Arthur's Seat. 11:13 more-
over, a scene strongly reminiscent of a meeting between two

brothers in Hoffmann's Elixine. It is seen through the eyes

5

of a narrator very sympathetic to the point-of-view of young

George Colwan who is the actor:

The second web is not so benign:

caught up in it.

he perceived that the black glossy fur
of which his chaperon was wrought was
all covered with a tissue of the most
delicate silver-~a fairy web, composed
of little spheres, so minute that no eye
could discern any one of them; yet there
they were shining in lovely millions.
Afraid of defacing so beautiful and so
delicate a garnish, he replaced his hat
with the greatest caution, and went on
his way light of heart.(p. 37)

we find the character

In fact, the.author/spider himself seems

to move briefly into the frame as Robert Wringham describes

his ordeal in the house of the weaver,

an ordeal not unlike

the reader”s own ordeal in the "house" of Hogg's teasingly

labyrinthine text:

Sounding suspiciously like a stand-in for the reader,

pleads:

My feet had slipped down through the
double warpings of a web, and not being
able to reach the ground with them
(there being a small pit below), I rode
upon a number of yielding threads, and
there being nothing else that I could
reach, to extricate myself was impos-
sible.(p. 195)

"Friend, I beg your pardon . . . I
wanted to be at the light, and have
somehow unfortunately involved myself in
the intricacies of your web, from which
I cannot get clear without doing you a
great injury. Pray, do lend your ex-
perienced hand tn) extricate me." (p.
195

Robert

6

The weaver's wife begs mercy for the unfortunate captive:

"Now Johnny Dodds, my man! .. . think

if that be like a Christian and ane o'

the heroes of Boddel Brigg, to entertain

a stranger, an'then bind him in a web

wi' his head down, an' mell him to

death!" (p. 196)
But the weaver continues unheroically to "mell" both Robert
and the reader.

In a final weaving reference in the third portion of
the same novel where the editor again takes up the narra-
tive, the woven fabric becomes, perhaps, a paradigm for the
structure of the novel and the inter-weaving of its parts:

Among such a confusion, we had hard work

to find out all his pockets, and our

guide supposed that, after all, we did

not find above the half of them . . .

We found a comb, a gimblet, a vial, a

small neat square board, a pair of

plated knee-buckles, and several samples

of cloth cn‘ different kinds, rolled

neatly up within one another. (p. 227)
Cloth samples rolled up inside one another, pockets full of
meaningless paraphernalia: so many cul-de-sacs in the laby-
rinth, so many spiders"victims neatly rolled up in a web
and so many "sample" versions of one story rolled up inside
another. This may be Hogg's mysterious evocation of the
experience of his novel; but it is by no means a solution to
the problem of three separate narratives with three separate

sets of "facts." As Hoffmann suggests, the seeker who

thinks that because he perceives the web he can understand

7

it is lost. Michael York Mason, in discussing Cenfessiene
puts it this way:

We are certainly invited to treat the

data as clues .. . but we must not

expect a solution. The jigsaw of evi-

dence is so deségned that no complete

fit is possible.

It should be evident, then, that looking for a specific
answer to Romantic ambiguity may put the critic in the ques-
tionable positioncfl‘collapsinga:multidimensional vision
into a flat and doubtful unity by leaving a great deal of
detail the author obviously considered important hanging
over the edge. While reductive criticism can shed light on
the particular aspects of a novel which it addresses most
specifically, it is often at the cost of ignoring a very
large portion of the novel's material. To avoid at least
some of the difficulties of too narrow a focus, I would like
to consider as many of the different dimensions of these
novels as is possible. In order to do this, it will be
necessary in some ways to emulate the peculiarly complex
inter-weaving of motif and structure, the interpenetration
between author and reader, and the ambiguous circularity of
movement which seems to characterize the novels under exami-
nation. This will require frequent digressions, overlap-
pings and enclosures which in some way suggest the intrica-
cxies of the originals, but by no means exhaust their poten-
txial. It will be necessary to invoke a god along the way
wrho can facilitate this meandering motion between alternate

spheres of reality, much as the Romantics evoked heavenly

8
and infernal beings for this purpose. My intention, how-
ever, will be to enter without an overly-large encumbrance
Of preconceptions into the realm of Romantic double vision,
expanding upon, elaborating, relating, and connecting this
material in a manner meaningful to literary criticism, psy-

chology, and in particular, the study of Romantic doubling.
Mirror Images: The Double

Ich bin das was ich scheine und scheine
das nicht was ich bin, mir selbst ein

O

unerklfirlich Ragsel, bin ich entzweit
mit meinem Ich!

"Like is an ill mark. Sae ill indeed,
that I would hardly swear to ony thing."
(Confessions. p. 67)

The list of Romantic doubles isealong--and certainly
impressive-~one. Among the best-known works in this genre
are Percy Shelley's Emmethene unbennn, Mary Shelley's
Enankonstoin. Edgar Allan Poe's Linen and RilIiam Hilson.
Byron's Cain, much of Melville's work and almost all of the
work of E.iL A: Hoffmann. Even Goethe did not object to
liens]; being referred to as an example of doubling.7 There
are, of course, any number of works about doubles which
could be cited, some obvious candidates, some with more
questionable credentials.

The three works upon which I have focused are not
necessarily the most illustrative so far as the doubling

motif is concerned, although most critics who deal with

9

doubles do feel compelled to refer to Elixins and Confes;
signs. The third work, The Monk, with its paired characters
and brother-sister incest motif can certainly be classified
as a book about doubles, but I have incorporated it here
largely because it is both overtly and subtly the progenitor
of the other two novels. Together this triad constitutes a
set of multiple imagings of similar characters.and events
with a familial resemblance of text not unlike the familial
resemblances of successive generations of characters in the
novels themselves. In essence, the tuna later authors
develop reflections on the reflections of the earlier work,
amplifying, intensifying, and inbreeding the "original sins"
Of the father-text.

Before we consider the particular examples of doubling
manifested in the novels themselves, however, it will be
useful to examine the mythic and anthropological context of
this motif as it has appeared in various situations. This
may make it a little easier to focus on the precise milieu
which is invoked when duplicity in literature--or life--is a
major mythic leitmotif.

Nearly everyone is familiar with instances of paired or
twin characters in fairy tales and mythic contexts. Cain
and Abel, Lilith and Eve, Esau and Jacob, and Judas and
Christ (or even Satan and Christ as Older and younger sons
of God) are familiar pairs from JudeO—Christian tradition.
Kastor and Pollux, Romulus and Remus, Demeter and Perse-
phone, and Gilgamesh and Enkidu are other pairs whose mythic

exploits have contributed to western literary tradition.

10
Dual heroes, as a matter of fact, are extremely common
throughout the world in myth and literature.

Brother-sister twin pairs also constitute an important
motif‘in world myth and one anthropologist remarks "cross
twins [a brother and sister pair] are almost universally
considered to be the first humans."8 Even if Adam and Eve
were not strictly brother and sister, it would be difficult
to suggest how their children married without a shade of
incest (as Byron implied in Cain). The Greek pantheon, too,
was headed by a brother and sister pair, Zeus and Hera,
whose incestuous mating apparently was an essential compo-
nent of their divinity.9 The Egyptians, whose pharoahs were
considered incarnate divinities, allowed royal brothers and
sisters to marry although such unions were otherwise taboo,
presumably because pairing arrangements of this sort were
attributes of immortal deities, not ordinary people.

Not surprisingly, the birth of actual twins seems to
have had supernatural implications, engendering a variety of
ritual precautions in almost every ancient and primitive
society. In some cases, when twins were born both twins and
mother were sacrificed; in other cases only the twins were
sacrificed or just one of the twins. In still other socie-
ties, twins were given special religious duties, particu-
larly those associated with fertility rituals. The usual
explanation for this special treatment of twins was that
multiple births were the result of spirit-impregnation. In
most instances the mother of the twins was thought to have

been visited by a spirit or deity (a good or evil omen

11
depending on the society's current collective opinion of the
spirit-world) who fathered one_of the twins. Mythically,
this notion is reflected in the tale of Zeus and Alkmene.
Alkmene bears twin sons: Herakles, fathered by Zeus, and
Iphikles, fathered by her mortal husband, Amphitryon. In
societies no longer so familiar with the spirit-world, this
formula was translated into more mundane terms: a woman who
bore twins was an adultress. Both in ritual and myth, then,
the birth of twins and the related events were highly signi-
ficant and carefully circumscribed with appropriate ritual
reactions aimed at safely channeling the potent energies
such a critical event unleashed. If nothing else, the
enormous number of surviving twin-myths from all over the
world suggests that doubling or multiplication of real human
beings was more important as a psychic event than it was on
the physical plane. Its continued prominence in an era when
twins are no longer considered supernatural events hints
that the psychic dimension may have always been foremost.
One further intimation of this seems to be the fact that
twins in myth are Often twins in only the loosest way--
sometimes merely brothers or friends or perhaps enemies of
comparable strength and valor--yet they are often specifi-
cally referred to as twins. Perhaps on the metaphorical
plane twinning has further implications as a process not
reducible to the simple wonder that two human beings born at
once of one mother can seem to be exact replicas of each

other. In myth, in fact, twins are much more often

12

complementary or antagonistic opposites than mere physical
duplicates.

In dream, fantasy and myth the psychic significance of
the multiplication of one figure into many--either by divi-
sion or duplication--is frequently in evidence. The six-
teenth-century Chinese novel, Monkfil, like modern tales of
cloning, presents the familiar fantasy in which the seeker
must select from a number of identical replicas the "real"
person or object. In dreams, too, it is often the very
multiplicity of the threatening enemy which seems to engen-
der the horror--not the nature of the enemy itself. One
might be able to deal comfortably with one snake or even
half a dozen, but not with a world transformed into snakes.

Confusion of Opposites is another related motif in
fairy tale and story: an ugly frog becomes a handsome
prince, a lovely lady is transformed into a creaking raven
or a hideous old hag turns into an eligible young maiden.
In literature these motifs appear in works ranging from the
animal—metamorphoses in ancient Greek and Latin literature
to James Hogg's "Hunt of Eildon" (in which a peasant is
turned into a: hog) or the bizarre cockroach-transformation
of Kafka's "Metamorphosis." Closely related to these themes
are the déjh 1n motifs: men seem transformed into machines
while machines take over human functions. We see this
happening in E. T. A. Hoffmann's "The Sandman" when Nathan-
eal, aided by magical spectacles becomes a mere puppet-
admirer of the mechanical doll, Olympia. In a modern fan-

tasy, Sign Haze, the droids behave like individualized,

13

empathetic humans while the human storm troopers act with
the uncaring precision and impersonal identity we ordinarily
equate with machines. These, then, are some of the areas of
literature and myth which are particularly involved with the
problem of doubling or twinning. Before we consider the
precise implications of this motif as it appears in Romantic
literature, however, it is necessary to clarify the specific
approach to the problem of doubles which I will make use of
in relation to the way that other critics have employed the
term.

Doubles have been a concern of literary critics at
least since Jean Paul Richter coined the term donnelgengen
for his novel Siehfinkafi in the late eighteenth century.
Since the motif continues to proliferate in literature, mo-
vies and television, it is not surprising that twentieth-
century critics increasingly direct their interpretive ener-
gies toward this recurrent theme. There seem to be two
distinct approaches to the doubling-motif in literature in
twentieth-century criticism wtuch follow broadly the lines
of inductive and deductive techniques. In the first place,
there are writers like Otto Rank10 and more recently, Robert
Rogers,11 who have attempted to approach the doppelgangen
through psychoanalytic theory. Since the theory itself
clearly carries more weight with these critics than the
actual instances of doubling in various literary works with
which they deal, these works tend to be found wanting when
they do not aptly illustrate Freudian tenets and to be

pronounced particularly fine when they do. Measuring

1H

literary motifs by means of a Freudian yardstick does enable
the writers to make some interesting and acute observations
about the possible underlying meanings of some of the rel-
ationships between literary doubles on thelnaterial plane
and in the area of subconscious desire. However, it largely
ignores other aspects of doubling, including the peculiar
nature of the literary contexts in which doubling tends
often to occur. It is obvious, too, that the reductive bent
Of Freudian theory will tend to clash with the expansive
motion of a great part of Romantic literature. 11:13 not
too surprising, then, that Rogers fails to discern the
mythic element in Hogg's Confessions:

The novel presents us with the paradox of

a study which dwells on the subject of

evil, largely in psychological terms, yet

fails to involve (nu: emotions deeply

because of the way in which evil is ac-

centuated agd isolated in a diabolical

other self.
Presumably, when Rogers refers to Hoggusnovel being pre-
sented "in psychological terms," he means that the charac-
terization follows the general lines of a mimetic "case-
history" closely detailing the patient's succession of symp-
toms, like those written later by psychoanalysts. Perhaps
Rogers should have given a little more attention to Bessy
Gillies' pronouncement in the Confessions that "like is an
ill mark," (p. 67). Or he might have looked more carefully
at the "Fac-simile" of the supposed original manuscript of

Wringham's Confessions which was bound into the front of the

first edition of the novel, but doesinot exactly match the

15

printed version. The tenets of psychoanalysis seem, at any
rate, inappropriately applied in the footzfiimile realm of
Hoggjs mythic milieu; they would likewise be misapplied in
the context of Lewijv or Hoffmann's creations. Certainly
the appearance of all three novels is deceptively mimetic at
the outset, but their hybrid nature practically eludes any
attempt at an airtight analysis. This situation often
leads the critic to decree that the author's creative abili-
ties are at fault. This is an unfortunate conclusion for
both critic and author, since it reduces the author'SIvork
to a symptom of artistic incompetence and forces the critic
to condemn the mythic aspects of literature by dubious name-
calling ("the characterization of the main figures is crude,
and melodrama bulks largeiJIthe story"13)ii‘he wishes to
be strictly consistent in establishing his criteria for
esthetic excellence. Since it is apparently most important
for psychoanalysts like Rogers to find a certain type of
mimetic consistency in the works to which they address
themselves, it seems unlikely that they can be comfortable
with an author's intentional inconsistencies or treat them
fairly. Thus far, then, it does not seem that the tools of
psychoanalysis have been effectively utilized in exploring
these peculiarly liminal novels.

0- F- Keppler's The Literatuno of the Second Self1 u is
by far the best example of the second type of work dealing
with the motif of doubles in literature. This book provides
a painstaking delineation of the different types of doubles

which have appeared in literature and myth from antiquity to

16

the twentieth century. Kepplerfiscareful analysis finely
separates the different forms of the double according to the
particular circumstances of their appearances in literature:
twin brother, pursuer, tempter, vision of horror, savior,
and beloved. He devotes a chapter and extensive explanation
to each of these and also includes a chapter on the double
in time. He details the context in which each pair of
doubles occurs and draws some conclusions about the general
traits of "second selves." However, since his emphasis is
always on the double, he makes few attempts to link this
particular motif with other aspects of the literature in
which it occurs:

I have avoided any attempt to use this

figure [the second self] in order to

shed light on certain works of litera-

ture, but instead have used relevant

works of literature. .. to shed light

on the figure of the Double, in the hope

of providing a groundwork that has not

yet exfgted an' more specialized

studies.
And.yet, as Keppler himself admits, these motifs which he
separates into classifications interpenetrate one another to
such an extent that a taxonomic analysis seems ultimately of
somewhat dubious value:

This Janus-faced duality of the second

self, this interpenetration of his evil

side with his good, should not really

surprise us. It is all the same figure

we have been studying, and though one or

another aspect is more prominant de-

pending on the angle from which he is

seen, all aspects are bound to be pre-

sent at all times: the Tempter in the
Pursuer, the Horror in the Tempter, the

17
saint in the sinner, the male in the
female and vice versa. To try to excise
one aspect and discount or ignore the
rest is like the task imposed on Shy-
lock: to excige the flesh and shed no
drop of blood.

In Keppler's own terms, then, it seems somewhat self-
defeating to draw the lines he has drawn. One might go
further to suggest that it is likewise impossible to excise
the double motif from its literary context, the peculiar
crucible in which the epiphany occurs. Keppler's work, how-
ever, does provide a useful foundation for the understanding
of the particular traits of doubles and their relationship
to each other, emphasizing the doubles' preoccupation with
each other, as well as the ambiguous nature of the appear-
ance of the "other" self "the unbidden interloper who is
also the bidden guest."17 All in all, then, Keppler pro-
vides a usable field guide to the doubling motif and its
recognizable traits but conscientiously ignores its habitat.
Again, the ambiguity of the material itself seems to force
the critic into making arbitrary distinctions in order to
avoid the confusion and disorientation which are symptomatic
of many of the works involved. Although his Observations
about the paradoxical nature of literary doubles are acute,
his conclusions seem vague and unconvincing. This is indeed
a "groundwork" for further study.

The difficulty critics have in dealing effectively with

l iterature about doubles and doubling is in one sense the

central motif of my thesis, for it would appear to me that

int is the critical faculty ihself whose potentials and

18

limitations are weighed and which engenders these odd bor-
derline conjunctions Of multiple selves. But before turning
to a more thorough explication of the way in which doubles
function in these multi-layered novels about multiplicity,
it is essential to clarify as well as possible my own use of
the terms "double" and "goooelgsngen," which have certainly
been used in a great many different contexts.

"The word nonhle is embarrassingly vague as used in

18

literary criticism," Albert (L Guerard remarks. Keppler

adds:

An even more serious difficulty about

these words [double and doppelgangen] is
that they have been so loosely used by

writers on the subject that they can

mean virtually anything: in1€ther

words, they have no real meaning.
There seems, in fact, totxaa duplicity or ambiguity about
the very terms used to describe this phenomenon which is
quite consistent with the mythic milieu in which doubling
appears. Keppler particularly objects to the tendency of
critics to classify all sorts of different types of doubles
under this one category:

the word "double" is used interchange-

ably for a case of biological twinship

and for a case of psychopathic halluci-

nation, with no apparent realization

that t 8 two are entirely different

things.
This may be so in life, but I would suggest that whenever

the doubling process is evoked in literature a similar

archetypal "set" is brought into play; the "reality" or

19

"unreality" of the circumstances has little to do with the
story. A pair Of "real" twins in a novel are after all no
more real than a devil or an angel in a novel and may convey
similar mythic content. Keppler‘s preference for the term
"second self," on the other hand, seems more interpretive
than descriptive and unnecessarily cumbersome. I will,
then, incorporate the words "double" and "ooooelgangen" in
my discussion as conveying the appropriate ambiguity for the
subject whenever obvious doubling or multiplying of figures
occurs.in a text--whether it is between brothers, brother
and sister, man and devil, lovers or strangers, imagined
figures or real flesh-and-blood people.

As I have already suggested, it is not necessarily the
twins themselves which seem to constitute the main preoc-
cupation of authors who delve into this material. Instead,
it would appear to be the ambiguous distance between them,
the unseen boundary which, as it were, functions to keep
them in separate worlds yet dramatizes their uncanny
relatedness. One metaphor for that space or tension between
the two is the mirror. Since glass is an insubstantial and
fragile substance through which we can readily see, but not
move, it seems an apt emblem of that critical point between
opposites which seems to support and sustain their relation-
ship while firmly dividing them. It will be useful here,
then, to look a little more closely at that mirror-metaphor
since it in many ways amplifies the phenomenon of doubling

in literature.

20

Some Reflections on Mirrors--Magic and Mundane

Between us and events, between the deer
and the deed, there is a reflective mo-
ment.

At least since Narcissus and Perseus, magic mirrors of
one sort or another have been a firm but ambiguous fixture
in literature and myth. Their obvious affiliation with the
reflective capacity of the moon and the spirit-world in
general (after all, it is a "ghost," not a "real" person who
appears in the mirror) insures that whenever people summon
up their twins by consulting the looking-glass they are
likely to get a good deal more than they bargained for.
Medieval prints depict malicious imps presenting their back-
sides to startled noble ladies who are admiring themselves
in their mirrors. Presumably these images were intended to
point up the parallels between women's vanity and demonic
hubris. In fact, though, the mirror is often the nexus of
inversion wherein the "head" world or upper realm confronts
the "gut" world or lower realm. The mirror-image may often
present a topsy-turvy parody of the common-sensical upright
world as it does in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking
Glass. In this story, too, it acts as the Symplegades by
means of which access to the "other world" is attained.
Mythic mirrors, then, like mythic twins, often reflect
more--or less--then they seemingly ought to. Like Matilda's
magic mirror in The Monk, they may summon up spatially-

distant events, or, like the crystal balls used by fortune

21
tellers, they may reflect images of the past or future. On
the other hand, it may be significant when a mirror reflects
nothing at all, as in the cases of image-less ghosts and
vampires or the unnamed man in E.T.A. Hoffmann's Neg Team
Exe Tale who sold his reflection.

In order to get a somewhat firmer grasp on this meta-
phor, let's look at the attributes of a mirror. Reflection
encompasses.an interesting ambiguity that we tend to take
for granted. Whereas a mirror produces a double exactly
like myself in all aspects of appearance, dress, and ges-
ture, that reflection is at the same time a precise contra-
diction of myself. While I am right-handed, To is left-
handed. While the right Side of my body is more physically
developed and coordinated, it is the left side of my mirror-
image that displays these traits. My "double" is in fact my
complete--sinister--contradiction in terms of left-right
orientation. And there are other contradictions: while I
am "real," the image is ghostly, fleeting, gone with a
movement or the flick of a light switch. While my body is
warm, soft, contoured, the surface of the mirror is cold,
hard, flat--as rigid and unyielding as death. It is I, but
it is not I. Considering this paradox, it is hardly surpri-
sing that in the past mirrors were pressed to the lips Of
the dying to determine whether or not the soul had fled. It
was not a mere handy test for condensation, but a complex
symbolic dramatization of the boundary line that mirrors
seem to epitomize: the dead in truth cannot affect the

mirror as the living can, for their image is fixed and

22
immobile, no longer the flitting of spirit. The possibility
of the dead confusing themselves with their mirror-image
since they may not be aware that they have "crossed the
boundary" is also reflected in the universal custom of
covering household mirrors or turning them to the wall when
there is a serious illness or death in the household.

Alice wasn't the only person ever to discover that a
mirror could be a literal means of access to the Other
World. Primitives have often used mirrored pendants to
induce trance-states; mirrors provide a significant vehicle
for modern cocaine-use. Obviously, the mirror's ambiguities
of form and substance still entrance us whenever we turn to
the looking-glass to "see ourselves as others see usJ‘

Fiction, too, is a mirror and the mirror of fiction is
no more likely to reflect the mundane, customary world of
ordinary life than is the mirror in fiction. In fiction's
House of Mirrors, each image is as devastatingly true and as
appallingly false as the next. We cannot prefer one image
to another simply because it is more nearly aligned with our
current ideals of the way things ought to be. Certainly
many misleading notions about the necessity of "realism" in
fiction might be avoided if we recognize that a mirror, by
its very nature, noxen produces an exact likeness, but only
a curious mimesis or aping as if we were seeing the real
thing. Fiction, too, is always as if it were real life.
But fictive life is also mediated by the reflective vehicle
through which it passes (the text), implying that the

organizing, story-making function of consciousness forms a

23
chaos of external events into an intelligible series of
internal experiences. As we shall see, the novel's emphasis
on time--especially the significance of the moment at which
one mirror-twin encounters the other--also directs attention
to the reflective, organizing capacity of the experiencing
mind. As Immanuel Kant suggested, time, space, and causal-
ity are the primary categories of self-consciousness by
means of which we "make sense" of what happens to us. These
three likewise function as organizing categories in the
mirrorings of fiction, but--in the novels we will be exami-
ning--their frequent confusion, ambiguity, and overlapping
imply almost infinite refractions, opening up a multiplicity
of experiential dimensions in each event, each with its own
logic and "sense." In antiquity, each of these dimensions
was assigned to the jurisdiction of a particular deity so
that one set might be referred to as "Hera's happenings" and
another as "Apollo's events." In modern psychology, similar
configurations are referred to as "complexes," a descriptive
and useful term which has unfortunately taken on negative
connotations. At any rate, like the multiple mirrors in a
clothing store, these "complex" fictions reflect and re-
reflect, endlessly inter-linking, re-visioning and re-com-
bining. In fiction the actualities that are produced from
the potentialities of time, space, and causality available
seem as random as the combinations of a gene-pool, but ulti-
mately, these seemingly chance events appear to be governed
by an unseen over-bearing teleological Fate toward which

both individual and species tend.

24

In the realm of these fictions, the amplifications of
the mirror-image--like those of literary critics--often un-
dermine or invert the mundane literal appearance of the
subject to insist on a metaphorical understanding. Con-
versely, metaphor presented from the "mirror side" must al-
ways be taken to mean exactly what it says, even though it
is couched in deceptive, double-edged oracular terms (and
Often in verse). Hence, surface appearances of the subjects
in these novels are never what they appear to be when we are
dealing with the ordinary world. Yet whenever an "under-
world" figure appears--such as a gypsy, a demon, or a ghost,
his/her words, though ambiguous, are always literally true.
The mirror, it would seem, never lies and even the Father of
Lies in Hogg's novel never once tells a real lie. As rea-
ders, we can usually make the distinction between one Side
of the mirror and the other if we are at all familiar with
Romantic conventions. But the characters in the novel seem
like the dead for whom we cover mirrors in that they are
confused about "which side" they are on. Often they mistake
the reflection fortfluereal thing, not realizing that they
have "crossed over."

The lies of literature, the lies of perception and the
lies of mirror-likeness seem firmly woven into the fabric of
Romantic literature, for duplication can never be fully
separated from duplicity and the Father of Lies is often
referred to as "the Deuce." It is not too surprising, then,
that the devil manages to get into these mirror-tales so

often. And since it is incumbent upon him to put in an

25
appearance whenever he is mentioned, we might as well render
him his dues before we venture into his domain. The three
novels about which I will be writing;all have the devil in
them in one shape or another; But before we look at exactly
what the devil might be doing in the mirror (presumably with
his backside foremost in the traditional fashionh, it will
be useful to see what he--or a mythic figure very closely
related to him--might have to do with all this non-sense

about spiders, mirrors, time, and twins.

Hermes Psychopomps

This initiation [Samothraki] does not

make us whole; rather it makes us aware

of always being in a syzygy with another

figure, always in a dance, always a re-

flection of an invisible other.
If literary critics have a patron deity, perhaps that deity
is Hermes, particularly in his guise as osyohooomos or
spirit-guide, leading the way into the underworld of ampli-
fied meaning and inversion. From Hermes we get the term
"hermeneutics," an operation that is carried out as much by
the critics' efforts as by the authors'. That critical
function is also much in evidence in works of literature
like the ones I will be dealing with in which the author
and/or certain characters take on the role of Hermes psycho-
pomps to initiate the reader into an underworld labyrinth of

layered meanings.

Hermes is a god of penetration, meeting and movement

26

from one place to another. Like Janus he governs thresholds
and like the serpent his undulating, often phallic, form can
move in and out Of adjoining realms, sometimes occupying
several simultaneously. In antiquity, stone cairns set up
at boundaries and at magical spots (where the natural met
the super-natural) were called "herms." The name "Hermes"
may be derived from these stone heaps, but came to signify
"interpreter" or "mediator," suggesting that the aspect of
the god manifested at these points was his ability to move
easily across boundaries.23 This attribute is evident in
Hermes' ritual ushering of the dead into Hades as well as in
his actions as a go-between conciliating the claims of
Olympus with those of Hades. James Hillman describes the
Mercurial realm in this way:

For Hermetic consciousness, there is no

upperworld versus underworld problem.

Hermes inhabits the borderline; his

herms are erected there, and he makes

possible an easy comtgfirce between the

familar and the alien.
There were numerous boundaries sacred to Hermes: those
places on mountains where heaven met earth; the caves which
gave ingress to Old Mother Earth; the ancient, sacred spots;
crossroads and the points where lands with different gov-
ernments or owners met; the burial places of suicides or
sacrificial victims, and, of course, the time and place at
which human beings underwent the transition from life to
death. Although the sacred rites of boundaries have in our

own era been largely transformed into the sacred nighhs of

27
property, in this, too, we can see Hermes' hand, for he was
the deity of merchants and, logically enough, commerce.
Transition naturally suggests initiation and certainly we
must credit Hermes with facilitating every sort of nihezoe=
passage with his unsurpassed skill at penetration, an attri-
bute exceptionally well expressed by his phallic character.
Hermes' sexual nature also relates him to the darker myst-
eries of commerce of all types. According to the Homeric
Hymn25, Hermes as an infant successfully stole Apollo's cat-
tle and lied skillfully when confronted with the crime.
Thus he was a god of thieves and liars of all kinds with a
clever turn for alibis. .Bandits, robbers, deceitful mer-
chants, con-men, gamblers, and assasins all paid homage to
Hermes. And no doubt illicit lovers did, too. As a matter
of fact, sacrifices left at herms were smooosod to be stolen
by anyone who had need of them.26 Significantly, though,
Hermes' own theft of Apollo's cattle was not for selfish
personal gain, but for religious reasons: he sacrificed the
cattle. This detail suggests the mystical, religious nature
of Hermes'1vhimsical tricks. Ultimately this ritual act
seems to reflect the wider, symbolic nature Of the mythic
god whose behavior often seems so human and personalized
that it is difficult to think of him as one of the immortal
Olympians. At times he has the appeal of a lovable two-
year-Old brat overturning furniture just to see what will
happen. But in fiction, at least,the characters who mistake
the cosmic manifestations of Hermes' tricksterish nature for

ordinary human events from which they may derive personal

28

gain very quickly find themselves in over their heads. Like
the maiden in "The Water-King," they do not recognize the
full implications of their commitment; if they had, they
would not have made it:

Oh! had some spirit deigned to sing,

'Your partner is the Water-Kingl'

The Maid had fear and hate confest,

And cursed the hand which then She pressed.

(Monk, p.1290)

As a master of transmutation, Hermes was also a god of
Fortune--not just good luck, but any sudden turn of fortune
whether propitious or not. In this respect, he is clearly
related to the Gemini, the mythic twins who were said to be
responsible for fortune and who were invoked well into the
twentieth century with the phrase "by Gemini." Hermes him-
self is often represented as a deity of dual aspect. (L G.
Jung cites the duplicity of Mercurius, his simultaneously
metallic and pneumatic nature27 in connection with the
traits assigned him (and the metal named for him) by al-
chemists. Ancient representations of Hermes, indeed, con-
firm his dual nature by falling into two distinct cate-
gories: on the one hand there are the crude, squarish,
primitive human-headed stele or herms with clearly-defined
phallic attributes and on the other hand there are the
elegant, handsome, naturalistic "messenger" Hermes with
winged boots and/or hat and scarcely any suggestion of a
primitive fertility idol. To favor one type of Hermes over

another, however, as mythographers often do,28 is to ignore

the characteristically metamorphic nature of a god who once

29
transformed a mundane tortoise into Apollo's poetic instru-
ment, the lyre.

Hermes' multiform, transmutative function is no doubt
also reflected in his frequent representation as a three-
headed deity. In this respect he resembles Hecate, the
awful three-headed Mistress of the Underworld as well as
Cerberus, the hell-hound. These figures seem in turn to be
linked to the three Gorgons and the three Fates and even the
Nordic triad of Norns. All are in some sense liminal or
threshold figures. Hence the tri-partite or "Trismegistos"
(thrice-born) aspect of Hermes appears also to express sym-
bolically his role as mediator between two evidently
irreconciliable poles, just as the threefold nature of the
Christian God suggests mediation between the heavenly and
the earthly realms.

It is evident, then, that the ancients viewed Hermes as
an embodiment of a particular kind of interpenetration or
cohabitation between two normally polarized worlds. The
obvious expression of this process would be a sexual anal-
ogy, an attribute often emphasized in the ancient herms. In
fact, it would be quite simple to reduce all Hermes' func-
tions to symbolically sexual ones. To do so, however, would
seem too simplistic and reductive, for we must not forget
that any number of ancient deities--such as Aphrodite,
Priapus, Dionysus, Zeus and Eros--can also be equated with
sexual functions. Each, however, was viewed as a very
different sort of being governing quite diverse areas of

human activity. It is evident, then, that Hermes'

30
borderline presence must have wider implications for human
understanding than a simple sexual allegory. Perhaps we can
invert our proposition (as Hermes encourages us to do) and
say that human sexuality is itself an invocation of Hermes,
activating an immense psychic field of implications that
relate as much to the past and future of the species Homo
sanions as to individual life. But I will return to this
question in my conclusion. We need now to turn to Hermes'
explicit connection with Romantic novels, and, particularly,

the devils that inhabit these works.

Hermetic Sympathy for the Devil in Romanticism

The Christian devil does not derive exclusively from
the ancient Hermes, for he borrows attributes from a variety
of Eastern and Western deities, including the Zoroastrian
Ahriman, the Roman Pan, the Greek Hades, the Hebrew
Sathanas, and a plethora of minor male and female nature-
gods. Many of the devil's most prominent characteristics,
however, do bear a close correspondence to the more notable
attributes of Hermes. For example, the dual or "deuce"
qualitiescfifthe devil(ironically and linguistically re-
lated to "deus")29 are not limited to his cloven hoof. He
is often shown literally with two faces—~one in the ordinary
spot and the other either incorporating his genitals or
anus. He also combines Opposites in his androgynous nature
and throughout the Middle Ages he was generally given wo-

mants breasts. In addition, he combines man and beast, for

31

his upper parts are ordinarily human while his nether equip-
age includes the satyr's hirsute thighs, a tail, and either
animal hoofs or bird's talons. These, however, seem to be
merely standardized techniques for conveying the mercurial
nature of the devil symbolically, for it was generally
believed that this underworld ruler could readily transform
himself into a beautiful woman, a charming boy, a hideous
monster, a puff Of smoke, a bat or anything else that suited
his current needs. Like Hermes, then, Satan proves
extremely adept at metamorphosis and duplicity. He also has
a reputation for being an expert liar and master of irony
and double-edged expression like Gil-Martin in Hogg's
Confessions and Matilda in The Monk. He acts as patron of
liars and thieves, especially very deceitful ones like the
gang of robbers in The Monk, providing them with windfalls
in the form of naive victims. But like Gil-Martin he is a
thoroughly unreliable patron who may also be the instrument
for ultimately bringing the criminals to justice when they
feel most secure from discovery; revelation and discovery
are, after all, some of the devil's (and Hermes') most Ob-
vious duties.

In the Middle Ages and the Renaissance the devil was
particularly associated with business and commerce, espec-
ially as the instigator of Jewish merchants and userers.
It is not too surprising, then, that a certain closeness
with money and financial shrewdness characterize Gothic-
novel inhabitants associated with the devLL. Heathcliff,

for example, exhibits a great deal of business sense, and,

32
to a lesser extent, so does Robert Wringham.

Satan, like Mercurius, moves across all sorts of boun-
daries with ease-~a skill particularly noticeable in M11-
ton's Satan who seems constantly to be travelling from one
realm to another. Like Hermes, the devil's mediating abil-
ity is suggested by his association with the number three as
well as with the number two: Dante's titanic figure of
Lucifer has three heads and many traditional devils carry
tridents indicating their penetrating, interpretive role as
well as their function in mirroring the doings of the
heavenly trinity, for "That which is on high is like that
which is below."30 In many respects, hell in Christian
doctrine becomes an inverted, parodied heaven, a mirror
image of the divine realm.

One author suggests that "the original Hermes was the
most liable of all gods to adventure which had unfortunate
after-effects."31 The deity's involvement (though slight)
with the Judgement of Paris is an instance of this. There
always seems to be a "catch" to Hermes' events which is
connected, no doubt, with his involvement in sudden turns of
fortune. There is an obvious parallel here with the devil's
doings, for we know that whenever humankind gets assistance
from the Great Enemy, the results will be mixed at best if
not thoroughly disastrous.

The devil's sexuality, like Hermes', is prodigious.
His sexual prowess, in fact, seems to have been the central
focus Of the fertility rites of the "old religion" cele-

brated in the Witches' Sabbaths. Again, though Hermes had

33

"many love affairs and many children . . . mostly they were
rather unhappy."32 It is evident in literature, as well,
that love affairs instigated by the devil like Faust's
dalliance with Marguerite or Ambrosio's involvement with
Antonia are foredoomed to tragedy.

Hermes psychopomps appeared to guide the dead to the
underworld; the devil often appears inau%:and fiction to
escort the sinner to his new world. The devil also appears
at decisive moments in people's lives to tempt them to make
unwise decisions. The burial of suicides at crossroads,
presumably because such deaths invoked the devil, seems to
suggest a propitiation of the deity whose province it is to
move across borderlines. It is presumptuous in a human
being to move himself across the borderline between life and
death; consequently ritual precautions are required to pre-
vent the dead person's spirit from being trapped "between,"
since it has not had the benefit of a spirit-guide.

In drawing these lengthy analogies, I have tried to
hint at some of the ways in which Romantic authors invoked
the devil--especially the Hermetic aspects of the devil.
The Christian devil was traditionally intended to represent
the enemy of God; in doing so, he must be in every respect
antithetical to the deity. It is evident, though, that the
ancient Hermes from whom the devil derives so many of his
attributes was neither evil nor good, but apparently symbo-
lized an order outside these ordinary dualistic concepts. I
believe the Romantics, who so often wrote of the devil and

sympathized with Milton's Satan, were particularly concerned

3A
with retrieving this mediating aspect of the devil which had
been largely lost or obscured. In doing so, they sought to
re-define the entire complex of associations the devil
evoked by removing him from the sinister side of Christian
dogma (unbottling him, so to speak) and restoring him to his
Hermetic position as the master magician who not only led
the dead to the sad realm of Hades but also brought Perse-
phone back from Hades each year.

My goal (if goal-orientation is an appropriate term in
this context) in the following text is to offer a new per-
spective on the mythic mirroring process in Romantic novels.
Ultimately, I will suggest that there is some method in this
deliberate Romantic madness of self—reflection and rank or-
ganic growth, but that it requires a different sort of spec-
tacles from those to which critics are accustomed to use in
adjusting their vision to these complex liminal produc-
tions. Such a re-vision of sight and insight, moreover,
activates a special set of psychic processes which in anti-
quity were grouped under the general designation of
"Hermes." These texts, I would suggest, are hermetically
sealed like the elixirs or Robert Wringham's manuscript: "I
will now seal up my little book, and conceal it; and cursed
be he who trieth to alter or amend“‘ (p. 217). So much for
critics! But Hermes is a god Of sudden revelation as well
as closure and under his auspices we may be able to exper-
ience the process of creative re-imagination as it happens
in these novels without invoking the curse by trying too

hard to rationalize miracles.

35

In this chapter, I have outlined some of the most
significant manifestations.oftnirroringiJIliterature and
myth which I have designated "Hermetic." In the following
chapters I will amplify, develop and elaborate on these
Hermetic themes, addressing my commemts to several key ques-
tions raised by my initial observations: 1) how is Hermetic
multiplicity and duplicity manifested in each novel? 2)
what.are the internal and external literary circumstances
under which a figurative epiphany of Hermes occurs? 3) how
does Hermetic vision function as a paradigm for the reading
and writing of literature, i.e., what specific relationships
exist between Hermetic themes and Romantic notions about the
reading and writing of literature? Finally, in my con-
cluding chapter, I will generalize further to consider the
ways in which these Hermetic insights develop a metaphor for
envisioning the conjunctions of ordinarily antithetical
entities whether these entities are male and female charac-
ters, "twin" characters, sympathetic scenes, different lit-

erary modes or author and reader.

CHAPTER THO
HULTIPLICITY AND IflE.flQflK

Why This Novel?

At first glance it may not be evident that The Monk
(1796) is a book of mirrors and doubling. Although Lewis'
novel is occasionally referred to in critical works dealing
with the doppelganger motif, its treatment of the double is
usually considered marginal. Certainly if we look only at
the superficial arrangement of characters, there are no ob-
vious twins like those who appear in Elixins or Confessions.
Yet, since both these latter novels can trace their ori-
gins--at least in part--to techniques employed by Lewis in
The Monk, we must assume there is some basis for viewing
Lewis' novel as an important ancestor in the family tree of
doppelganger literature.1

Although in The Monk there are no doubles pen se--
characters who can readily be mistaken for one another or
who seem to share the same being--there is a bewildering
dialectical rhythm of roughly parallel characters and inci-
dents constantly changing places, submerging, re-emerging
and metamorphosing. There are several pairs, too, whose
relationships seem to verge upon those of mythic twins:

Ihnbrosio and Antonia with their incestuous mutual attraction

36

37

and idealized physical attributes have some of the charac-
teristics of archetypal male-female twins; Lorenzo and Ray-
mond are the Gemini-like heroes of the novel; Agnes has a
twin both in the Bleeding Nun and her drawing of it; she
also makes a drawing of herself for Raymond and in this she
evokes the portrait Matilda had sent to Ambrosio and iis
original. Matilda, like many mythic figures, embodies twins
in herself when she appears as the novice Rosario evoking
Satan's traditional Hermaphroditic quality. She also func-
tions as Ambrosio's Mephistopheles when she exhibits a far-
reaching awareness of his hidden motives and nature and
plots a temptation exactly suited to his weaknesses. Like
Gil-Martin in Hogg's Confessions, Matilda is constantly
aware of her victim's blindness to mythic "truths" and
exploits this blindness to bring about the Monk's damnation.
The Bleeding Nun is also Raymond's doppelganger, appearing
(as the Wandering Jew tells him) constantly by his side
though only visible for one hour during the twenty-four.
And there are minor doubles. Leonella and Donna Rudolpha,
for example, function at the negative and positive poles of
the same constellation--as foolish old women enamoured with
young noblemen. Even the monastery and convent with their
tyrant-overseers mad for power are mirror-images united by a
garden and a crypt in which sexual unions take place.

A number of incidents in the text are likewise mirrored
and re-reflected. Thus, in several instances a desireable
lover becomes a loathesome corpse, a vain old woman holds a

young, beautiful one prisoner or a work of art (or

38
literature) literally comes to life. Sometimes incidents
are repeated with different results, like a set of scienti-
fic experiments. Thus incident, character and motif are
intricately interwoven in Lewis' textual tapestry with each
pattern repeating endlessly, though never identically.

It appears, then, that the particular species of mir-
roring employed by Lewis in The Monk involves a far more
comprehensive view of the implications of duplicity and de-
ception than he has received credit for creating. Not only
is his text a vehicle for stories about doubling, but his
innovative approach to multiple-vision allows the novel to
explore the Hermetic fertility of contrariety that rever-
berates--as we shall see--through every layer of his work
just as the actions of the novel affect every aspect of the
religious structure at its center from the burial vaults
beneath to the public arena of the cathedral. And the in-
fluence of Lewis' technique extends both to other Gothic
novels and those like Clinics and Confessions which can
trace their origins to Lewis' work, and to a great deal of
later literature that tackled this pervasive problem of
duplicity and duplicating world-views juxtaposed. Perhaps
after Lewis' seminal treatment of doubling as a shaping
technique for the novel in both its internal and external
dimensions, it was impossible for later writers to ignore
the immense implications of a double vision in the writer
which in turn made the reader aware of his/her own
multiplicity instead of a simple cloning of characters that

did not demand the reader's active involvement. The Monk,

39
then, is a novel of double vision in every respect, as we
shall see inaicloser examination. But before considering
the novel itself in detail, let us look briefly at the
critical reaction to Lewisfl Gothic vision in order to try to

determine the focal points of modern criticism.

Criticism: Ambiguity and Conflict

From its publication The Monk has been involved in
disputes over its validity as a legitimate work of litera-
ture. Perhaps it is not too surprising that in relation to
a novel concerned with heredity and causality at every level
there should be a critical response to its legitimacy. Al-
though some critics praised the work, others were vehement
in their denouncements. The worst of these was certainly
Tobias Mathias in The Eunfiuitfi of Litfinatnne (1797). His
"another Cleland see in Lewis rise"2 seems inappropriate and
his attacks on Lewis' narrator's espousement of Elvira's
Bowdlerized Bible seem unwarranted in light of the fact that
similar versions of the Bible were common in Lewis' day.3
As Montague Summers points out, Lewis' novel continued to
suffer from a largely unwarranted reputation as "lewd" lit-
erature throughout the nineteenth century. Its originality
was attacked, too, despite Lewis' ready acknowledgement of
several of his literary debts in his Advertisement. George
Daniel, 3 book collector and critic, for example, said,

The chief merit that belongs to The Monk
is in bringing together an accumulation

~Vll“

40

of supernatural horrors, and skillfully

arranging them in an interesting tEle--

it is German from beginning to end.
But, originality aside, critics past and present as Daniel
implies, have been intrigued by the organization and
arrangement of the materials Lewis manipulated in his Gothic
novel.

Although it might seem absurd in a Post-Freudian era to
insist on unity in a human personality, critics continue to
search for artistic unity and consistency in works of
literature. Hence, many of the critics who have dealt with
Lewis' novel have either faulted it for its ambiguous flux
between mythic and mimetic poles or have attempted to recon-
cile the separate visions by collapsing them all into<one.
Even Robert Kiely, who readily accepts the mixed nature of
Romantic novels as an inherent characteristic of the spe-
cies, has his reservations, "For most [Romantic novelists
other than Bronte, Hogg and Scott] confrontation and break-
down are not merely fictional themes but structural and
stylistic problems.5 But Kiely also cautions against an
over-emphasis on continuity which may result in simplistic
interpretations: "In looking at specific works one is
tempted to focus on split character types or contradictory
ideologies; that is, to bring order to the problem by
tracing a single pattern of disjunction."6 As a matter of
fact, such a temptation is not unlike that offered by
Matilda to the Monk: trust in me, she counsels, and we can

circumvent the old laws of society (and literature) with our

41

new magic (science), cutting through the Gordian knots of
decorum with our theoretical wealth. In Lewisfl House of
Mirrors, though, it is not, after all, so surprising that
Matilda, who encourages the utmost freedom from social norms
and literary traditions, is in the end only an old cliche
representing one of the earliest "laws" of literature and
society, the devil. Thus, if the critic attempts to cut
through these mazes or levitate above them like Ambrosio,
he/she may be equally cut Off from the very sources of
nourishment. Generalizing from one set of characters or
incidents to the whole novel can be an extremely risky
undertaking when we are dealing with the slippery pitfalls
of Romantic double vision. At its best, a reductive explan-
ation can shed light on an isolated segment or character in
the novel; at its worst it results in a breakdown of the
critical function itself, generating impossible critical
demands. The most glaring instance of this imposition of
critical tyranny on The Monk is Montague Summers' argument
that Matilda's shift from mortal to demon at the end of the
novel is artistically at fault:

This [alteration] runs counter to the

whole tenor of the narrative. We cannot

accept the temptress as a female Mephis-

topheles. If Matilda was a succubus,

many of the preceding incidents are im-

possible or out of gear. The whole

discrepancy, which is serious, could

have been obviated by the omission of .

. . one sentence .. . and the story

would have gained. I like to think that

the vaunt of the demon is mere over-

sight, and in reading, I del e it--at
least mentally--from the text.

42

Later critics have not all agreed with Summers, of
course, but often have bent over entirely in the opposite
direction. Peter Grudin, for example, goes to great pains
to prove that Matilda is completely consistent as a charac-
ter of the succubus type, concluding "That Matilda is demon-
strably consistent creates a new respect for the formal
coherence of The Monk."8 Grudin paints himself into a
critical corner, too, however, for immediately after proving
Matilda's consistency he has to admit that other aspects of
the novel--particularly the interpolated narrative of Ray-
mond-~still lack this unity he has been at such pains to
demonstrate. Even Mathias believed that unity was a crucial
concern in this novel, arguing "As a composition the work
would have been better, if the offensive and scandalous
passages had been omitted."9 Critical opinions, then, seem
to agree that consistency (particularly in the character of
Matilda) would comprise a primary requirement for optimal
literary quality in Lewis' novel. In other words, if con-
sistency could somehow be demonstrated, the novel's1aorth
would increase.

Other critics have approached Lew is' work by excusing
his faults due to his youth (he was only nineteen years old
when he wrote The Monk) or because he was writing primarily
to provide money for his mother. Every rationalization,
though, seems aimed at delivering him--or excusing him--from
the crass charge of inconsistency. Such, then, has been the
tenor of a large share Of the criticism directed at this

novel and thus, the question of consistency becomes a

43
crucial concern for any critic who tackles this complex
essay into human experience.

Is consistency a legitimate basis for artistic judg-
ment? If so, can this novel be considered consistent? Or
was its author deliberately attacking our assumptions about
the nature of experiential unity? In this discussion I will
argue that the novel aims deliberately at disturbing, unbal-
ancing and disorienting its readers in order to force them
to consider the bases of their assumptions about both the
unity of human experience»and the unity of literary exper-
ience. Furthermore, I will argue that this novel's innova-
tive approach to the problem of multiple vision engendered
its own "doubles" in the form of descendents like Elixirs
and Confessions that amplified and enlarged upon these con-
cepts of deliberate and frustrating disjunction. The critics
are right: consistency is a key concern in The Monk, but
let us allow that the author might have taken a wider view
Of the problem of consistency as it exists in the relations
between author, narrator, text and reader rather than simply
within individual characters in the novel.

One might, of course, argue that neiihenste
inconsistency is, after all, only another sort of consis-
tency and I would certainly not dispute that point. I would
only contend that the inconsistency present is not a symptom
Of artistic incompetancy. It functions rather to alert the
reader to ever-widening circles of reverberating vision and
multiple perspectives both within and outside the text, in

effect integrating the act of reading the novel into an

44
exploration of the intricate processes of perception and
understanding which make that reading possible in the first
place. If the reader expects that the data given by Lewis
will be effortlessly recorded on some inner Leonie Loss by
the mere act of reading, he/she is bound to be quickly dis-
illusioned. The neophyte who opens this novel will not be
permitted to pursue a straightforward course over a smooth,
clearly-marked textual terrain. Instead, he/she will be
forced into frustrating by-ways and surprised by cul-de-sacs
in the maze. Progress, if possible at all, is bound to be
slow and difficult just like Lorenzo'SInovement from the
lost ideal of Antonia through painful struggle and mourning
to Virginia de Villa-Franca. Lewis' sudden shifts of per-
spectives and jolting metamorphoses hint at the infinite
complexity of the organ of sight itself with its multiple
ties to physiological and psychological networks which may
cause it to see unclearly, to see doubly, to see what is not
"really" there or even to see nothing at all. The reader's
eye-~and behind it, the reader'srnind--is no simple video
recorder, but a subtly co-ordinated system of ideals,
expectations and perceptual data with feedback from dozens
of different points. Thus, Lewis' assault on the reader's
expectations raises important questions about the precon-
ditions of perception itself and, more precisely, the act of
reading. In order to consider this particular aspect of
Lewis' vision a bit more thoroughly, let us turn for a

moment to the author's vehicle for The Monk, the novel.

45

Novel and Novelty in Vision

Lewis' choice of the novel as the vehicle for his
multiple vision underlines the integral connection between
the rise of the novel as a literary form and the evolution
of a specifically Gothic Heisensohsnnng. Though Lewis later
wrote for the stage, and The Monk has frequently been com-
pared to contemporary drama, his preference for the novel
format in this instance suggests some of the limitations Of
other, more traditional, modes of literary expression. In
order to further explore this decision, it will be useful to
turn briefly to another Gothic writer who wrote for the
stage but whose most significant achievement (insofar as the
later develOpment of the Gothic genre is concerned) was his
only novel.

Horace Walpolefls The Cassie of Cinsnfo_(1764) is gen-
erally designated as the first Gothic novel. Certainly Wal-
pole's undertaking does include many of the characteristic
themes, scenes, episodes and characters which were so
conspicuous in later Gothic fiction. Hence Cinsnio and the
play In: Mlfiifiriflnfi Moths: (1768) provide a useful compari-
son of Walpole's perception of the differences between a
Gothic novel and a Gothic drama; this contrast may also shed
some light on a similar choice made by Lewis.

Perhaps the most Obvious discrepancy between Walpole's
play and novel is in the unity of the material. The entire
play revolves around thelnonumental Phaedra-like Countess

whose "secret sin" is the Obsession of both characters and

46

readers. In plot and rhetoric, the play hearkens back to
ancient and early-eighteenth-century versions of the
Phaedra-and-Hippolytus story and ultimately reveals the
Mother's sin as incest with her son. The plot is further
complicated when the son unknowingly falls in love with the
offspring Of this illicit union. Like the hierophantic
figures in ancient drama, the Countess does almost nothing
in the play except voice her fears and guilt. Yet she
constantly informs every layer of the five-act drama with
her powerful presence--her excessive grief, her paradigmatic
virtue and her monstrous guilt-whether she is onstage or
offstage. The drama, then, focuses intensely and unrelent-
ingly on this horrifying paradox of a virtuous-maiden-in-
distress who is persecuted by her own past self and her
innocent children.

When we turn to Cinsnio, however, we see a rather
different arrangement of similar material. Most notably, a
central, focusing character seems to be missing. Although
there are a number of significant actors and actresses, none
matches in intensity and development the ubiquitous
Countess. While the motif of Mysienions Moihen seems to be
that it is impossible to escape the repercussionscnfone's
past evil deeds, in Ctnsnjzo it is the "sins of the fathers"
that are visited on the children of later generations. Of
course, the Countess' children are also afflicted by her
guilt, but the emphasis.in the play is on the effect their
affliction has on the Countess. Hence, the novel emphasizes

the lack of individual control over fate and circumstances

47
while the play seems much more intent on developing circum-
stances Out of character.

Also in Qinsnio there is a great deal more emphasis on
the supernatural. The impulse to mix literary modes ordi-
narily associated with two different forms Of literature,
i.e” the novel of social mores and the romance or mythic
tale seems, like other Gothic techniques, to have originated
with Walpole's Qinsnio. In his second edition, Walpole men-
tions that he intended a "blend" of these modes,10 but as
Kiely explains,

Though Walpole's stated aim was to
create a "blend," he obviously had it
particularly in mind to correct an im-
balance by letting fanciful and myster-
ious deeds flow abundantly over the
familiar ground cultivoted by the novel-
ists of "common lIfeJ'

Walpole's blend seems to us more like a mixture of oil
and water, but it, too, can trace its origin to the drama to
a certain extent. Ii.is interesting and revealing to note
that drama in the eighteenth century also offered an odd
sort Of balancing mechanism which would be put to use fre-
quently in Gothic novels in a much more pervasive way.
Walpole's own epilogue to his obviously serious, classical
tragedy The Myssenions Moshe; is a good example of this
technique at work. In this case the author shifts abruptly
from the serious mood of the play to a burlesque treatment
of the epilogue. A few lines will demonstrate this turn-

about:

48
So xeny guilty and so xeny good,
An angel, with such errant flesh and blood!
Such sinning, praying, preaching--I'll be1§ist,
If I don't think she was a Methodist!

Although these lines do accurately describe and sum up
the character Of the Countess, their comic style functions
almost as a parody of the high-seriousness of the preceding
drama and hints at an inherent sympathy between high tragic
and low comic modes of expression. They also imply a whim-
sical self-consciousness on the part of the playwright who
uses this method to remind his reader or viewers that this
is, after all, a play. Comic plays could also have tragic
epilogues. Hence, when Walpole mixed two contrasting modes
in his novel and later Gothic novelists followed suit, they
were simply amplifying a tendency already present in contem-
porary drama but not really integrated with its format.
Thus, the Gothic novel owes an Obvious debt to drama, but
offers a much more experimental and tentative spectrum of
literary forms of consciousness than its progenitor.

The primary differences between the Gothic novel and
drama as they developed in the late eighteenth century,
then, seem to stem from the more pronounced use Of the
intrusion of contrasting literary modes, including mythic
and supernatural materials, and the breakdown Of individual
personality as the focal point for dramatic action. As a
matter of fact, the only apparent constant in the shifting
scenes Of Cinsnio seems to be the castle itself. Thus as
the titles of the respective works suggest, the mother

unifies and binds together the drama while the castle

49

provides the unifying force in the novel. The effect of
this shift is to subjugate characters to their surroundings.
Thus, characters in Gothic novels tend to merge with their
surroundings as pawns of greater structural forces that
shape their lives, whereas characters in drama, whether
Gothic or classical, seem much more in control of their
circumstances.

Because the novel was a relative literary upstart at
the time Lewis wrote, it clearly was receptive to more in-
novative treatment and structuring than a form so highly
dependent upon tradition as the drama. The novelist was
largely unencumbered by formal expectations from the reader
although, of course, readers certainly expected certain con-
ventions in characterization, mode and style to be carried
over from other forms. At any rate, the reader of the novel
was less likely to expect it to conform in every respect to
traditional rules. In fact, the experimental frame in which
Lewis wrote had already had precedents in words like This:
sham Chaney, epistolary novels like those of Richardson and
Smollett's,flnmohny Ciinken and, of course, Walpole's merging
modes. The stage was set for a novel about experiencing a
novel--a multi-dimensional exploration of human conscious-
ness itself that would move the whole problem outside its
usual confines to encompass the audience as well as the

participants in the drama.

50
Sympathetic Structure: Architectural Anatomy in The HOOK

Both as literal fact and as metaphor, structure is a
crucial conception in The Monk. As I have already noted,
Gothic novels typically revolve around architecture more
than characters. Even though Lewis' novel noes focus on the
character of Ambrosio, all the diverse strains of the narra-
tive seem to be eventually funneled into the embracing reli-
gious complex. The monastery, with itsxnirror-image, the
convent, joined by the garden and crypt in which the major
transformations of life occur--sexual passion, birth, death,
and decay--broods over the novel at every critical juncture.
Like the overarching systems that keep lovers apart, the
parental imagos of convent and monastery tower over the
individual's conscious intentions, re-forming them in their
own image.

Just as the structure of the religious complex is
omnipresent, so is the structure of Lewis' narrative. Apart
from the usual movements in the text--backward and forward
into time and space, up into the daylight of the cathedral
or down into the darkness of the vault, there is a third
dimension which might be characterized as "in" or "out"
relative to the reader. The three-dimensional aspect Of the
novel (which I will elaborate on in a later passage) is
further underscored by the so—called "boxed" structure of
its narratives. Raymond's long interpolated narrative, for
example, harbors within it Marguerite's narrative of her

captivity in the robber”s hideout and the Wandering Jew's

51

tale of the Bleeding Nun. In addition, there are Mother St.
Ursula's narrative and Agnes' account of her sufferings in
the vault as well as other, shorter tales within the main
body of the narrator's account of the events. Each of these
internal narratives is couched in causal terms which attempt
to explain--or justify-~how a current state of affairs came
to be by invoking past events. Thus, in a sense, what is
"inside" each box is its cause or parent. The ambiguous
pattern of inter-relationships between different times and
places--both in the near and distant past and in the future
via prophecy--has much the same blurring and confusing
effect on familial relationships of events in the novel as
does the incest motif which constitutes such a significant
aspect of the plot.

Temporal and spatial structure Often merge when the
repetitive pattern of human events in history is invoked in
scenes like the temptation of Ambrosio (and Agnes)ix1the
garden or the tendency of children to repeat the sins of
their parents (Antonia, for example, like her mother, falls
in love with a nobleman and at the same time is attracted to
Ambrosio because, it seems likely, he resembles her father).
Hence, human linear history (the history of the human spe-
cies) converges with individual history much as they would
later converge in twentieth-century psychological theory.

The preliminaries Of Lewis' novel provide another int-
eresting introduction to its structural complexity. These
preliminaries include: after the title a pair of lines from

Horace, then a set Of verses in "Imitation of Horace," next

52
a Table Of Poetry, then an Advertisement, and, finally, at
the head of the first chapter, a set of lines from Shake-
speare's Measnne for Measnne. Each chapter in the novel is
also preceded by a verse. It will be interesting, I think,
to look for a moment at the way in which these outer court-
yards Of the text reflect the experience within its inner
sanctum. The title itself has two parts: The Monk L A
Bomanoe. Moreover, the quote beneath the title is also
divided in two, a quotation in Latin from Horace and be-
neath it a translation into English as follows:
Dreams, magic terrors, spells of mighty power,
Witches, and ghosts who rove at midnight hour.

The doubling via translation on the title page is made much
more explicit, however, in the next "Imitation of Horace."
It should first of all be kept in mind that the quote on the
title page, which seems to conjure up a tragic, frightening
tale is from Horace and the verses are in imitation of the
same poet. These verses, however, like the prologues and
epilogues of plays which I have mentioned, take an entirely
different tack. In a self-consciously comic style they hint
at the possible fate of the book itself:

Soon as your novelty is cfler,

And you are young and new no more,

In some dark dirty corner thrown,

Mouldy with damps, with cobwebs strown,

Your leaves shall be the Book-worm's prey
These humorous lines do, of course, reflect closely the

fates of Antonia and Agnes as well as Agnes' newborn child.

53

DO they also draw an implicit connection between the fate of
the thoughtless reader and that of Ambrosio and the Prioress
who fail to see how closely they themselves are bound up in
the destinies of their victims? Or do these lines simply
parody the gullibility of those who believe in the super-
natural and therefore would be inclined to buy Gothic no-
vels? As we shall see, something of both attitudes is
included.

From the title page on, Lewis' novel deliberately iden-
tifies itself with literary tradition. Not only does he
specifically set his novel within the genre of "romance" but
he invokes Horace, a prominent figure in ancient literature,
to suggest the historical consciousness of his work.
Furthermore after his initial references to Horace, he in-
cludes information in his Advertisement about the other
sources of the material in his novel. Moreover, he credits
the authors of each of the quotes at the heads of his chap-
ters. Inzaddition, he gives a Table of Poetry which calls
attention to the poems interpolated into the text, evidently
so the reader may refer to them later. Hence, in his preli-
minaries Lewis emphasizes both the historicity of his text
and its firm foundation in literary tradition, presumably in
order to counter any claims that its origins are less than
legitimate. But the question of legitimacy can be a tricky

one in The Monk and appearances are invariably deceptive.

54
Duplicity and Duplication in The Monk

The treatment of twins or mirror-images in literature
always involves a paradoxical conflict like the contradic-
tion between ourselves and our mirror-selves or that between
imitation and what is imitated. Thus, one of the most
Obvious ways for a writer to deal with twins has been to
create two very different individuals who are externally
similar enough to be mistaken for one another. This is a
standard device in comedy; Lewis himself wrote a farce along
these lines performed at Drury Lane in 1799, "on the subject
of two twin brothers, one a rake—hell and the other a broad-
brimmed Quaker, who are constantly mistaken for one
another."13 The play was entitled The Thins or Is Lt Me on
His Bhoihenl, a title reflecting both Lewis' interest in the
dramatic potential of the twinning motif and his particular
concern with the notion of imposture. Unfortunately, the
play does not survive, so we can only guess at how Lewis
might have dealt with a topic very similar to the one James
Hogg would later develop into a masterpiece of mirroring.

Lewis' involvement with the drama certainly qualified
him to deal with imposture and trickery whether at the level
of the relationships between text and audience or within the
action of the drama itself. Let us consider for a moment,
then, some of the manifestations of deceit and imposture in
this amazingly slippery novel.

The tradition of stage-deception is evoked at the be-

ginning of the first chapter by a quotation from

55

Shakespeare's Measure for. Measure:

--Lord Angelo is precise;

Stands at a guard with envy; Scarce confesses

That his blood flows, or that his appetite

Is more to bread than stone. (p. 7)
The scene that follows this quotation sets the stage appro-
priately for this drama of deceit. At the outset we see an
enormous gathering of evidently-pious people who have come
to hear a sermon in Madrid's principal cathedral. But are
they really pious? The narrator at once assures us:

The audience now assembled in the Capu-

chin Church was collected by various

causes, but all of them were foreign to

the ostensible motive. The Women came

to show themselves, the Men to see the

‘Women: Some were attracted by curiosity

to hear an Orator so celebrated; Some

came because they had no better means of

employing their time till the play be-

gan; Some from being assured that it

would be impossible to find places in

the Church; and the one half of Madrid

was brought thither by expecting to meet

the other half. (p.'7)
It is at once apparent--at least to the narrator--that
almost no one in the audience has come to the Capuchin
Church for the "right" reasons; they are all imposters and
actors using the holy works for their convenience and
pleasure, "Boys suspended themselves upon the wings of Cher-
ubims; St. Francis and St. Mark bore each a spectator on his
shoulders; and St. Agatha found herself under the necessity
of carrying double" (p. 8). The audience, who seem con-

cerned only with fulfilling social expectations and con-

firming their favorable Opinions of themselves rather than

56

becoming enlightened by the sermon also suggest the idle and
curious readers who might pick up Lewis' novel for no other
reason than that others were reading itcn'not reading it.
Is there a suggestion, too, that the narrator's "sermon",
like Ambrosio's, may have an underlying duplicity? Just as
Lord Angelo's conduct is "too righteous," so is the behavior
of Ambrosio and his audience misleading and also that Of all
actors playing roles and all audiences watching them--inclu-
ding the storyteller and his audience. We see at the out-
set, then, that no one is exempt from imposture and role-
playing whether character, narrator, writer or reader; each
person is something other than what he/she appears to be
although they are not necessarily aware of it yet.

Almost everywhere in the novel, "like is an ill markJ'
Lewis begins with a Monk who seems to be superhumanly devout
and--like the narrator--above the petty pretenses of ordi-
nary people. Later the Monk (and perhaps the narrator as
well) seems merely to be puffed up with pride in his own
paradigmatic humility. Next the reader meets an apparently-
pious nun, Agnes, using a saint's statue for another illegi-
timate purpose: to hide a note to a young nobleman by whom
she is pregnant. Ultimately, of course, she is shown as
justified in her actions due to another tragic series of
role-confusions. Early in the novel the reader also en-
counters a boy, Rosario, who turns out to be a girl, Ma-
tilda, who is also a Madonna in a painting admired by Ambro-
sio, again, for the wrong reasons. Finally Matilda is

revealed to be "really" a demon sent from hell to tempt the

57
Monk. Raymond, in his interpolated narrative, tells of an
amiable woodcutter with a vixenish wife who later is re-
vealed1to be a‘vicious murderer with a compassionate wife
who helps save Raymond's life.

Acting, too, has its dangers, whether it is the danger
of acting overly righteous as in the case of Ambrosio and
the Prioress or the danger of evoking the supernatural by
presumption-—the crime of Agnes and Raymond as well as the
Monk. In Lewis' novel heal demons tend to respond to imper-
sonations of them. Even the innocent are not exempt from
these dangers. Virginia de Villa-France's impersonation of
St. Clare in the procession nearly leads to her death at the
hands of the enragedlnob. Thus, when Antonia in reciting
her prayer intones:

Yet may not my unconscious breast

Harbor some guilt to me unknown?

Some wish impure, which unreprest

You blush to see, and I to own?

(p. 254)
we are invited to see, even in this innocent-in-distress, a
poseur. Of course, Antonia noes harbor a secret sexual
longing for her own brother, even if she is innocent in
conscious terms. We cannot even be sure that the dead are
"really" dead: zombie-like they come back to haunt us.
Thus Raymond, the Bleeding Nun, Donna Rudolpha, Agnes, Anto-
nia and Ambrosio all fall into death-like sleeps at some
time in the novel. Duplicity, then, is everywhere in The

.Monk and every appearance is undercut by the subject's or

viewer's presumption or assumption. Ultimately, the reader

58

may even be confused about who is supposed to receive
his/her sympathy and who are the villains Of the piece. The
inordinate complexity of this novel with its counter-poised
trios of male and female characters seems indeed to set the
reader against him/herself, engendering a disturbing species
of double-mindedness in audience as well as in the partici-
pants of the drama.

Duplicity in literature--and particularly in the lit-
erature cfi‘ the stage--is traditionally rooted ix: two
seemingly contrary attitudes toward art: on the one hand
duplicity implies the shallow mimicry of artists who depict
only shadows of shadows, but know no more than a parrot what
they are imitating; on the other hand, it evokes the artists'
communion with a higher or inner reality which cannot be
expressed at all in ordinary mundane material terms, but can
only be approximated by art. Plato held the former view;
the Neo-Platonists tended toward the latter. Both atti-
tudes, however, seem to arise from the equivocal nature of
imitation itself--at once tawdry and sublime. This duality
is particularly evident in that art most imitative Of human
social interaction: theatre. Shakespeare, an extremely
important influence on Lewis and other Gothic and Romantic
writers, expertly summoned up the ambiguities of stage and
art when, for example, he produced boy-actors taking the
parts of girls masquerading as boys. Such confusing
shifts of basic identity tend to appreciably grey the line
between life and imitation, raising questions about the

nature of the relationship between imitation and reality:

59
where does the stage-act end and "real life" begin? When we
hold up a mirror to a mirror do we have a greater or lesser
understanding of who we are and who is in the mirror?

Like Shakespeare, Lewis was particularly sensitive to
this ambiguous interplay between actors and roles, life on
stage and the stage of life. Hence, imposture and even the
imposture of imposture were themes especially suited to
Lewis' stage-conscious style. As Kiely remarks, "The world
of The Monk;is theatrical, a world of performers and spec-
tators, because every word and act is a work of art, and
every work of art a pretense."” But for Lewis, at least,
we might argue conversely that every pretense is also a work
of art.

Is art for Lewis, then, merely a cheap sleight-of-hand
or is it a true approximation to an exalted ideal? While
Kiely seems to favor the former interpretation, "No one
could have been more conscious than Lewis of the trivial and
charade-like quality of his art,"15 it is not altogether
evident in the text itself that Lewis preferred one notion
over the other. As we shall see in considering the narra-
tor's role, it is always difficult to determine exactly what
Lewis himself felt about the ultimate value of the work he
was creating and we may finally have to say that whichever
side he seems rhetorically to favor at any giventnoment is
at the selfsame time under keen and cynical scrutiny by an
Opposing eye. Hence, as I have mentioned in discussing
Lewis' choice of the novel as the vehicle for his double

vision, Lewis' work presents the infinite regress of someone

60
looking at himself looking at himself etc. etc. so that
every new perspective is both an inner and an outer one. If
the regress is not infinite, there is certainly a suggestion
that it may be circular and self-reflexive.

The ghostly doubles in The Monk run the gamut from
comic to tragic, from ape to angel, and we can never be
quite sure whether these spectral beings, drawings,
paintings, statues, poems-within-stories, stories-within-
stories, statues-imitating-saints and people-imitating-
saints are approaching the most sublime or the most ridicu-
lous forms of their existence--or both at once. Satan,
after all, is both the burlesque'"ape of God" and a mighty
archangel fallen from glory: a sexual clown and a tragic
hero. In fact "worldly" and "other-worldly" seem much more
closely connected than we ordinarily imagine. Whether im-
posture is a diabolical joke on humanity or our closest
approximation to God, it does seem to be the paradoxical
foundation of Lewis' treatment of character, incident,
structure and narration in The Monk. In fact, it pervades
every dark corner of the novel with its slippery surprises,
opening trap-doors in the most solid-seeming substance and
erecting inpenetrable walls out of cob-webs and mist to
interupt the straightforward progression of reader and

character alike.

61
The Marriage of Myth and Mimesis

Lewis' novel is introduced by a gentlemanly narrator
who informs us in a smug, confidential tone more or less
along these lines: "Look here, I'll show you what the
world's about; I've been around, you know." This parental
pose pervades the narrative treatment of the first passage
as we have seen above, coloring it with the sort of self-
confident playfulness of a virtuoso who knows his art. The
narrator is reminiscent, too, of the witty guide in Tom
Tones who safely sees the reader through to Tom's comic
triumph. The narrator seems clever, cynical and altogether
in control of his material; the reader feels safe because
the story is so conspicuously and consciously manipulated by
the maestro. Although the narrator is cynical, his comic
tone and metaphors--together with his pretense of thorough-
going knowledge of the foibles of human beings--suggest that
comic justice will eventually prevail in this novel as in
others of its apparent ilk. Like the narrator of Tnisinam
Shandy, however, this narrator's smug self-confidence tends
to alert the reader to some peculiarities and possible
prejudices—-even something a bit pompous--in the guide's
personality. Could the narrator himself be as naive as
Ambrosio about the mystery in which he enacts a part?

Lewis, like Walpole, wed the mythic realm with the
world of social reality, though generally with more credibi-
lity than his predecessor was able to attain. As we have

already seen, Lewis' preoccupation with inversions,

62

metamorphoses and duplicities of every sort predicated a
shifting point of view for the structure of the novel it-
self. Thus, when the initial theatrical scene closes, a
darker mood settles on the drama. The farce of imposters
being imposed upon by an imposter shifts to the dark, aban-
doned cathedral "after the show." Lorenzo» Inelancholy over
the loss of his sister, Agnes, to the convent and the pre-
sumed obstacles to a union with Antonia, has a premonitory
dream. In this dream, he is about to marry Antonia when a
monster intervenes "on [whose] forehead was written in legi-
ble characters--'Pride! Lust! Inhumanity!"‘(pn 28). This
monster attempts to drag Antonia into a "Gulph," but she
eludes his grasp and ascends toward heaven, assuring Lorenzo
that they shall "meet aboveJ' The abrupt movement from a
narrator who smugly reveals the secret foibles of the assem-
bled audiencetuaa narrator who unflinchingly relates the
incredible events of an oracular dream straight out of
Romantic tradition provides a sharp contrast with the pre-
vious events and sets the stage for a number of similar
juxtapositions throughout the novel. The effect of the
dream is in itself dual. On one hand, we could say that its
presentation is as mimetic as the previous scene—-it is,
after all,:apossible.oneam empirically described. On the
other hand, it seems inconsistent that a narrator who had so
much to say about the ridiculous behavior of people would
have nothing at all to say about an evidently absurd dream.

In addition, this dream stirs a separate set of mythic

or romantic expectations in the reader based upon the

63

conventions of romance. Unlike the extraverted and humorous
dialogues of the first passage, the solitary internal drama
of this scene evokes a tragic mood,

The calm of the hour and the solitude of

the place contributed to nourish Loren-

zo's disposition to melancholy. He

threw himself upon a seat which stood

near him, and abandoned himself to the

delusions of his fancy. (p. 27)

The narrator quickly recovers his worldly, witty voice,
however, when the now-awakened Lorenzo displays a little
duplicity of his own as he watches the strange cavalier, "'I
will go,' said Lorenzo. And Lorenzo stayed, where He was,"
(p. 29). This decision leads to Lorenzo's discovery that
Raymond has left a note for Agnes, which in turn leads to
the long interpolated narrative in which Raymond justifies
his actions to Lorenzo.

But before the narrator allows the reader to eavesdrop
on Raymond's elaborate (and sometimes incredible) excuses,
he relates another significant episode. This takes place
outside Antonia's lodging as she returns home. A recog-
nizably Romantic figure--a Gypsy or Prophetess-—appears,
whirling so madly that Antonia wonders whether the woman is
insane. The chieromancer has all the conventional attri-
butes of a figure from the "other" world; in fact, her
attributes re-appear in descriptions of similar figures in
other parts of the novel: "eyes fiery and strange," exotic
"deep olive" complexion and "a long black Rod, with which

She at intervals traced a variety of singular figures on the

64

ground" (p. 34). This awe-inspiring woman immediately sug-
gests the idea of the crossing of literary modes as well as
the cross motif associated in most religions with the meet-
ing of spiritual and substantial realms by the opening lines
of her solicitation:

Come, cross my hand! My art surpasses

All that did ever Mortal know (p. 35)
Like Lorenzo's dream--and indeed like the author himself--
this being from the mythic realm is in direct contact with
future events-~she knows how the story will "turn out:"

For 'tis to me the power is given

Unclosed the book of Fate to see;
To read the fixed resolves of heaven,
And dive into futurity. (p. 35)

In her prophetic abilities, the Gypsy seems to exist outside
ordinary temporal limitations, reminding us of Hermes' fe-
male counterpart, thelnulti-hued messenger goddess, Iris,
wlm>also easily moved between evidently-disparate realms.
In this the Gypsy also resembles the Wandering Jew in Ray-
mond's narrative. He, too, transcends mundane time by his
familiarity with the actual past of the Christian world.
Matilda shares this clairvoyant function in her ability to
overcome the normal limitations of space by means of an
invocation pronounced over her magic mirror:

On pronouncing certain words, the Person

appears in [the mirror] on whom the Ob-

server's thoughts are bent; thus, though

T was exiled from soon sight, you, Am-

brosio, were ever present to mine. (p.
270)

65

Thus, these three Romantic beings with their abilities to
ignore the usual limitations of humankind put the characters
toward whom their efforts are directed in touch with a wider
mythic reality from which they themselves seem to have been
transplanted. Like the author and the narrator, they seem
to know a great deal more about both the causes and outcome
of the tale than the mundane characters.

The Gypsy's sensitivity to separate modes of being is
evident in her contrasting responses to Leonella's and Anto-
nia's palms. Like the other quasi-mythic figures in the
novel, she draws her conclusion from a direct knowledge of
the "givens" (perhaps we might even say the "heredity") of
the person she addresses. Thus, the Gypsy advises Leonella
(who has already condemned the seer, "Out upon such Vermin!
If I were King Of Spain, every one of them should be burnt
alive" [p. 36]) to give up her futile Romantic yearnings.
This is very much in keeping with Leonella's comic role as a
foolish old woman. But when the prophetess turns to Anto-
nia, it is with "an expression of pity and astonishment"
that--both in language and form--moves the reader once more
into the tragic realm of the young girl's fate. Although
both prophecies are recited in verse, they are extremely
different in their effect on the reader, reminding us of
the Romantic Horace posed against the comic Horace in the
author's preliminaries.

Hence, in the first chapter tho prophecies of Antonia's
fate are presented--both of them accurate from the point of

view of the seer. In the same chapter, the reader has

66
already made the acquaintance of a worldly, nO-nonsense
narrator who would not seem to condone such prophecies, yet
relates them. He/she has also met a comic old woman whose
condemnation of the Gypsy tends to make the reader even more
attentive to what she has to say. Already in the opening
chapter, then, Lewis' novel takes on a quaint jig-saw quali-
ty like the Gypsy's dress, "composed of shreds of various-
coloured silks and Linens fantastically arranged, yet not
entirely without taste" (p. 34). As we move deeper into the
novel, the silken strands of myth will become increasingly
tangled with the linens of ordinary existence.
Lewis uses poetry prophetically in several instances in

The Monk and in every example it is associated with a move-
ment into the "other," mirroring world. For example, in the
second chapter when Ambrosio meets Rosario in the hermitage,
they examine an inscription in verse which extols the clois-
tered virtue. This leads to a conversation about the her-
mit's.life and its advantages. Ambrosio rejects the life of
the hermit thus:

'[The hermit] looks round and finds him-

self alone in the universe: the love of

society revives in his bosom and He

pants to return to the world which he

has abandoned. Nature loses all her

charms in his eyes: No one is near him

to point out her beauties, or share in

the admiration of her excellence and

variety. PrOpped upon the fragment of

some Rock, he gazes upon the tumbling

water-fall with a vacant eye. He views

without emotion the glory of the setting
sunJ (p. 54)

The Monk's words here in response to the poetry seem

67
strangely prophetic of his own fate at the end of the novel
where he finds himself alone among the splendors of nature
he cannot appreciate, hurled upon rocks beside running water
and pressed upon by a merciless sun that he cannot see.

In several other places poetry reflects the contrast
between one realm and another by comparing exile and social
being. The most obvious of these is the poem written by
Elvira's husband when he left Spain. It, too, suggests the
fates of Antonia, Ambrosio and even Agnes:

Dreams of the land where all my wishes centre,
Thy scenes, which I am doomed no more to know,
Full oft shall Memory trace, my soul's Tormentor,

And turn each pleasure past to present woe.

(p. 217)
Agnes, for example, describes herself chained in the bowels
of the convent in similar terms:

that She should in one moment become a

Captive, separated from the world for-

ever, weighed down with chains, and re-

duced to support life with the coarsest

aliments, appeared a change so sudden

and incredible that I believed myself

the sport of some frightful vision.(p.

311)
And Ambrosio tells Antonia when she awakens in the tomb,
"Society is for ever lost to you," (p. 382). Thus, the fa-
ther's poem, "The Exile," seems relevant to the fate of both
his children as well as Agnes. Poetry, then, transcends
time to summon up future states of existence far different

from those of the present. Interestingly enough, all these

passages also emphasize the suddenness of the change from

68
one state to its reverse--a transformation aptly echoed by
the abrupt shifts from myth to mimesis already noted in the
structure of the text.

Poetry intrudes into the framework of Lewis' text so
Often that it provides another instance of the doubling of
vision by the obvious mixture of literary forms. Lewis' use
of poetry as a vehicle for "other-worldly" intrusions is by
no means surprising in light of literary tradition and
reader expectation. In Antiquity and the Middle Ages most
tales were told in verse and the poet was often regarded as
a kind of priest who was "in touch" with the deities. Like
Lewis' Gypsy, he/she might even be regarded as a shaman
whose evident madness was engendered by the working of the
deity within. Of course, as Sir Walter Scott and other
collectors amply demonstrated, verse-ballads were still very
much in existence among the lower classes and rural popu-
lation in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
Both the still-standing architectural remnants of Gothic
churches and monasteries and these enduring ballads provided
tangible links with the underlying strata upon which the
modern world had been built. Their continued existence,
moreover, seemed to be proof that the outlet for human
emotions provided by the old ways had not yet ceased to
provide a useful service to humankind. Like the super-
natural figures of the Bleeding Nun or the Wandering Jew,
poems also transcend time and space, surviving long after
their composition albeit in somewhat altered form. In this

sense they are the hereditary Old Laws of literature, which,

69

if literally invoked as rules of the art can lead to stag-
nation and imprisonment; we are reminded of the Old law the
prioress ironically invoked against the modern, non-super-
stitious Agnes:

The law had been long exploded. Alas!

It still existed, and the revengeful

Prioress now determined to revive it.

This law decreed, that the Offender

should be plunged into a private dun-

geon, expressly constituted to hide from

the world for ever the Victim of Cruelty

and tyrannic superstition. (p. 351)
The prioress, because she is a representative of the Old
ways of the past activates the law literally, although, as
we shall see, the modern perspective must address them
metaphorically if it addresses them at all.

Poems, too, can activate those old and seemingly for-
gotten laws. This is especially evident in the case Of
Raymond who "never composed more than six lines in my life:
Those six produced so unlucky an effect, that I am fully
resolved never to compose another" (p. 198). The lines,
though innocent in intent, produced an incantation that

caused the Bleeding Nun to attach herself to the unfortunate

traveller:

In m1 Reins Rhile blood shall 12.9114-
Inmnaami minsi

I am thinsi

Thino.mx wand. Ihnmsnucsooli
(pp.155-6)

The infernal marriage consummated with his long-dead

7O

ancestress by this vow (which the Nun repeats nightly to
him) suggests that the productions of art (no matter how
amateur) have implications that go far beyond the simple
usages people put them to. When statues are used for boost-
ing spectators or hiding notes or aberrant nuns; when
pictures of Madonnas are used for erotic stimulation; when
religious processions are produced to parade a prioress'
pride, the art itself seems to take over and insist upon
bearing its original message. Thus Raymond's verses or
Antonia's "Midnight Hymn," innocent as they may seem, carry
far greater implicationstfluulare immediately apparent to
reader or character. Even the words themselves are decep-
tive in their apparently-utilitarian qualities, for each
image or word engenders a whole set of literal and symbolic
associations with which characters (or readers) may be ill-
equipped to deal.

When Theodore, the Cupid-like compatriot of Raymond
attempts to compose poetry, Raymond responds with a dis-
sertation on writers and writing that seems to come from the
author of the novel and certainly reflects the "Imitation of
Horace." .But whereas in that poem the hook took on the role
of exiled outcast, here the anihon does:

An Author, whether good or bad, or be-
tween both, is an Animal whom every body
is privileged to attack; For though All
are not able to write books, all con-
ceive themselves able to judge them. . .
. In short to enter the lists of litera-
ture is willfully to expose yourself to
the arrows of neglect, ridicule, envy,

and disappointment.. .. But I am con-
scious, that all these sage observations

71

are thrown away upon you. Authorship is

a mania to conquer which no reasons are

sufficiently strong; and you might as

easily persuade me not to love as I per-

suade you not to write. (pp. 198-9)
It is interesting in light of Raymond's use of the word
"mania" for poetic composition that the first poem in the
novel (aside from the preliminaries) was recited and com—
posed by a woman whom Antonia thought was mad and certainly
appeared so. Thus, Lewis seems to make an analogy between
being madly in love and being possessed by the poetic muse.
For Lewis, at least, both mean a sort of uneasy marriage
beset with disapproving relations living and dead. The lit-
erary composition, like the bride-to-be, must be held up for
approval from its ancestors, much as ancient Romans lifted
their brides above their thresholds so that the Lares and
Penates (ancestral spirits) could express their opinion of
the new addition to the family. Reproduction--whether phy-
siological or artistic is a highly dangerous procedure in
The Monk. The marriage of contraries implied by each at-
tempt at image-multiplication in the material or ideal
sphere unleases extremely potent forces on every side. For
example, when Raymond meets his future bride's guardian for
the first time and is thus prepared for his initiation into
the role of bridegroom, he immediately becomes aware that he
is in great danger. The vehicle by means of which he is
made aware of his danger is significant, too: the bloody
sheets on his bed. Now those bloody sheets are supposed to

show Raymond that a former visitor to the cottage was

72
sacrificed, but they also hint at the well-known traditional
ritual.of hanging,out the bloody bridal sheets the morning
after a marriage to give proof to the community of a bride's
virginity. Consummation of marriage thus seems to be
equated with murder. This connection is made even more
explicitly when the Bleeding Nun, who murdered hen mate in
their bed, attaches herself to Raymond after a series of
movements in the direction of image-making: Agnes' repro-
duction of herself and the nun in art and then her physical
imitation of the nun, Raymond's production of a poem to
Agnes, and the couple's declaration of love for each other.
Raymond, because he is related to the Bleeding Nun, is
forced to comply with her wishes in order to be freed from
her. Even though the Bleeding Nun appears to be nothing
more than a foolish old Romance convention, then, (much like
the other supernatural figures and ballad imitations in the
novel) she must receive proper tribute before she can be
laid to rest permanently. This tribute includes both the
actions Raymond performs according to the information given
him by the Wandering Jew, and also his re-telling of the
tale to Lorenzo (and the reader). Thus, Raymond acknow-
ledges his literary debt and passes the tradition on much as
Lewis in his Advertisement acknowledges his debt to The
Channian and to German tradition. Evidently, literaturefis
debt to its fathers and ancestors cannot be ignored, for
despite the archaic absurdity of their appearances, Old
literary materials convey vital information about the rel-

ationships between mythic and social realities. Lorenzo, as

73

we shall see below, is the only character in The Monk who
consistently attempts to reconcile these separate spheres by
a careful critical study. But even he must eventually
relinquish his hold on the Romance heroine, Antonia, to
marry the more suitable Virginia de Villa—France. Union
with the other world-—the union of opposites--is the obvious
source of fertility and future generations both for ordinary
human beings and for artists. But this union is so dan-
gerous and beset with so many Obstacles that exile the
prospective bridegroom or bride from the very company he/she
craves most that, like Ambrosio, one may easily die Of
thirst only inches from a lifegiving stream.

Commerce between different worlds--or opposite sides of
the mirror--takes place through archetypally significant
means. One of the most relevant figures in The Monk who
facilitates communication between two opposing realms is
Theodore. This boy enacts the part of Cupid on several
occasions by helping Raymond "get through to" the inac—
cessible Agnes. Theodore's trickster-like behavior allows
him to rescue Raymond and Donna Rudolpha from the robbers'
house, in essence making it possible for Raymond to meet
Agnes in the first place. Like the narrator and Matilda,
Theodore is in contact with (or knows how to get in contact
with) nearly everyone in the novel. He is the means by
which Raymond is able to meet the Wandering Jew; he also
lets down a basket in order to obtain a message from Agnes
while she is a prisoner of Donna Rudolpha. Finally, Theo-

dore disguises himself as a beggar and sings a Romantic

74

ballad to insinuate himself into the good graces of the nuns
in the convent. Though his attempt to locate Agnes by means
of singing a ballad whose lines would be answered by her
fails, the answer to his question nonetheless does arrive:
Mother St. Ursula presents him with a basket lined with
pictures from the legend of St. Genevieve under which is
concealed a cryptic message providing arneans of reaching
Agnes. Agnes, too, locked in her dungeon, longs for the
arrival of hen basket of provisions, the only tangible sign
that she has not been utterly abandoned by the world of
social interaction.

Like a number of other artifacts in the novel, the
basket, woven of several different criss-crossing strands,
represents a continuum from antiquity (basket-weaving is
undoubtedly one of the most ancient of human arts) veneered
with superstition, but nonetheless reaching into the modern
world with a critical message "neither folded nor sealed"
(p. 294). As St. Ursula apprises Theodore, "Though its
value seems insignificant,iJ;has many hidden virtues" (p.
292). In this, the basket resembles other religious repre-
sentations in the novel, including the statue of St. Francis
which conceals Raymond's note, the statue of St. Clare that
guards the passage to Agnes' dungeon and the portrait of the
Madonna in Ambrosiohs cell which hides eroticism under the
veneer of religion. It appears that within the seemingly-
archaic, out-grown forms of human expression--Old religion,
ballads, ancient artwork--there is crucial data about the

workings of human nature. Moreover, this core truth can

75

only be extracted from its thick overlay of superstition by
careful attention to--and respect for--the medium by which
it is transmitted. If we expect to use art for our own
purposes, disregarding this message from the past, we are
likely to summon up an unwelcome reminder of our pre-
sumptuousness like the Bleeding Nun. If we are careful,
like Theodore, to accept the premises of the other world and
abide by their mythic laws while we are there, we may be
able to retrieve the useful elements without being enslaved
by the dangerous ones.

The Hermetic act of fusing two realms which seem by
definition to betnutually exclusive is a mystery symboli-
cally expressed in terms of reproduction: the union of male
and female, the welding of past and present literary forms
or even the juncture of time and eternity. William Blake
expressed this paradoxical union in similarly erotic terms,
"Eternity is in love with the productions of time."16 And
in The Monk at least it certainly does seem that the figures
from "the other side" are constantly interested in the
goings-on in the mundane world.

The "mixed" character of the conjunction of opposites
appears unavoidable: in order to express the sudden epi-
phany of mirror-image alongside subject, the text itself
must make jolting leaps to bridge the gap between realms
ordinarily mutually exclusive. Raymond's criticism of Theo-
dore's "mixed metaphors" thus addresses a problem much more

central to the novel than might at first be evident:

76

For instance, you make a terrible confu-

sion of metaphors; You are too apt to

make the strength of your lines consist

more in the words than sense; Some Of

the verses only seem introduced in order

to rhyme with others; and most of the

best ideas are borrowed from other

Poets, though possibly you are uncon-

scious of the theft yourself. (pp. 199-

200)
Certainly Raymond's comment fOcuses on several crucial di-
mensions of the relationships between poets and their
material. More to the point, though, it Offers a critique
of the novel itself (which undoubtedly does have many of
these characteristics), but at the same time it hints at
another, paradoxical aspect of that critique: Raymond can
scarcely be called a poet; his own relationships with the
"other" world have been quite disastrous. Theodore, whom he
criticizes, however, consistently manages to move success-
fully from one realm to the other. Even his poem "Love and
Age"--the subject of Raymond's criticism---evokes Theodore's
exceptional skill in uniting contraries. Does the author,
then, identify with Theodore's erotic and poetic acumen in
Opposition to the sage advice of Raymond with his rather
conventional critique? Or does Lewis offer this passage as
an examination Of his own shortcomings--the central problems
of his text? As usual, it is by no means clear where he
actually stands» Hence, a further investigation into the

complex interactions of narrator, author and reader may be

useful to shed light on these questions.

77
Mirror Images:

Literary Experiments in Telling and Re-Telling

In The Monk, every sacred precinct seems to be pene-
trated by Lewis' Hermetic technique: the monastery becomes
the scene of sexual passion, the convent garden is the locus
of conception, soldiers penetrate the nunnery; even the
cells of the Inquisition are not inviolable. Naturally
enough, other traditionally secure boundaries are also
marked for violation by Lewis' authorial insights. One of
these is the "appropriate" distance between text and reader
or storyteller and listener. As critics have pointed out,
Lewis' narrator seems never to be quite sure where he wants
to stand and, consequently, he (or the author) seems at
times to be looking critically over his own shoulder as he
writes, observing with Obvious pleasure or painful grimace
his own involvement in the process from which he supposedly
remains aloof. The effect of this intensely self-conscious
style is to shake the reader's usual security in the forms
and conventions that are evoked. Hence, for example, the
narrator applauds Elvira's decision to censor Antonia's
Bible by removing or altering the indecent material thus:

Many of the narratives can only tend to
excite ideas the worst calculated for a
female breast: Every thing is called
plainly and roundly by its name; and the
annals of a Brothel would scarcely fur-
nish a greater choice of indecent ex-
pressions. Yet this is the Book, which
young Women are recommended to study;

which is put into the hands of Children,
able to comprehend little more than

78
those passages of which they had better
remain ignorant; and which but too fre-
quently inculcates the first rudiments
of vice, and gives the first alarm to
the still sleeping passions. (p. 259)

We are not terribly surprised at this gesture until we
later realize that the narrator blames Elvira's failure to
be more straightforward about the Monk's designs as a cause
for her and her daughter's destruction: "Elvira had not
sufficiently explained herself upon the nature of his de-
signs, to make a Girl so ignorant of the World as her Daugh-
ter, aware how dangerous was his acquaintance"(¢n 326-7).
If Elvira's prudishness was at fault, then what are we to
think of the narrator's evident applause for it? Moreover,
at the beginning of the novel, the narrator does much the
same as Elvira for his readers when he benignly intrudes
upon Leonella's attempt to enlighten Antonia on the differ-
ences between male and female anatomy:

'I should like to see you give people to
understand, that you know that a Man has
no breasts, and no hips, and no . . . '
Luckily for Antonia's ignorance which
her Aunt's lecture would soon have dis-

pelled, an universal murmur through the
Church announced the Preacher's arrival.

(p. 18)
Clearly the author does his own bit of titillating Bowd-
lerizing here, teasing the reader to fill in the ellipses,
but modestly omitting any indecencies Of language or be-
havior.
The narrator's rhetorical stance, then, would seem to

favor a species of modesty. Why, if this is the case, has

79

The Monk been historically regarded as an immoral or porno-
graphic novel? Why did Mathias find Lewis' arguments for
Bowdlerizing the Bible so shocking? It is interesting to
note that while the narrator's rhetoric argues against
arousing "sleeping passions," the story of Ambrosio does
include several erotic scenes involving the innocent hero-
ine, Antonia. In the first place, this inclusion would seem
to violate the narrator's own precept of avoiding material
unfit for a naive audience (or perhaps we are to assume that
women and children should not be allowed to peruse the
novel). In the second place, it seems strikingly dissonant
with usual literary conventions to allow the heroine to
appear stark naked (as she does in the looking glass) or
only partially clothed as she does when the Monk finds her
in bed or later when he rapes her. This might be an approp-
riate position for a comic peasant, but it seems out of
character for an elevated, tragic Romance heroine.

The mirror image of Antonia is a particularly revealing
one both literally and metaphorically in that its explicit
description, while certainly modest by modern standards (or
even by Cleland's standards) does intrude uncomfortably into
the usual distance between reader and text. To a certain
extent, the reader who looks over Ambrosio's shoulder into
the magic mirror experiences the same erotic promptings as
the Monk. Thus, the introduction of this explicit descrip-
tion has the effect of violating the reader's determination
to remain unaffected by the events of the story. It deli-

berately upsets the ability of the audience to remain aloof

80

from the Monkfls point-Of-view (as the narrator Often pre-
tends to) by forcing participation in Ambrosio's highly
disturbing experience. Though Antonia undresses to Romantic
elevations that compare her to‘Venus, she still undresses
and in her powerful nakedness strikes a responsive chord in
the reader whether he/she objects strenuously (as many cri-
tics did) or responds positively to the stimulus. The point
is that we cannot remain benignly detached or neutral about
the heroine's embarrassing (or tempting) state.

The vision Of the naked Antonia is not the only in-
stance in which the reader is denied the luxury of unin-
volvement. The narrator toys mischievously with reader
expectations, self-consciousness and mirrored events in
another relevant passage. In Volume III, Chapter 2, Antonia
sees the ghost of her dead mother. Then, Jacintha, who has
not actually seen a ghost, describes the spectre to Ambro-
sio. Finally, the Monk waits in the haunted room fully
expecting a ghost to appear and finds only Flora whose
curiosity has prompted her (like the reader) to view with
interest the outcome of Ambrosio's ghost-watching.

Antonia's ghostly visitor is introduced with all the
causal explanations usual in Lewis' time: Antonia's perusal
of the romantic story of "Alonzo the Brave and Fair Imogine"
was

ill calculated to dispel [her] melan-
choly. She had naturally a strong in-
clination to the marvellous; and her
Nurse who believed firmly in Appari-

tions, had related to her when an Infant
so many horrible adventures of this

81

kind, that all Elvira's attempts had

failed to eradicate their impression

from her Daughter's mind. Antonia still

nourishedaasuperstitious prejudice in

her bosom . .. . (p. 316)
Further, the narrator explains, "the hour and the scene
combined to authorize [her apprehensions,]" Her terror
builds until "Suddenly She fancied, that She heard a low
sigh drawn near her" (p. 317). Up to this point, the analy-
sis could be purely psychological--an empirical description
of the circumstances under which people imagine they see
ghosts. Or it could be comic. We might discover that
Antonia, due to her naiveté, fancied that she saw a ghost.
But the narrative takes a different and unexpected turn
(though certainly not a turn without precedent in the novel)
when it presentSLthe zeal ghost of Elvira, who pronounces
what we will later learn is a perfectly correct death-time
for Antonia.

In this scene, two separate traditions are again juxta-
posed: On the one hand, the comic and relatively comfort-
able situation in which a susceptible and superstitious
person thinks he/she sees an apparition, and, on the other
hand, the romantic tradition (suggested by the ballad Anto-
nia was reading) inxwhich tragedy is introduced by certain
obvious verbal signals:

The wind howled around the House, the
doors rattled in their frames, and the
heavy rain pattered against the windows.
No other sound was heard. The Taper,

now burnt down to the socket, sometimes
flaring upwards shot a gleam of light

82

through the room, then sinking again

seemed upon the point of expiring.(pu

316)
It is, of course, by no means insignificant that Antonia,
prior to seeing Elvira's ghost, has been reading a poem--in
particular, a poem about ghosts. It might seem natural,
though, for the narrator to continue his explanation as the
ghost appears, informing the reader that Antonia ihonghh she
saw a ghost or heard it speak to her. The narrator, how-
ever, as in the case of Lorenzo's dream, does nothing to
dispel the impression that the ghost is real. lklfact, he
describes the ghost's actions with as much seeming objecti-
vity as he relates the actions of the spectators in the
church,

The Figure stopped opposite to the

Clock: It raised its right arm, and

pointed to the hour, at the same time

looking earnestly upon Antonia, who

waited for the conclusion of the scene,

motionless and silent. (p. 318)
The impression we get as readers is that Elvira's ghost is
an actual visitation--a fact sharply out of line with the
narrator's evident support of Elvira's attempts to eradicate
Antonia's superstitious prejudices. We are uncertain as to
how we should respond to this seeming paradox. It is, after
all, not just Antonia who has been reading suggestive
poetry, but her audience as well. Presumably the reader
shares the text's paradoxical double prejudice in favor of

the appearance of an apparition "on cue" and opposed to the

possibility of any such thing happening in a sane, modern

83

world. As readers of romance, we know that this prediction
is true; as modern novel-readers, we hope that there is
another explanation. Some of the complexity of our initial
reactions is further developed by the series of mirrorings
Lewis constructs for the incident which in turn reflect much
of the spectrum of conscious and unconscious reactions that
this traditional literary theme evokes.

Was Elvira wrong after all? Is superstition a useful
way of understanding? The next passage seems to hold super-
stition up for ridicule. This scene develops the comic and
absurd elements of the first one when Jacintha explains to
Ambrosio (much as the narrator has just explained to us)
what happened and why it happened. Although she has not
actualLy seen any ghost, Jacintha's imaginative production
of what the apparition ought to have been like gives us some
further insights into narrative technique. First of all,
her narrative draws tn) the loquacious-comic-peasant genre.
After a long number of digressions, she reveals the reason
for her visit to Ambrosio: Antonia has seen the ghost of
Elvira "'a great tall figure . . . out of its mouth came
clouds of fire, its arms were loaded with heavy chains . . .
and every hair on its head was a Serpent as big as my arm!"'
(p. 324). Like the narrator, Jacintha offers a causal
explanation based on a religious/superstitious thesis rather
than a psychological/empirical one: Elvira suffers because
she ate a chicken wing on Friday. The second narrative,
with its exaggeration and absurdity (at least to modern

ears) nevertheless tends to cast doubts on the former

84
narrator's account, by acting as a parody of it. The ridi-
culousness of Jacintha's tale reflects on the seeming sanity
of the narrator's version of the causes of the incident,
hinting that they are both the products of the innate preju-
dices Of the storyteller.

To complicate matters still further, when Ambrosio
stays in the supposedly-haunted room, another series of e-
vents is set up which echoes the events following Antonia's
reading of "Alonzo the Brave and Fair Imogineu" There is
one significant difference, though: this time the reader
does not get a chance to share the material Ambrosio reads.
The outcome of Ambrosio's ghost-watching episode is also
highly significant for an understanding of narrative tech-
nique. Ambrosio, who finds that he can't concentrate on his
book, "his eyes ran over the characters without his mind
being conscious of their import" seems to imagine a visi-
tation based, perhaps, on his feelings of guilt: "He
fancied that He heard a foot-step" (pp. 336-7). Like Anto-
nia, he notices that a door which has been shut is suddenly
unbolted. He is also terrified by a white figure. But this
time the experiment works itself out in a different way:
Ambrosio's fears are completely ungrounded; the white figure
is Donna Flora who has slipped in to hide in the bed and see
what the Monk is doing. The comic resolution of Ambrosio's
ghost-hunting thus stands in sharp contrast to the tragic
prediction of Antonia's death in the earlier passage. Which
version are we to believe? Clearly Ambrosio's story is more

amenable to a modern frame-of-mind. Yet we know that

85

Ambrosio, too, is superstitious due to his education and
that, moreover, he has seen an actual demon in the convent
vaults with Matilda. Psychologically, he should be even
more prepared than Antonia to see a ghost. But he sees
nothing more than his own foolish fears. In this he seems
to confirm the sane point-of-view of the narrator at the
beginning of this series of related "versions" which accords
with eighteenth-century views Of superstition as the product
of suggestion. Perhaps Jacintha's story is then more con-
sistent with Medieval or Ancient expectations of the way in
which the tale ought to be told. But what about Antonia?
Can we be sure that the vision she saw was "only in her
head?" And, if so, is it suggested that we carry a know-
ledge Of our death-hour within us which only seems to appear
outside? The several versions reverberating off thetnat-
erial nevertheless suggest that something important has
happened here, but we are left with more questions than
answers when we try to analyze them.

There is yet another link in this complicated mesh of
comedy and tragedy interlinked. Lewis added as a note to
his fourth and fifth editions a parody of the "Alonzo the
Brave" poem entitled "Giles Jollop the Grave and the Brown
Sally Green." This comic poem details the amours of a
physician and his low-life betrothal to Sally Green. In
this version of the poem, events similar to those in the
"Alonzo the Brave" tale are related, but with a comic twist
based on traditions of peasant-behavior: "Sally wept, till

she blew her nose sore!" and "Tooth and nail like a wolf

86

fell the bride on the feast" (p. 451n). It is further
remarked by the author that this parody is itself a bor-
rowing from another,

I must observe, that the lines in It-

alics, and the original idea of making a

Brewer of the Baron, and a Physician of

the Knight, are borrowed from another

parody which appeared in the newspapers

under the title of "Pil-Garlic the Brave

and Brown CelestineJ' (p. 450n)
Hence the origins--the parentage—-Of even this parody are
almost as complicated and difficult to delineate as the
relations among the characters in the tale. Altogether the
several resonances of this ghost passage create a peculiar
double-mindedness in the reader, stemming perhaps both from
the narrator's equivocal stance and our own innate dual
attitudes toward supernatural phenomena. In effect, though,
the comic and tragic seem once more to be brought into close
contact, implying an intrinsic inter-connectedness.

A great deal of Lewis' novel--but this portion in
particular--moves in a peculiar labyrinthine fashion, making
sudden turnabouts and switches from one mode to another
which demand a much more active involvement on the part of
the reader than is usually the case in novels. The in-
formation the ghost gives is crucial and accurate. Can we
ignore it because the situation in which it is given is
absurd? Or is there an intrinsic sympathy between the
comicly ridiculous, the blatantly superstitious and the

tragic truth? As readers we are confronted with these

questions at every turn in the labyrinth, but we are never

87
provided with a magic thread to get us out of our dilemma.
Another, related problem in The Monk and many other

Gothic novels is the difficulty of recognition. Recognizing
a mirror image (or any supernatural visitation) is always a
key concern in twinning novels. Readers often recognize
archetypal situations when characters don't. Perhaps,
though, there are also some points where the reader is
likely to slip up. The Monk, for example, receives a number
of broad hints as to Matilda's real origins and mythic
meaning, yet is unable to recognize their relevance to him.
Perhaps he is simply too naive due to his cloistered up-
bringing, but more likely he is voluntarily naive like later
critics (including Summers) who found Matilda a charming and
tragic innocent. Matilda's arch rhetoric, as Peter Grudin
points out, is, however, quite consistent with the tradi-
tional techniques employed by demons to tempt humankind into
damnation.17 Her deep understanding of the Monk, her asso-
ciation with poetry, her appearance as a double of the
portrait in Ambrosio's cell, her shapeshifting and her gen-
eral involvement in witchcraft all suggest her true origin.
The Monk, despite his presumed knowledge of the Bible and
the Temptation in the Garden of Eden which closely parallels
his own situation, seems afflicted with a species of tunnel
vision:

The Monk reflected, that to vanquish

temptation was an infinitely greater

merit than to avoid it: He thought,

that He ought rather to rejoice in the

Opportunity given him of proving the
firmness of his virtue. St. Anthony had

88

withstood all seductions to lust; then

why should not He? Besides, St. Anthony

was tempted by the Devil, who put every

art into practice to excite his pas-

sions: ‘Whereas, Ambrosio's danger pro-

ceeded from a mere mortal Woman, fearful

and modest, whose apprehensions of his

yielding were not less violent than his

own. (p. 83)
Ambrosio's failure to recognize that his hubristic self-
assurance»is comic leads to tragedy; he cannot see himself
as a joke.

A number of other situations arise in which lack of
recognition is a key factor: Raymond does not recognize
Donna Rudolpha's advances; Donna Rudolpha fails to see the
real import of Raymond's attentions to her; Antonia does not
understand the meaning of Ambrosio's amorous behavior;
Raymond does not recognize the dangerous intentions of the
robbers in the forest and he also fails to discern that the
Bleeding Nun is not Agnes. Each of these situations leads
to tragedy or near-tragedy for the characters involved.
Clearly too narrow a perspective can be dangerous in The
Monk. Moreover, such closure tends to proceed from a myOpic
focus on social interaction that completely ignores the
powerful underlying realm of expectationsauuiideals that
colors the perception of each participant in the drama.

The preconceptions "built into" each of these charac-
ters determine their fates. They see only what they intend
to see; when they look into the mirror, they see only how

they "lookm. They are trapped in this circular reflection

of their own image, since the way they see determines what

89
they see. Repeatedly, these characters fail to recognize
archetypal situations because they are functioning on a
literal wave-length that equates empirical material or so-
cial reality with absolute truth, entirely ignoring the
symbolic and vital consideration: how is it possible to
move beyond oneself to that formidable and elusive Other?
There can be little doubt that the self-critical functions
of self-consciousness inform much of Lewis! manipulation of
his text, causing the material to fancnn;into tangential
lines of reverberation at crucial points--in effect, to
reproduce itself in various ways--instead of proceeding in
the expected linear, progressive fashion. As we have
already seen, at times this in-turning, self-critical
impetus seems to impede movement entirely or to imply that
whatever movement seems to take place only appears so from
our particular vantage point. From somewhere else it would
simply appear as another form of stagnation. Thus, when it
seems that characters are acting in a way that will produce
certain results--when Elvira, for example, attempts to pre-
vent the arousal of sexuality in Antonia--these results are
already predestined and unavoidable, hence her actions are
ultimately futile. From the outset the Gypsy knew Antonia's
fate; the efforts to prevent it seem ridiculous in light of
this information. The novel plays and re-plays versions of
Antonia's destiny from a number of different sources, but
none are significantly altered from the earliest predictions
of Chapter One. Characters seem to be trapped by the essen-

tial "givens" of their circumstances. Characters who appear

90
to be striking out in bold, new directions end by repeating
the errors of their own parents or forming incestuous unions
that further inbreed the original traits.

Is it the point of this novel, then, to conclude that
we are locked into our heredity, that every conscious effort
is futile and pointless.in a scheme already pre-arranged?
We have seen some ways in which evident stagnation can be
controverted, or at least re-visioned and we will, in this
section, look at some others. .Although critics like Kiely
find a pessimistic message in the work of Lewis and other
Romantics regarding aesthetic concerns, we can follow one
strand of optimism for critical interpretation--and through
it initiation--into the complexes of causal circularity and
beyond them. If this direction does not absolutely break
the magic circle of reflection and re-reflection, it does
provide a new metaphor for the inter-action between mirror-
images which envisions them as copulating male-female pairs
reproducing an image that mirrors both parents, instead of
an endless echo of one.

The attitudes of different characters and even the nar-
rator toward various works Of art is crucial in this con-
text. As I have already explained, a number of people in
the novel "use"au%;for their own purposes--especially Ag-
nes, Ambrosio, Raymond, and the Prioress. As the Monk tells
Rosario in the Hermitage, ""This inscription was merely
placed here for the ornament of the»Grotto, and the senti-
ments and the Hermit are equally imaginary'" (p. 53). Like

many other characters in the novel, Ambrosio has a naive

91

aesthetic understanding. We have seen that the inscription
is far more relevant to his life than he supposes. In fact,
in every case where art is used for private purposes without
regard for its ancestry, enormous repercussions result.
Every image--whether poem, ghost, painting, child, proces-
sion, speech or imposture--opens a window on another world
and invites the original of that reproduction to appear.
The resultant apparition may be blood-stained and grotesque
like the Bleeding Nun or starved, bedraggled and unrecogni-
zable like Agnes after her sojourn in the vault, but it must
nonetheless be recognized and appropriately propitiated
before it can be laid to rest or assume a normal role in
society: it must be allowed to tell its version of the
story.

As we have seen, one kind of reproduction tends to
evoke another kind of reproduction, hinting that the urge to
reproduce is as much a function of the artist or writer as
of the lover. Raymond, in discussing the poet's role with
Theodore makes this explicit. Both Raymond and Lorenzo do
succeed in marrying eventually, but the obstacles they must
first overcome are considerable and suggest the difficulty
of moving beyond oneself to union with another. It will be
useful, then, to see by what means marriage is accomplished.

Each eligible woman in the story is, in a sense, held
captive by an older, threatening woman. Although Elvira
generally has our sympathy, she still prevents what seems to
be a perfectly reasonable marriage. Agnes is at first under

the control of the vengeful Donna Rudolpha and later the

92

Prioress. Virginia is also under the Prioress' control,
and, in fact is "nearly related to" the head of the convent.
Raymond manages to be united with Agnes after great hard-
ship, illness and severe trials, byxneans of the interven-
tions of Lorenzo and Theodore. Raymond himself, however,
does little except relate his tale to Lorenzo, who may seem
surprisingly gullible in light of the extraordinary nature
of the story. This is an important point, I think, for
Lorenzo is undoubtedly a key figure in uniting the mythic
and modern realms by means of a critical technique that we
see at work first in the Species of depth-therapy he does
with Raymond and later, much more precisely, in his reinter-
pretation of the Prioress' story about the statue of St.
Clare. Lorenzo is a careful critic in every instance. He
does not--like Agnes and the narrator--disregard or discount
evidences of supernatural activity. Nor does he blindly
accept such evidences, becoming enamoured with the super-
natural simply because it is attractive (as perhaps some of
the Medieval-Revivalists of Lewis' time did). Instead,
Lorenzo is a thoroughly modern man who is neither supersti-
tious nor blind. As he observes the procession of nuns, he
is seriously cynical, not even showing the narrator"s tol-
erant amusement at the tomes of humankind:

every heart was filled with reverence

for religion. Every heart but Loren-

zo's. Conscious that among those who

chaunted the praises of their God so

sweetly, there were some who cloaked

with devotion the foulest sins, their

hymns inspired him with detestation at
their Hypocrisy. He had long observed

93

with disapprobation and contempt the

superstition, which governed Madrid's

Inhabitants. His good sense had pointed

out to him the artifices of the Monks,

and the gross absurdity of their mira-

cles, wonders, and supposititious

reliques. (p. 345)
Although Lorenzo has no tolerance for superstition, he is
not immune from the charms of a young woman who appears in
the procession imitating St. Clare. Later, he follows this
same young woman, fleeing from the enraged mob to a statue
of the same saint. Lorenzo is immediately aware of groans
coming, seemingly, from the statue. The nuns tell him that
these must be the groans of a robber who once tried to steal
a ruby from the saint's finger, but whose hand stuck fast
and had to be severed before he could be released. The
statue functions hereausa kind of stand-in for the Prior-
ess. Like Oedipus, Lorenzo has to unravel this Sphinx's
mystery in order to free the nuns from tyranny. Success
will ultimately allow him to marry, i.e., to safely repro-
duce by uniting himself with the feminine sphere represented
by the nuns, St. Clare and the convent. It is not surpri-
sing, then, that the robber was supposed to have tried to
steal a ruby from the finger of the saint (specifically the
finger upon which a wedding ring is usually placed) for
Lorenzo is solving a dilemma that will lead directly to his
own marriage and the recovery of his "lost" sister. It will
also engender the death of Antonia, his first love. The use

of axnummified hand in connection with a robber is inter-

esting in light of a tradition among thieves that actual

94

mummified hands would put to sleep the inhabitants of a
house when carried by a robberu In addition, these "hands
of glory," as they were called, were used to point out the
location of hidden or buried treasure.18 Both these con-
cerns are highly relevant to Lorenzo's situation. The hand
and its accompanying story is intended to lull the nuns'
suspicions--in effect, to put them to sleep. And, of
course, the statue does conceal a hidden treasure, Agnes.
In addition, the red gem represents the primary sacred act
around which much of this novel revolves both at the literal
and metaphorical levels: sexual consummation. Hence the
robber who tries to steal the ruby (as both Raymond and
Ambrosio stole the virginity of their mistresses) may remain
"stuck fast" to an image of a woman. In fact, Raymond does
get "stuck fast" to his infernal doppelganger, the Bleeding
Nun, while Ambrosio stagnates in prison and ultimately in
the maternal precincts of nature when he is cast into the
Sierra Morena.

To avoid the dangers of presumption and theft in the
sacred precincts which Ambrosio and Raymond incurred, Lor-
enzo must look for a cryptic message in the statue with its
groans (sexual sounds?) and its mummified hand (impotence?).
Under the facade of religion--or beneath the religious deco-
rations On Mother St. Ursula's basket--is concealed a rele-
vant core of information which Lorenzo must use to unravel
the Sphinx's riddle and avoid stagnation himself. Lorenzo's
rubric, then, provides a gloss for the Prioress! myth: a

modern re-interpretation which suggests that this myth hides

95

a mechanical contrivance placed over a significant and
powerful locus to prevent the entry of the uninitiated.
Lorenzo"s New Law decrees that Agnes, a modern woman, will
be freed from the tyranny of the Old Law of the mythic
realm; but it likewise decrees that Antonia, who is closer
to the world of Romance than to the modern world, must die.
Agnes' child, born of the illicit, stolen passion of the
convent is also doomed, because it was conceived under the
Old Law of Romance.

As a critic, then, Lorenzo neither takes what he finds
literally, believing that the statue is moaning because of
the destruction of the convent, nor does he ignore it. In-
stead, heiexamines it closely, clearing away the patina of
age to descry what lies underneath. He discovers that while
the statue appears to be made of stone, it is actually made
of painted wood and much lighter than it seems to be. There
is a button hidden beneath the mummified hand to effect the
opening and closing of the mechanism that releases the trap
door which leads to Agnes. Thus, the statue is, after all,
a crucial link with self-knowledge, even though it is con-
cealed in the outward forms of superstition. Lorenzo's re-
interpretation makes his material available to a modern,
empirieal audience: an audience much more attuned to the
understanding of mechanisms (whether physical or psychologi-
cal) than far-fetched tales of miracles, yet allows the
mythic sphere its own validity. Hence, Lorenzo finds a
modern technique by means Of which he can align the mythic

with the modern world-—a Symplegades which Opens for a

96
moment a passage by which Agnes can re-enter society. But a
miracle does occur, nonetheless: Lorenzo manages to free
his sister and to give up his fixation on the impossibly-
perfect image of Antonia. Ultimately, he settles for a mate
who is a less-dissonant match (for Virgina is, after all,
his social equal while Antonia was not), but still is
"nearly related to" the old dragon-Prioress who dominated
the convent and reportedly constructed the myth in the first
place. Clearly, if we are to follow LorenzOJS example as
the most viable way through Lewis' labyrinthine text, we
need to recognize how difficult it is to make the interpre-
tive decisions we need to make at every turn in the text and
how painful the process of discovery (and self-discovery) is

bound to be.19

CHAPTER THREE
Ifl£.DEIILl§.ELlKIB§: HOFFMANN'S MARRIAGE OF HEAVEN AND HELL

The Ursprungs of Hoffmann's Text

E. T. A. Hoffmann's Die Elixieno Dos Toufols (The
Dfilillfi Ellxins) was written in two parts: the first in
1814 and the second in 1815. It was published as a whole in
Berlin in 1816. Although some critics argue that the two
parts are integrally related and that there is no signifi-
cant difference between the treatment of the two separate
portions Of the narrative,1 it should certainly be noted in
the context of an author so preoccupied with the phenomenon
of doubling and multiplicity as Hoffmann that even his only
completed novel had a tendency to disintegrate into a dual-
istic pairu In addition to the duplicity of its composi-
tion, it is important to note that Eiixins is also an inten-
tional response to M. G. Lewis' Monk. Not only does Hoff-
mann's tale closely parallel Lewis' in several crucial as-
pects, but Lewis' novel--or a double of it--actually appears
in Hoffmann's novel as a significant book read by the her-
oine, Aurelia. She, in turn, resembles both Lewis' Antonia,
the naive and innocent heroine sacrificed to a monkis lust,
and his Matilda, the dangerous succubus-double of a reli-

gious painting who tempts the monk to damnation. In many

97

98

ways, some of which we will explore in this chapter, Hoff-
mann's novel is a reproduction of Lewis'—~a child of the
father-text whence it is derived. Yet the complex relation-
ship between these two novels is nearly as difficult to
analyze as the exact relations between the members of Medar-
dus' family in the novel. As in The Monk there are several
literary traditions at work here, though they are much more
subtly woven into the fabric of the novel and into the
personality of its narrator than are the similar materials
in this novel's progenitor. While Lewis seems to revel in
quasi-scholarly reference to Medieval and classical mater-
ials much like Sir Walter Scott at a later date, Hoffmann is
intent on integrating these "relics" tightly into the no-
vel's scheme by internalizing them in the focal character of
Medardus.

Although Lewiev novel is not generally categorized as
"doppelganger"literature, Hoffmann'sijsmost decidedly a
novel of multiples. As we have already seen, there are many
reasons that Hoffmann might have chosen to center his own
novel about doubling around Lewis' text, but there are no
doubles in Lewis'iaork which can be effectively compared
with the several "versions" of Medardus that appear in
Hoffmann's. These pairings, like the set of revisions Lewis
did in the instance Of the appearance of the ghost of El-
vira, seem to re-vision or experimentally re-experience the
doubling of the main figure, Medardus, in several different

ways, so that we are left with far more than mere doubles.

99
We experience instead a constant fluidity of transition that
rarely conforms to our assumptions about the way in which
such multiplicity can be rationalized by empirical investi—
gations into its sources. Over and over again, Hoffmann
teases the reader to tackle and solve the puzzling mystery
of multiple images, yet undercuts every apparent solution by
raising further complications. Each time we feel elated
over our apparent success in unravelling these snarls of
information, we are effectively led into a cul-de-sac pro-
ducing the deflating sense that we have only returned to the
starting point again; it is much the same sensation that
Medardus feels when he is asked for the second time, "What's
so funny?" As we shall see in a moment, though, the imagi-
native process involved effectively triumphs over our doubts
about its validity, leaving us with an intense, if frus-
trated, sense that we have been witness to something highly
significant if ultimately impenetrable. James Hillman sug-
gests that the ancients who witnessed the central mystery of
a mystery religion were left unable to explain what happened
or why simply because it was the nature of the experience to

2 a similar sensationcfl‘inex-

leave them in such a state;
pressable significance informs Hoffmann's text. This chap-
ter, then, will not attempt to solve Hoffmann's dilemmas of
duplicity by reducing them either to mutually exclusive
polarities or to the hallucinations of an unbalanced mind.
Instead, we will look closely at the characteristics of

these visions and their relationships to the prior visions

of Lewis to attempt to grasp the milieu in which they exist

100
and its Significance for the reader.

Although there is some obvious overlap, the most promi-
nent characters in The Monk tend to be sharply separated and
delineated as social entities. In The Eiixins, on the other
hand, the often-comparable characters of Medardus, Count
Viktor, Aurelia, Euphemia, the Old Painter and Pietro con-
stantly slip into--and out Of--each.other"s identities, as
unexpectedly as the Old Painter steps out Of the painting
above the altar. Because images merge, submerge and emerge
with the astonishing facility of a dream-sequence, we are
prompted to view all of the participants--including the Edi-
tor and the monk who records the final moments of Medardus'
life--as interchangeable components of a matrix rather than
separate individuals. Thus, for example, when Antonia is
stabbed by Ambrosio, we can suspect that the Monk's rash
action may have been precipitated by the imminent appearance
of Lorenzo and the soldiers. The relationship between Me-
dardusfl mental process and the sacrifice of Aurelia, how-
ever, is much more explicitly drawn: although Medardus
seems to have overcome his urge to stab Aurelia, a double
appears to act out his previous intentions the moment he
seems to surrender to heavenly thoughts. Ftrthermore,'we
know that Medardus has himself desired the martyrdom con-
ferred upon Aurelia during his penitence in Rome. In fact,
he described the imagined scene of his assasination by "a
dark figure [who] emerged from the shadows" UL 285) in much
the same terms as he later described the scene after Aur-

elia's death. Thus the Capuchin's intimate mental

101

involvement in the actions of other characters effectively
blends his identity with theirs. A sympathetic relationship
seems to link these multiple images such that whenever one
appears to have gained the ascendant position it is almost
immediately subverted by a complementary mirror-image that
inverts the original, mocking the notion that goodness can
exist exempt from evil or that evil can exist exempt from
good. Indeed, it is by no means clear-cut in Medardus'
tale--despite the religious rhetoric--whether any given
image is diabolical, heavenly or a combination of the two,
for there is the constant possibility that what appears to
be a paradigm of virtue (such as Aurelia) may also be a
diabolical imitation of it. Like Medardus, reader and
author participate in the elation and horror over Aurelia's
martyrdom without being implicated in it. And like Leonar-
dus, we may be able to rationalize our fascination with this
scene reproduced from The Monk by telling the angry mob that
it was none of our doing and "that the assasin was not a
monk at all but a madman who had been given refuge in the
monastery" (p. 315). But it is difficult to ignore the
fact that Medardus, the narrator with whom the reader iden-
tifies, is also given asylum in a monastery when he is
believed mad after he has presumably killed Aurelia.

Character, version and episode splinter into multiple
visions on every hand under Hoffmann's Hermetic guidance.
Medardus meets his first double in the Christ—like child in
the Holy Linden; later he finds himself equated with the

semi-mythic figure of St. Antony; when he leaves the

102

monastery, he accidentally causes another likeness of him-
self, Count Viktor, to fall off a cliff and believes he has
killed him; shortly thereafter, he meets the mad Hermogenes,
who also is habited as a monk; after he kills Hermogenes,
another mad monk, who is evidently Viktor dressed in Medar-
dus' cast-off habit, appears. In addition, Medardus takes
on different identities himself, particularly the identity
of Leonardus, his monastic mentor, when he adopts the guise
of the Polish gentleman, Herr Leonard von Crczynski. The
Old Painter's mentor, of course, was also a famous Leonard--
Leonardo da Vinci. The reader discovers in the end that
the majority of the major characters in the book are either
Medardus' half-brothers or sisters.

Clearly, (if there is anything clear about this chaos
of undifferentiated potentiality) Hoffmann's novel attempts
to explore the artistic problem of unity-in-multiplicity and
the manner in which it is possible to closely knit together
the elements of a novel which include both mythic and mi-
metic material, while probing the very sources of diffrac-
tion. Hence, in this chapter I will attempt to explore not
only the fairly obvious doublings of character (most pre—
vious critics have concentrated their efforts strictly upon
the mirror-images of Medardus and Count Viktor), but also
the peculiar ribbon-candy redoublings of vision both in the
novel's form and in its reflection of various mythic mater-
ials which, like the magic spectacles in another of Hoff-
mann's tales, have as much effect upon the spectator as the

panorama itself. Whether this effect is adverse, benign or

103
neutral will depend, it would seem, upon the assumptions
with which the spectator encumbers him/herself before parti-
cipating in Hoffmann's mystery of diversity-in-unity.
After the initial title and the Editor's Preface,

which parenthetically notes that the tale we are about to

read is "Emmihooosihumnousoaoonsofflnothsniiedandusla
Cannohln Enian," (p. 1), the reader moves into a brief,
private "sitting" with the editor, who quietly introduces
the novel, quickly moving offstage to allow his main char-
acter, Medardus, to speak for himself. The editor, however,
before putting the manuscript into our hands finishes with

an enigmatic caution:

After I had with great diligence read
through the papers of Medardus the Capu-
chin .. . I came to feel that what we
call simply dream and imagination might
represent the secret thread that runs
through our lives and links its varied
facets; and that the man who thinks
that, because he has perceived this, he
has acquired the power to break the
thread and challenge that mysterious
force which rules us, is to be given up
as lost.

Perhaps your experience, gentle
reader, will be the same as mine. For
the profoundest of reasons, I sincerely
hope that it may be so.(p..2)

The tone of the editor is sagacious, low-key and hushed as

the womb-like monastery of the Holy Linden where

No hostile beast, IN) harmful insect
lives in the sanctuary of the blessed;
neither the buzzing of flies nor the
chirruping of crickets disturbs the holy
silence. The stillness is broken only
by the devout chanting of the priests
who, together with the pilgrims, file

104
past in long lines, swinging golden
censors from which ascends the odour of
sacrificial incense. (p. 4)

There is no trace Of the cynicism Of Lewis' narrator,
none of the flamboyant and dramatic showman, only an ap-
pealing note of wisdom and mystery which resembles Leonar-
dus' curiously enigmatic remonstrance to Medardus, "'My son,
the worst superstition is doubt!'" (p. 18). Nothing except
the supposed original manuscript is revealed at this point
to the seeker, and all that we know about its origins is
that it was written by a monk in the monastery and that the
prior thought that it should be burned (p. 2).

It is evident from the outset that although Hoffmann's
novel is highly dependent upon its forebear and is even to
some extent a reproduction of it, there are major differ-
ences in the treatment of the material by each author which
suggest in themselves divergent though related perspectives.
Hence, while Lewiev tradition is borrowed quite blatantly
from an eclectic variety of romance conventions of both
antiquity and the Middle Ages, Hoffmann weaves these conven-
tions into the mentality of the story-teller himself, so
that they are more closely integrated with the over-all
pattern of the novel and seem more personal than Lewis'
borrowings. Heredity in Lewis' novel tends to take on a
historical, global character, affecting every level of soc-
iety and every individual member of it in various ways as
represented by the levels of the monastery: Old clashes
with new, the superstitious view clashes with the empirical

one, and poetry clashes with prose. In Hoffmann's novel,

105

however, the repercussions of heredity are much more per-
sonal: Medardus is himself of two minds, as one of his
doubles, Pietro, explains:

"I have tried in vain to make sense of

the contradictions in your nature and

your movements. . . JEx profundis clam-

avi ad te Domine--Oremus--Et in omnia

saecula saeculorum. Amend" Belcampo

chanted these words in a hoarse, croak—

ing voice, at the same time faithfully

imitating the posture and movements of a

monk. He turned as if before an altar,

knelt, and stood up again; then he as-

sumed a proud, defiant attitude, fur-

rowed his brow, opened his eyes wide and

cried:

'Mine is the world! I am richer,

wiser, cleverer than you all."‘(p. 90)
The dissonance between mythic and mimetic, old and new is
centered in the dissonance between the various identities of
the storyteller, Medardus, and the doubles he describes. In
fact, each of Medardus' doubles could also be described as
having a similar dual identity: the Old Painter appears as
a benevolent saint and a proud, cynical observer "above"
Medardus' foibles; Aurelia is both St. Rosalia and a dia-
bolical tempter; Pietro is Medardus' half-witted comic side-
kick but also a witty philosopher who seems to know every
one of Medardus' hidden motivations and thoughts. While
personal heredity forms a significant theme in The Monk
which surfaces dramatically at the end, in Hoffmann's novel
it isalreal concern from the beginning when Medardus des-
cribes the miraculous events of his nativity and early

childhood and their relationship to his family. While Lewis

does not tell us until the final chapter that his novel is

106

about Ambrosio"s family (though there are certainly several
hints), Hoffmann makes that connection explicit almost from
the birth of the hero whose father dies "at the moment I was
born" (p. 3). The connections between the various branches
of Medardus' family are, moreover, increasingly cemented as
the novel continues and finally given fairly explicit form
in the elaborate geneology related by the 01d Painter.
Hence, geneology informs the structure of Hoffmann's work
much more explicitly than it does Lewis,' suggesting a
personal, internal conflict-~an introverted view rather than
the more social, extraverted spectacle of Lewis' work.

In addition, whereas Lewis gives a good deal of speci-
fic attention to distinguishing different representatives of
the "old way" and their particular roles in the drama--the
Wandering Jew, the Prioress, the Bleeding Nun and the Gyp-
sy--Hoffmann is intent on blurring these lines and leading
the reader to consider the possibility that the various
figures surrounding Medardus are capable of altering their
identity at will--perhaps because they are not really dist-
inguishable from the mind which perceives them. Indeed,
Pietro--who also has at least two identities--explains that
the Old Painter could be several different people, some
positive, some negative in connotation: '"this painter is
Ahasuerus the Wandering Jew, or Bertrand de Born, or Mephis-
topheles, or Benevenuto Cellini, or Saint Peter'" (p. 103).
While Lewis concentrates on the careful delineation of the
tragic from the comic, the Old mythic material from the

modern view, Hoffmann effects a merger of the two disparate

107

realms, insisting on the impossibility of strictly limiting
specific archetypal configurations. There is one noteworthy
result of this deliberate violation of boundaries: while
the revelation of Ambrosio's identity at the end of The Monk
is an extremely significant event in the novel, pulling up,
as it were, both reader and character in the elaborate net
of the narrative, in Hoffmann's novel a similar revelation
seems scarcely to matter at all, despite the Editor's pro-
mise to "make Medardus' story intelligible" (p. 251). As
Hewett-Thayer suggests of the Old Painter's interpolated
tale:

One may reasonably query whether the

novel does not lose more than it gains

by the introduction of this intricate

pattern of kinship .. . it is like the

creation of an intricate crossword

puzzle for others to solve; one may

chuckle in anticipation over their

perplexity. And yet the essential

elements of the story are only slightly

involved in this corgplicated web of

family relationships.
Sigmund Freud, who wrote briefly about The Eiikins, had a
similar reaction to the peculiar explanation of familial
relationships offered in the Old Painter's account:

Towards the end of the book the reader

is told the facts, hitherto concealed

from him, from which the action springs;

with the result, not that he is at last

enlightened, but that he falkP into a

state of complete bewilderment.

The only real effect this piece of information seems to have

on the reader is very interesting, however: it creates a

108

need to draw out a map of the complex geneology (as I did
when I read the novel and as many critics have done). In
fact, this form of diagrammatic classification seems to be
the only method by means Of which the reader can effectively
manage to comprehend the complicated system of incestuous
relationships between the members of Medardus' family. In
the end, though, the means seems inadequate to the task.
Understood in terms of its classification of relationships,
there appears to be little significance to this geneology
and I was left with the distinct feeling that Hoffmann had
led me to believe that something important was concealed in
the geneology that was not really there at all. This pre-
sentation of empirical data thus fails to provide a satis-
factory sense Of meaning for the events related, although it
looks so impressive that we feel we ought to be able to find
some "key" to the novel there.

Perhaps the point of its inclusion is not so much to
enlighten the reader on the nature of Medardus' family
connections as to explore the limitations.of the reader's
prior assumptions about the nature of explanation. We are
effectively thrown back on our own resources and very prob-
ably find ourselves a bit embarrassed by our futile efforts
to escape from this literary labyrinth. Perhaps this is,
after all, a trick on the reader, very much like the tricks
we will later see James Hogg plying on his unsuspecting aud-
ience. If so, its effect is to force the reader to confront
a paradox of explanation that fails to explain and from this

cul-de-sac to re-trace the train of thought that may have

109

led to it, in order to plot a new course of understanding.
It is entirely possible in Hoffmann's context that an expla-
nation which ties up all the loose ends neatly will destroy
the imaginative facility of the vision itself as the Editor
enigmatically suggests in the Preface:

It may even be that, as you look more

closely, what seemed formless will be-

come clear and precise; you will come to

recognise the hidden seed which, born of

a secret union, grows into a luxuriant

plant and spreads forth in a thousand

tendrils, until a single blossom, swel-

ling to maturity, absorbs all the life-

sap and kills the seed itself. (p. 2)

The limitations of empirical classifications that lead
to a monistic Weltanschauung and the means by which they may
be transcended are primary romantic concerns much in evi-
dence in all three of the novels I will consider. Let us

look for a moment, though, at Hoffmann's apparent critique

of the limitations of his novel's forebear.

Criticism: The Child Confronts the Parent

At one point in the novel, Medardus, in the character
of a learned gentleman, digresses on the manner in which
ancient and Gothic forms can be successfully incorporated
into art. He criticizes the Prince's garden architecture,
suggesting that earlier artistic visions must be spiritually
emulated, not copied, and, perhaps at the same time he
raises questions about the validity of Lewis' incorporation

of so many ancient materials into his novel with so little

110

continuity between them:

the only architect who will achieve any-
thing genuine in this [Gothic] style is
he who is inspired by its inner spirit,
the spirit which filled the old masters
who were able to fuse the apparently
separate and contradictory elements into
a single glorious, meaningful entity.
In a word, the Gothic architect must be
impelled by a particular awareness of
the Romantic, since here there is no
question of his keeping to a pattern of
rules, as he can with Classical forms.
(pp.128-9)

The Curator of the Princeusart gallery seconds Medardus'
critique of the Prince's historicism and careful planning

that seems to exclude spontaneity:

"With pedantic thoroughness [the prince]
gave the architect descriptions and
sketches of every detail of the
buildings, and the slightest departure
from these plans, in the preparation of
which he had drawn on all manner of
historical works, worried him as greatly
as did the occasions when this or that
aspect could not be adapted to the smal-
ler scale on which the restricted scale
compelled him to workJ'(p. 130)

Like any careful scholar, the prince acknowledges his sour-
ces and meticulously executes the letter of these architec-

tural "laws" of prior times :

Everywhere [the prince] named the origi-
nals on which the buildings had been
modelled, drew my attention to the pre-
cise manner in which the tasks had been
carried out, and expatiated on the prin-
ciples which underlay the arrangement of
his park and which ought to underlie the
arrangement of every park. (p. 132-3)

111
Although the Prince admires "the strange webs and patterns
woven by an invisible force we call chance" (p. 134), he is
unable to trust them fully and ironically gives "thelnost
carefully formulated rules how to play into the hands of
chance" (p. 139). The prince's imitations-~whether of anti-
quity or spontaneity--are academic in style and constantly
limited in scale, intimating that the expansive grandeur
they feebly represent needs careful, thoughtful control to
prevent unexpected dangers. The prince's domain is small
and secure--a parlor-toy imitation of some greater cosmic
reality--which has none of the fearful, wanton fertility Of
imagination that, as we shall see, constitutes the exper-
ience of St. Anthony's elixirs.

Certainly the Prince's failure to re-create Gothic or
classical splendor has to do with his "modern" mentality
which seems split from the aesthetic understandingcfiThis
ancestors, just as Medardus is unable to fully comprehend
the significance of the ancient elixirs given into his
keeping, and tries to reduce their meaning to mere wine or
allegory. Thus there may be irony in Medardus' criticism of
the Prince's efforts as there is in Raymond's critique of
Theodore's poetic endeavors. Medardus is himself unable to
successfully unify the polarized and fragmented world around
him to restore the perfection of the Holy Linden. The comic
barber, Pietro, however, seems to be as proficient as Lewis'
Theodore in effecting translation from one sphere to another
and in assisting Medardus to do so. He suggests to Medardus

that the division between deficient modernity and ancient

112

mentality has to do with the omission of a lower function
which he identifies with the shaving of the beard currently
fashionable:

"O for the golden days when beard and

hair formed a single growth to adorn the

head of man and were the delectable

charge of a single Artist! But those

days have gone. Man has spurned his

noblest pride, and a shameful class of

persons has surrendered itself to the

destruction of the beard with horrid

instrumentsfl'(p.91)

Pietro, who mourns the loss of the primeval unity, is an
artist whose medium is hair, not an empirical hair-splitter
like modern "barbers." To a certain extent, then, Pietro's
critique of the state of head-dressing and Medardus' criti-
cism of the Prince's endeavors (which is affirmed by the
Physician) imply a critique of The Monk. This is further
evidenced in Hoffmann's treatment of the physical setting in
contrast to Lewis'. Although in each novel the monastery
seems to form an overarching structure that connects the
different episodes and characters of the story, in Hoff-
mann's Eiikins the actual architectural structure seems to
be pushed into the background in favor Of its symbolic
implications as a circumscribed sacred system. Hence the
monastic garb of various characters as well as the closed,
incestuous geneology of the novel function to evoke the same
ritually-sealed and -violated milieu as the monastery in
Lewis' novel without the architectural encumbrances of the

building itself. The Gothic mood is thereby maintained
without the limiting factor of the specifically Gothic

113

locale. Other images in Hoffmann's text also undercut the
"typical" Gothic trademarks. For example, we find that the
monastery in the earlier portion of the novel is depicted as
a pleasant sanctuary from a troublesome world, guided by
devout and sagacious masters, while the scene at the Vatican
suggests the more typical Gothic emphasis on cruel, hypocri-
tical, power-hungry representatives of the established reli-
gion bent on torture and revenge like Lewis'.Mnbrosio and
the Prioress. So while evoking certain elements of the
typical Gothic apparatus, Hoffmann seems once more to at-
tempt to transcend their limitations by expanding their
symbolic potential.

Hoffmann's novel as a whole, then, is in many ways a
gloss or commentary on the images developed in The Monk,
expanding, amplifying and re-combining their symbolic po-
tential by intense inbreeding. Like Raymond's dissertation
to Theodore on the nature of the poet's task, these exegeses
also suggest the infinite generative potential of the images
evoked as Opposed to the limited tools of the poetHs(or
novelistfis) trade and their application to the explicit and
implicit structure of the novel itself. Thus Hoffmann moves
strongly in the direction of a text that is materially uni-
fied with fewer interpolated tales and "relics" of the lit-
erary past, while at the same time creating a dazzling and
bewildering display of multiplicity. Hoffmann's text ref-
lects Lewis' and reflects on it. The author Of The Eiikins
seems to take one more self-consciously reflective step

backward than his predecessor to include the viewer in the

114
picture frame as participant instead of passive bystander.

Like Lewis" Lorenzo, we discover that the drama is about us.

Translation as Paradigm

As a descendent of The Monk, Hoffmann's Elixlns is as
complexly conceived on the literary level as is his narra-
tor, Medardus, on the psychological and genealogical planes.
Clearly Hoffmann drew on several German traditions in con-
structing his story, including the well-known short story of
doppelgangers by Adelbert von Chamisso entitled "Die wunder-
same Geschicte von Peter Schlemihl" (1813) in which a man
sells his shadow to a diabolical figure. German "fate"
dramas, extremely popular in Hoffmann's time, must certainly
also have had an impact on the often-devastating determinism
of the events in the novel.5 But Hoffmann amplified the
themes.of his predecesors much more extensively than they
had done, just as he re-visioned the work of Lewis so consi-
derably that it is only on rare occasions that the reader,
with a sudden uncanny twinge of asia yn, is clearly able to
glimpse the features of the parent in the child.

Eiixins, in addition to its more obvious ancestors,
draws heavily upon other English literary traditions. lie
are strongly reminded of Shakespeare's clowns, for example,
in the figure of Pietro Belcampo. The Irish comic figure,
Ewson, also seems typical of the English stage and contem-
porary novel, reminding us particularly of the creations of

Smollett in his whimsical eccentricity and national pride.

115

In fact, the Englishman Dr. Green, who accompanies Ewson in
a round of comic drunkeness, imitates Shakespearian speech,
albeit in German translation, even infecting others with his
curious malady.

'"It's just like being at the theatre,

is it not?' said the friendly bailiff to

me. 'The doctor, who normally never

looks at German books, once happened to

find Schlegel's translation of Shake-

speare in my house, and since then, to

use his own expression, he has been

playing Old and familiar tunes on a

strange instrument. You may have obser—

ved that even the landlord speaks rhy-

thmically; the doctor has, as it were,

iambicised.him."'(p.150)
Thus, while Lewis, like Dr. Green, was accused of an exces-
sive debt to German tradition, Hoffmann might similarly be
accused of blatantly borrowing from the English.

This dialectic between England and Germany is itself no
doubt symptomatic of the genre in which the doppelganger
motif is manifested. Translation is unquestionably one of
the hallmarke.of the Gothic mode, whether considered lit-
erally in the movement from one language to another or meta-
phorically in the movement from one mirror-world to the
other (as, for example, in the Lnansiaiion into sainthoodL
In fact, the Hermetic task of movement from one state of
being to another very different one can be described as
"translation" just as in antiquity Hermes was denominated as

"6 A movement across the boundaries of

"The Interpreter.
language, then, constitutes yet another dimension of trans-

mutation--the alchemic process by means of which the

116
lowliest substance is apotheosized into the most precious--
or the most noble is degraded to the humblest.

As the Editor of Eiixins informs the reader, it was
necessary for him to translate the Old Painter's narrative--
"with great difficulty I suceeded in deciphering it" (p.
251)-~despite the inability of the modern language to ade—
quately convey the character of the original:

It was written in medieval Italian, al-

most in the style of a chronicle, full

of aphorisms. In German it sounds

strangely dead and dull, but I must give

a translation of it in order to make

Medardus' story intelligible. (p. 251)
Even Medardus' manuscript is specifically described as being
difficult to read "because of his minute and barely legible
monastic handwriting" (p. 2) and the Editor particularly
emphasizes the importance of the "original" locale and the
parchment on which the story appeared as being essential
ingredients to a full understanding Of the mystery involved
in the monkfls narrative:

Dearly would I take you, gentle reader,

beneath those dark plane-trees where I

first read the strange story of Brother

Medardus. .. . It is in such surround-

ings that you would read the story of

Medardus, and you might come to consider

the monk's strange visions to be more

than just the caprice of an inflamed

imagination.(p.1)
Hoffmann's novel, then, translates an experience of the

"other" world, though not nearly so well as could be de-

sired. The living mythic realm in which Medardus' narrative

117

is rooted is only feebly imitated in the printed page which
reproduces it. At its most successful moments, translation
can mean that inexpressible ur—material from the most sensi-
tive mythic depths can be communicated to an altogether
different state of existence; in the hermetic spirit one
form of understanding can penetrate and inform a radically
different one. At its worst, however, translation is a
simple reductive sleight-of-hand which exchanges one plati-
tude for another. The process of translation is a critical
concern for the author of The Eiixins, who is constantly
juggling a succession of transmutations around his central
figure, Medardus. It seems evident that Hoffmann is con-
cerned with opening up the potential of translation rather
than limiting or defining it. But since he never offers any
clearcut guidelines as to whether the effects of any parti-
cular instances of multiplicity are negative or positive (or
both) we need to closely examine some examples of this
process at work to understand what function it serves in the
novel.

The mirror-instant--that sacred, time-transcending mo-
ment at which translation from one perceived reality to
another entirely different one is effected--can produce
comic or tragic communication gaps. Comedy is not a major
component of The Eiixins, but since Hoffmann's other works
are especially notable for their comic effects, it may be
useful to examine more closely the significantly hermetic
manner in which a comic interlude intrudes in one instance:

the Physician's droll "boxed" narrative of his acquaintance

118

with Ewson. The latter is a grotesque figure with a con-
fusing national identity. As he explains, "'I, Sir, am an
Englishman but I was born and bred in Ireland”'(p. 145);
however, we also know that he came to Germany as a "mere
youth" and has lived there for twenty-two years (a number
which certainly enhances the suggestioncfi'multiple iden-
tity). Despite Ewson's cosmopolitan background, rue proves
surprisingly naive in his devilish difficulties with trans-
lation. This is particularly evident in the Physician's
account of Ewson's argument with the maid. The chambermaid,
who believes Ewson is an atheist, refuses to bring him a
wafer to seal his letters because she thinks he wants a holy
wafer upon which to commit some sacrilege (both types of
wafers are rendered by the word leato):

'"assuming that he had not pronounced

the word properly, [Ewson] at once

fetched his English-German dictionary

and showed the girl,*who could not read

a word, what he meant. To make matters

worse, he was now Speaking entirely in

English, which the maid took to be some

diabolical trick intended to add to her

confusion."'(p. 148)
It would appear that the mundane act of sealing up a letter
has become a holy--or unholy--act of great consequence in
the "unlettered" world which the foreigner Ewson now in-
habits. The English-Irishman, however, attempts to "prove"
his intended meaning by pointing to a yardstick of his own
(and the modern) world--a dictionary. Instead of facili-

tating communication, though, this invocation of authority

tnerely complicates the misunderstanding. In identifying the

119

classification of words with their inherent meanings, Ewson,
like the prince (and the reader who attempts to draw conclu-
sions from geneological charts), has failed to recognise
that data is not equivalent to meaning, ine., that the
superficial characteristics Of language, art or familial
relationships are not necessarily their essence. Imitation,
even though it may be within the strict limitations of
modern definition, invariably evokes the "ur" or earlier
understanding implied by this present "double," just as
Medardus! earlier monk-self reappears at the moment when he
seems to have re-defined himself. We have already observed
similar alignments of past and present in The Monk. Thus,
while Ewsonfls attempt to delineate the separate identities
Of ohiaie is empirically legitimate, it is psychologicalLy
irrelevent. With Tricksterish facility, Hoffmann leads us
to conjecture that there is a relationship between the act
Of sealing up letters and that of holy communion and that in
this alien world Ewson's mundane act is symbolically blas-
phemous.

Sealing, like definition, implies limitation. Whereas
communion expands and amplifies human potential by merging
it momentarily with divine infinity, sealing suggests a
barrier to this union of unlike entities. The maid and
Ewson cannot "meet" across this barrier because Ewson has
drawn a symbolic pentagram of Englishness, modern empiricism
and language around him that prevents a superstitious repre-
sentative of the "old" ways from entering his domain. Maids

in Hoffmann's text facilitate easy--and often illicit--

120

entry. The chambermaid, for example, allows Medardus to
enter Aureliawsroom in the country residence without the
Princess'.knowledge and it is a maid who leaves Aurelia's
letter where Medardus can steal it. But Ewson does not
recognize that by his insistence on closure he is as effect-
ively prevented from leaving as the chambermaid is from
entering. Although he is constantly intending to leave for
a new life, he always comes back again to the same inn. In
like manner, he is stuck on the same passage of music night
after night, repeating the same errors, it would seem, an
infiniinm.

Ewson's desire to seal his letters figuratively evokes
Hermes for whom sealing (hermeticallyfl is an irony: that
which is sealed begs to be violated. Hermes' image, it
should be noted, was often imprinted on keys in antiquity.
Thus, we are reminded of the sealed elixirs with their com-
pelling aroma and the first supernatural duplication of the
novel in which (apparently) a second key appeared on Medar-
dus' ring after he believed he had safely secreted the
original key to the sealed cupboard. Here Ewson's desire to
seal his letters so that they could be seen by no one but
the intended correspondent results in his own isolation.
However, the benefits of an unsealed letter are evidenced in
a later passage, reminding uscfl?the unsealed missive con-
cealed in the basket Theodore received owml Mother St.
Ursula. This time the letter is one written by Aurelia to
her aunt, the Abbess, but stolen by Medardus. The letter

itself, unlike Ewson's sealed epistles, is revealed to the

121

reader. It provides a good deal of enlightenment on the
relationships between artistic and physical reproduction
both within the novel itself and in its relationship to The
Monk. Naturally, though, this stolen, illicit form of com-
munion is not without its dangers--a fact particularly evi-
dent in the sealing and unsealing of the elixirs given into
Medardus' charge which form so prominent a motif in
Hoffmann's novel.

I will return shortly to those elixirs, and.Aurelia's
interesting revelations to the Abbess which are intercepted
by Medardus, but first I would like to consider another
passage that deals specifically with the problem of trans-
lation. The movement from one language to another nearly
proves tragic for Medardus shortly after he hears the Physi-
cian's tale. The monk, who has been successfully masquer-
ading as the Polish gentleman Herr Leonard von Crczynski, is
confronted by a judge who discovers his incomplete mastery
of the Polish language. The judge immediately detects the
monk's bogus identity in a sample of the accused man's hand-
writing:

"you are not a Pole. This writing is
inaccurate, full of grammatical and or-
thographical errors. No native Pole
would write like this, even if he were
far less educated than you are." (p.
184)

Although Medardus' invention of Herr Crczynski may not
fully convince the empirical world that he has another iden-
tity, his fictional evocation of this character later on in

122

his dungeon cell is quite adequate to summon up a mirror
image that seems to represent the greater implications of
Medardus. The false Pole has determined to forge a fic-
tional alibi that will convince the judges of his innocence:

I worked well into the night. As I

wrote, my imagination was kindled;

everything took on the shape of a

polished work of art, and more and more

closely-woven became the tissue of lies

with which I hoped to veil the truth

from the judge's gaze. (p. 186)
Letters here as in other passages exhibit a translating
power akin to that of the elixirs. Instead of a useful
fiction that will "veil the truth" by sealing it out of
sight, Medardus' inspired effort effects a revelation: an
innocent, accused self--his double--bursts halfway through
the floor beneath his cell.

Translation evidently functions as a basic metaphor in

a number of instances of multiplicity in The Eiixins,
evoking the dialectical interactions among divergent
perspectives and underlining the means by which one perspec-
tive merges--or fails to merge--with another. Translation
can be indicated by the movement from person to portrait,
from portrait to person, from imagination to written form,
from one form of dress to another, from one social class
identity to another, from one nationality to another, from
one state of existence to another or, in ordinary terms,
from one language to another. Outward appearances may be

deceptive, but as Reinhold suggests to Hermogenes early in

the novel, "Believe me, there is a mysterious power in such

123
external matters" (p. 48). Of course, it is precisely the
power of Medardus to be both the monk that he is (whom
Reinhold recognizes) and the nobleman whom he has evidently
killed (whom Euphemia recognizes) which allows him to gain
entrance to Baron Eds palace in the first place.

Hoffmann's re-imagining of the scene in Lewis' novel in
which Ambrosio is coerced into signing the pact with the
devil after his imprisonment and torture is especially
expressive of the difficulty of assigning a finite meaning
to a figure which expresses a multiplicity of archetypal
associations. The gamekeeper narrates one version of this
scene in which the mad monk in his keeping describes his
temptation and fall in a manner similar to Lewis' descrip-
tion of Ambrosio's fall:

"My existence became a series of abomin-

able crimes ....the prior sentenced me

to life-long imprisonment. After I had

spent several weeks in a damp, dark

cell, I cursed myself and my existence

and blasphemed against God and the

saints. Then Satan appeared to me in a

cloud, promising that if I would turn

from Heaven and serve only him, he would

release me. Sobbing, I fell to my knees

and cried: 'I serve no God. You alone

are my master and from your burning

coals of fire shine the joys of life!'

There was a mighty rush of air, .. as

if hurled by some invisible force, I

found myself in the monastery court-

yardJ'(pp.120-1)
In a later chapter, the Old Painter's ambiguous and ironic
statements may be rendered as either diabolical or angelic

in intent. Since they occur in a passage that in many ways

parallels the appearance of the demon in Ambrosio's cell, we

124
might be perfectly justified in seeing in him a similarly
malicious figure though with a more benign and seductive
aspect. Medardus, unable, perhaps, to consider the pos-
sibility that his visitor is both demon and angel as Pietro
implied, seems to feel that he must be either one or the
other. Evidently he fails to realize that wherever St.

Anthony appears the devil is only a step or two away:

I cried out in desperation:

"0 terrible man, away with you! But
no, you are no man, you are Satan him-
self . . . "

"Poor, undiscerning fool. I am not he
who seeks to bind you in chains or turn
you away from the holy work to which you
have been called. Medardus, you poor,
blind fool, it was I who appeared to you
whenever you balanced recklessly above
the open grave of damnation. ] warned
you but you did not heed me .. .."

He laid his hand upon my head as if
in blessing. Wonderful visions appeared
to me, and I felt as though I were in
the forest by the Holy Linden.

"O mysterious figure!" I cried. "Was
it you the whole time? On that unhappy
morning in the Capuchin church? In the
city? And now?"

"I was always near you to save you
from shame and destruction.... You must
achieve your own salvation through the
work to which you have been calledJ'

"Alas!" I cried. "Why did you not
restrain my arm when I--"

"I was not permitted to," he broke
in; "do not ask further. It is
foolhardy to try to forestall what the
power of Heaven has ordainedJ'(pp. 191-
2

The Old Painter's rhetoric, we can see, is perfectly capable
of being construed in more than one way, even the way Robert

Wringham described as "perfectly dreadful" when considering

the possible implications of Gil-Martin's persuasions. But

125

the vagueness of the Painter's words seems to evoke the
versatility of his power and its inherent separation from
concerns of good or evil. The Painter is an image--a ghost,
a demon, a saint, an ancestral totem--who appears at the
crucial--crossing--points of Medardus' life-pattern as part
of the data of that instant of movement from one state to
another. Perhaps we can describe him as a Hermetic catalyst
in whose presence transition occurs.

One of the dangers of translation seems to be the tend-
ency for the re-interpretation to confine meaning to a pre-
ordained set of expectations rather than to allow the poten-
tial Of the original symbol to send its roots into any fer-
tile soil it may encounter. Strict empirical delineations
that "murder to dissect," attempts to use the original mat-
erial to promote conscious designs, or literal interpre-
tations that do not take into account the wider metaphorical
value of the material are all inadequate techniques for the
translator. It is essential, then, to recognize that trans-
lation for Hoffmann is never simply a matter of the exchange
of one word or world for another very much like it, but
instead a complex process of duplication and re-definition
in which no earlier meanings are lost--only new ones added.
Translation is a Hermetic mystery evoking a bewildering mul-
titude of concomitant obligations and dangers for the inter-
preter. If successful, translation may be able to imitate
Hermes'lnost significant act of transformation: the re-
imagining of the mundane turtle's shell into the poet's lyre

used by Apollo. We should not forget, however, that

126

the turtle did not survive the process of transformation.
Translation is no amateur's art--at least not when consi-
dered as a paradigm for the alchemy of human transformation.

As we have seen, volatility characterizes Hermetic
vision. Like Pietro and the Physician, Hermes can penetrate
the most carefully-contrived disguise; on a whim he can
effect a rescue from a securely-locked prison or conversely
turn the offender over to the authorities. Conventional
morality has little to do with these turns of fortune, but
thereris a capricious authorial impulse to open trapdoors
under characters' feet so that they may either be freed or
caught, allowing the game to continue. It is appropriate,
then, that the threat of "the wheel" constantly hangs over
the murderer. It would seem that a Tricksterish spirit of
experimentation is at work here on the part of both the
narrator and the figures surrounding Medardus that suggests
some titanic scientist manipulating a few generations of
mice in a closed environment. It is an effect not unrelated
to that memorable Biblical pairing of God and Satan as they
try the limitations of Job's endurance. But Hoffmann's
novel is a story of escape as much as of capture, and the
devastating pessimism of entrapment in onefls destiny (cir-
cling round infinitely, perhaps, like Ewson) is constantly
counter-balanced by reproductive acts which effectively
transcend the original by intensifying its potential through
an act of reproductive re-vision.

When we look into a mirror, we tend to see only how we

look: we are trapped in a perpetual circle of reflection

127

and re-reflection. But if that vision could divide itself
into several component "children" of the parent-image by
reproduction we might have an opportunity to see beyond our
initial reflection to a larger self which derives its energy
from the dialectical tension between these competing images.
And beyond each potential self would be another set of
competing and complementary images so that life itself would
become--both on the physiological and metaphorical levels--a
series of experiments in identity through reproduction. We
are left then with this Hermetic paradox: the only way out
is the way into and through the image produced.

Reproduction as Paradigm

The role of reproduction as a biological and meta-
phorical phenomenon is as'critical for Hoffmann as it was
for Lewis. As we have already seen, Eiikins is itself in
several ways a reproduction of its literary progenitor,
bearing many of its "father"s":features and behaviors, al-
beit in a more intensified, inbred form. Reproduction (or
the impending threat Of reproduction) also informs the plot,
structure and characterization Of the novel, assuming major
symbolic significance at every critical juncture of the
tale.

Eiixins begins with a semi-miraculous reproductive act
reminiscent of medieval stories of the birth of the Virgin

Mary to aged, evidently sterile parents:

128

During the wearisome journey [to the

Holy Linden] my mother felt for the

first time in the many years of her

marriage that she would not remain

childless, as my father had always

feared.(p. 3)
Significantly, this reproductive act can only be accomp-
lished by the death of the child's father and namesake, "He
died, at peace in the knowledge of his salvation, at the
moment I was born" (p. 3). The co-incidence of the death of
the father and the birth of his child has resounding mythic
implications. In addition to firmly establishing the story
on the level of saint's legend, it also implies that father
and child are spiritually the same and.therefore cannot co-
exist. Moreover, there is an ominous note of mirror-
imaging, for on the mythic as on the physical plane every
action has an equal and opposite reaction. Hence the act of
birth necessitates a complementary act of death. From the
outset of the novel, then, the critical act of "crossing"
from one initiatory state to another involves not merely the
actions of a single initiate but a complex network Of inter-
actions and sympathetic reactions on a variety of different
levels. Some of this complexity is reflected in the novel's
relationship with its literary forebears while other aspects
are evoked in the inter-relations among the various rela-
tives of the novel or between the reader and the text.

Symbolic types of reproduction form the bases of criti-

cal events in Medardus' formative years, especially the

paintings in the Church in the Edenic Holy Linden executed

by his ancestor, the Old Painter. The significance of

129

artistic reproduction is particularly evoked when several
laughing youths interrupt the serene symbolic activities of
young Medardus, his childhood double, the Old Painter and
Medardus' mother. When their leader offers to sketch this
"Holy Family," the Old Painter becomes unexpectedly violent,
uttering a curse on their pubescent efforts to reproduce:

"Miserable scoffer! You call yourself

an artist, but the flame of faith and

love has never burned in your heart.

Your works, like you yourself, will re-

main dead and lifeless. You will des-

pair like an outcast in the wilderness,
and perish in your own wretchedness."

(p. 5)
In this scene the reader may be reminded both of Agnes'
girlish attempts to sketch the sacred epiphany of the Bleed-
ing Nun, leading to her later imprisonment and wretchedness,
or even of Ambrosio's despair in the wilderness after he has
failed to recognize the danger of the archetypal figurations
set in motion by the attempt to reproduce.

The dangerous qualities of the adult world are further
underlined when the youthful Medardus meets the Abbess. As
she embraces the child, she, too, leaves an ominous "impres-
sionfl'"[sie] hob mich auf und drfickte mich heftig an sich"
(p. 13L. The word "drucken" is interesting in this con-
text, since it means both a hard squeeze and a copy or
reproduction in terms of printing or artistic work: "she
lifted me up and pressed me tightly to herself. At that
moment I felt a sudden pain in my neck and gave a loud cry"

(p. 6L. Like a print block, the abbess' diamond crucifix

130

has reproduced itself in the bloody wound ("die Stelle ganz
rot und mit Blut unterlaufen war"lJL 14]) it inflicts on
Medardus' neck-—a stigma in the shape of a cross. The mark
Medardus receives implies a ritual wounding. ll;suggests
the wound Ambrosio received from the centipedero in the
garden, indicating his alteration from innocent to initiate,
and also reminds us Of the bloody sheets that seemed to
suggest the consummation of marriage and, of course, bloody
acts of reproduction in general. Medardus' ritual wound is
a potent initiatory image, related, perhaps, to the rite of
circumcision practiced among many societies and indicating
quite explicitly a "crossing" of two separate worlds of
experience, marked by the symbolic severing of "head" from
"bodyJ' Both in the Gothic context and in folklore the neck
is an extremely critical juncture of the anatomy. Animals
and people have been beheaded by severing the neck, hanged
by the neck, strangled and slit in the throat in various
ritual sacrifices and executions even into the twentieth
century.

The mark on the neck further indicates the imposition
of servitude or a ritual burden the initiate must bear. In
addition, it marks the bearer as a being "set apart" from
the others of his group because of his initiatory status in
connection with the "other" world of the gods, just as the
Wandering Jew is distinguished by a mark on his forehead.
Coleridgehs Ancient Mariner wears the Albatross around his
neck, setting him apart from his fellow voyagers and indi-

cating his participation in a trial-by-ordeal. The German

131

expression equivalent to the English "have on one's back" is
"haben am Halse" (have on one's neck). In fact, this mean-
ing is literally enacted inzilater scene, suggesting both
the original encounter with the abbess and the wider impli-
cations of an embrace between man and woman that wounds the
neck. Medardus' attempt to marry Aurelia is thwarted by the
sudden appearance of his double being led to the gallows
(where he will be hanged by the neck). This double
addresses Medardus in his usual double-talk fashion "Bride-
groom! Bridegroom!" (p. 226). The bridegroom attempts to
stab Aurelia, then flees into the forest after pushing the
mad monk out of the executioner's cart to take his place.
But in the forest he is mounted by his double in a bizarre
parody of a nuptial embrace, "a man sprang out of the bushes
and jumped on to my back, clinging to my neck. In vain, I
tried to shake him Off" (p. 227). Frantically, Medardus
tries to knock his assailant against the rocks and trees

at least to wound him so severely that

he would be forced to let me go. But he

laughed all the more hysterically, and I

was the one who received the wounds. I

tried to free his hands which were

locked together under my chin, but he

threatened to choke me. (p. 228)
Medardus, then, the intended bridegroom, is symbolically
raped by his double at the very moment when he was to have
consummated his own marriage with Aurelia. Is the reader to
assume that this burden that Medardus bears "am halse" pre-

vents him from entering into reproductive life except on the

metaphysical level? This image is further complicated when

132

Pietro later reveals that he was the "bride" who "carried"
Medardus on his wedding night, adding "I was your room-mate
and slept in that bed" (p. 233). Vampires also wound their
victims in the neck and these victims then become their
servants. Because the initial "witchmark" is imprinted on
Medardus by an embrace with a woman, this scene seems to
foreshadow the danger of sexual passion--a danger which
seems manifestly to indicate that an embrace between man and
woman necessarily forces a permanent separation between head
and body. In each case the wound is highly significant,
suggesting the bloody dangers--both physical and metaphy-
sical--of reproduction.

The cross mark also has other interesting implications
in Medardus' fate and the fate of those around him. It is
the mark by which Cyrillus identifies him as the former monk
of B. when he is in prison. Perhaps it is appropriate that
Cyrillus should emphasize the importance of this red mark on
the neck in identifying the reprobate monk, for later Cyril-
lus himself is beheaded-~a kind of literal enactment of the
ritual which Medardus' stigma signifies in metaphysical
terms. In a dream, this mark also appears to Medardus as an
apotrophaic device:

I pulled out my knife and made to plunge
it into my heart, but something made my
arm move higher and strike my neck; the
blade splintered against the mark of the
cross and I was left unscathed. (p. 190)
If we attribute the protective power merely to the Christian

force of the cross we are missing an important demonic

133
dimension of this event: witchmarks--the marks which ident-
ified witches and were supposed to have been made by their
succubi--were particularly notable for their resistance to
injury. Perhaps it is not altogether surprising that Martin
Luther cited Prussia (where much of Hoffmann's tale takes
place) as populated by demons when we begin to see the
evidence for devilishness even in the holiest of places:7
Initially Medardus decides to enter the monastery to

avoid the imminent threat of sexual reproduction. After
accidently glimpsing "the most beautiful breasts, both in
form and complexion, that one could imagine" (p. 15) be-
longing to the choirmaster's sister, Medardus feels a "sin-
ful lasciviousness" whenever he thinks Of her. This repre-
sentative of the mirror-world of the opposite sex literally
throws down the gauntlet, challenging Medardus to enter into
sexual behavior when she leaves her glove lying on the chair
near him at a social gathering. Her lover "took it and
pressed it madly to my lips" (p. 17). But he is observed by
the women who giggle over his erotic behavior; Medardus is
deeply affected:

An icy tremor pierced my heart, and

blindly I rushed over to the monastery

and into my cell.. .. By [dawn] I was

firmly resolved never to see her again

and to renounce the world altogether.

(p. 17)
Medardus' disastrous confrontation with the threat of physi-
cal reproduction hurls him back immediately into the protec-

tive seclusion of the monastery, evidently defeated by the

134
power of feminine charm and his fear of the glove's impli-
cations. Later, on Medardus' wedding night, it is in fact,
just after Aurelia has drawn on her gloves (suggesting that
earlier fearful incident) that Medardus sees his double and
escapes after attempting to stab her.

The glove provides a reminder of a significant aspect
of Lewis' novel: the disabled hand as symbol of sexual
fall. Ambrosio, of course, was bitten by the centipedero in
the hand when Matilda persuaded him to pick the rose for
her. His disabled hand led directly to his sexual init-
iation. Later on, another disabled hand, this time attached
to the statue of St. Clare, points to the locale of the
sexual offender, Agnes. The hand may suggest the possibil-
ity of injury to another organ representing power, the
phallus, and thereby the possibility that sexual activity
leads to death or the symbolic death Of castration. The
Hindu Goddess, Kali, for example, wears a necklace of human
hands indicating her bloody maternal power, a motif that
appears to be directly related to mythic material which
represents powerful female deities castrating their consorts
after they have been made pregnant by them.8 With this
image of the dangers of sexuality in mind, we can begin to
fathom the meaning of the shrivelling of Medardus' left arm
when he pours the poison down his sleeve which is offered to
him after Cyrillus' beheading. Significantly, he notes the
similarity of this corrosive poison to that previously of-
fered him by the witch—woman, Euphemia.

It is likely, at any rate, that even if Medardus does

135

not recognize the symbolic significance of this glove both
as representative of a severed hand and as a common bawdy
metaphor for the vagina,9 he does remember the dubious
results of his own father's attempts to reproduce, which
resulted in death at the moment the child was born, as well
as the frightening associations Of symbolic reproduction
expressed by the Old Painter and the incident with the
Abbess in his childhood. For the moment, then, Medardus
denies the archetypal implications of the glove, retreating
to a womb-like sacred precinct. The reproductive act that
has been denied on the physical plane, however, soons
spring31u>everywhere around the monk on thetnetaphysical
level, focusing on the "bottled up" contents of the myster-
ious devil's elixir which Cyrillus gives into his keeping.

The choice of the word "elixir" to describe the con-
tents of the bottle is interesting in several respects. We
immediately notice that the word "elixir" seems slightly out
of place in connection with the devil, for the elixir has
been generally imagined to be the key to life (Often a
synonym for the Philosopher's stone) and associated with
health, longevity and general well-being. Longevity, how-
ever, reminds us of immortality, while emphasizing the woes
of life imposed as a perpetual burden on the undead like the
Bleeding Nun, the Old Painter and the Wandering Jew. Medi-
cines Of Hoffmann's era were often termed "elixirs" indica-
ting their positive status, but of course there is always a
negative aspect to the notion of patent medicine which

suggests the tricks of the quack doctor--indeed a common

136

motif in literature. The idea of an elixir was also assoc-
iated with a love potion so that we have a contemporary
opera entitled The Elixin of Loye by Donizetti (1832).
Hence the word "elixiere" or "elixirs" is associated with
the product of alchemical endeavors as well as a love po-
tion. Both associations are, of course, relevant in the
context of Hoffmann's novel.

While the title of Hoffmann's novel is The Ceyills
Elixins, for the figure of the mad-monk they are Si; An:
ihonyls elixirs. As he tells Leonardus, '"you yourself
know, Saint Anthony, how I drank your accursed potion'" (p.
304). This inversion suggests that for the mirror-world it
is St. Anthony, not Satan, who is the tempter. Similarly,
when Medardus moves into the mad monk's perspective, as for
example, during Aurelia's ordination ceremony, he, too,
views the scene from this inverted perspective declaring of
the abbess,

"Perhaps she is a saintly abbess, for
she was always.so austere that the af-
fairs Of earth never seemed to touch
her. .But to me she seems like a heathen
priestess, preparing to draw her knife
and perform the human sacrifice." (p.
309)

This irony evokes the systolic and diasystolic motions
of the Hermetic impulse: if we are convinced that the de-
vil's elixir is only a fine, old wine with imagined dia-
bolical properties, we are likely to find our comfortable

conclusions exploded In! the intrusion of inexplicable

events. If, however, we insist upon its status as an

137

authentic relic of a saint's temptation, we may be disap-
pointed to discover that it tastes surprisingly like Old
wine and has no more effect than the exhilaration ordinary
wines produce. As in Lewis' successive versions of the
appearance--or non-appearance--of Elvira's ghost, then, the
reader's expectations are continually undercut and over-
turned as new perspectives are revealed.

The main function of the elixirs seems, however, to be
in relation to the peculiar multiplication, particularly of
Medardus, which occurs throughout the text, but most notably
after the elixirs are given into his care. In order to
understand the way in which Hoffmann uses reproduction to
evoke a variety of mythic, physiological and historical
states, we need to look closely at the role of this St.
Anthony, who supposedly received the bottle of elixirs from
the devil. The name of Anthony underlines an interesting
incongruity which forms a portion of the underlying mythic
assumptions in the stories of both Ambrosio and Medardus:
not just one but iuo Anthonys are invoked in the tales of
these aberrent, eloquent monks tempted by devils.

Both Medardus and Ambrosio are particularly noted for
their extraordinary eloquence which makes them such popular
preachers that the churches are hard pressed to find space
for the huge congregations that flock to hear them. In
addition to their associations with Hermes, the clever ora-
tor, these traits relate most clearly to the medieval St.
Anthony of Padua, a pilgrim and preacher who died at the

convent of the Poor Clares in Arcella in 1231. An

138

eighteenth-century writer of this saint's life describes the
occasion upon which Anthony first preached during an ordina-
tion ceremony when the scheduled speaker failed to appear:

as no one was capable of filling [the

speaker's place] St. Antony, who was

present, was told to come forward and

speak whatever the Holy Ghost should put

into his mouth. Very diffidently he

obeyed; but once he had begun, he deli-

vered an address which amazed all who

heard it by its eloquence, itsofervour,

and the learning it displayed.
After this, Antony's preaching gained an enormous following.
As our saint's-life historian explains, "often the churches
could not hold the congregations [which came to hear him
preach]."11 Clearly the characters of both Medardus and Am—
brosio exemplify the miraculous oratorical skills of St.
Anthony of Padua in their ability to charm their audiences.
Anthony is also summoned up in Medardus'ccnstant travels
from one place to another, for St. Anthony is described as

"travelling ceaselessly,"12

almost like a saintly counter-
part of the Wandering Jew-like painter who plays such a
strong mythic role in Hoffmann's novel.

But when we look at the mythic contexts of the stories
of Ambrosio and Medardus, we notice another, even more ob-
vious attribute of these eloquent monks: their association
with the devil. This aspect reflects an earlier St. An-
thony. Brother Cyrillus tells Medardus a little of this
saint's history when he hands him the keys to the chest

containing the elixir:

139
"[Saint Anthony] went into the wilder-
ness and submitted to the most rigorous
discipline of penance and devotion. Sa-
tan pursued him and often came into his
presence with the intention of dis-
turbing his pious meditations.
"On one occasion Saint Anthony noticed
a dark figure creeping up on him in the
twilight. As the figure came closer he
saw to his surprise that bottles were
sticking out of the holes in the tat-
tered cloak that the figure was wearing.
It was Satan." (p. 23)
Cyrillus goes on to explain that the devil carried soxnany
bottles, as he told St. Anthony because "'Among so many
elixirs [the person who meets him] will always find one that
suits his palate. He drains the bottle, and surrenders him-
self to me and my kingdonfl" (p. 23). When Satan left, a few
of these bottles of elixirs remained on the grass. St.
Anthony hid them in his cave for fear someone would drink
them; and the monastery eventually fell heir to this bottle.
This material about St. Anthony obviously reflects the
legendary story of St.Anthony of Egypt who was, from his
lifetime onward, particularly associated with diabolical
temptation. The third-century St. Anthony was a desert-
dwelling hermit whom tradition credits with resisting a mul-
titude of diabolical temptations from devils in various
guises. Not surprisingly, one of the most significant
temptations was to lust--the temptation to which Matilda and
Aurelia and later Antonia and Aurelia--subject their respec-
tive monks, St..Athanasius describes this portion of An—

thony's trial: "The wretched devil even dared to masquerade

as a woman by night and to impersonate such in every

140

possible way, merely in order to deceive Antony."13 Like
most devils, Anthony's Satan is an expert shape-shifter and
illusionist. Constantly beset by diabolical forces in his
wilderness retreat, Anthony once saw in a vision "the whole
earth covered so thick with snares that it seemed scarce
possible to set down a foot without being entrappedflflu
Indeed the trial of a would-be monk in a world full of traps
crawling with demonic forces on every side seems a particu-
larly appropos image for Hoffmann's subject.

There are other associations, too, which make St. An-
thony an appropriate focal point for these double visions of
the late eighteenth and early nineteeth century. The Egyp-
tian St. Anthony is particularly associated with the disease
of epidemic proportions, St. Anthony's Fire, which broke out
across Europe about the time the saint's relics were brought
there. St. Anthony's fire has particularly significant
symptomsiin light both of the traditional role of St. An-
thony and later literary interpretations of it. The disease
arises from the ingestion of ergot, a fungus inhabiting rye
grains. This fungus is the source of a drug familiar to the
twentieth century as LSD--a source of confusing quasi-reli-
gious visions and a variety of hallucinogenic effects. The
hallucinations associated with eating ergot must certainly
have persuaded medieval people that the devil was beseiging
them-~perhaps, like St. Anthony--to try their faith.

There is much, too, in the Anthony legend which sug-
gests the trials of Job in the contest between Satan and

God, intimating some of the ambiguity Hoffmann emphasizes

141

between the identities of Good and Evil. Hoffmann's Medar-
dus flagellates himself and Butler explains how Anthony was
frightened and harassed by Satan:

[the devil] so grievously beat [St. An-

thony] that he lay almost dead, and in

this condition was found by his friend.

When he began to come to himself Antony

cried out to God,'Where wast thou, my

Lord and Master? Why wast thou not here

from the beginning of this conflict to

render me assistance?' A voice an-

swered, "Antony, I was here the whole

time; I stood by thee and beheld thy

combat; and because thou hast manfully

withstood thy enemies, I will always

protect thee, and will rendeq thy name

famous throughout the earthJ' 5

Hence this legend also relates to the Romantic interest
in the long-suffering Job, a figure inspiring literature
from Blake to Jung and particularly relevant to an essential
Romantic question about God's apparent collusion with the
devil.

Perhaps because of the outbreaks of St. Anthony's Fire,
medieval artists were particularly fond of picturing An—
thony's Temptation, usually in a great panoramic vision of
inverted, grotesque and diabolical figures surrounding the
serene saint. The saint generally occupies no more than a
small part of the picture, the remainder being dedicated to
some quite amazing exercises in imaginative beings, many of
which display the traditional diabolical attributes of faces
in the place of genitals and/or anus, human and animal

anatomy combined, or female and male sexual characteristics

on the same body. Just such a vision appears to Medardus

142
himself shortly after he confesses his sins to the prior of

the monastery in Italy:

There was a confused rustling and whis-
pering; people I had known before ap-
peared, madly distorted; heads crawled
about with grasshoppers' legs growing
out of their ears, and leering at me ob-
scenely; strange birds, ravens with
human heads, were beating their wings
overhead. I saw the choirmaster from B.
and his sister, who was wildly dancing a
waltz while her brother accompanied her
by playing on his breast, which had
become a fiddle.. .. The chaos became
madder and madder, the figures more and
more weird, from the smallest ant dan-
cing with human feet to the elongated
skeleton of a horse with glittering
eyes, its skin a saddle-cloth on which
was sitting a knight with a shining
owl's-head; his armor was a mug with the
bottom knocked out, his helmet a funnel
turned upside down. The jests of hell
were being played upon earth.. .. Then
the rabble dispersed and the figure of a
woman appeared.. .. Aurelia.

. .. . In lustful frenzy I threw my
arms round her. . . . but there was a
burning pain against my breast, coarse
bristles plucked at my eyes, and Satan
screeched with delight. (pp. 245—6)

One artist who drew heavily upon this medieval tradi-
tion of grotesque vision was the seventeeth-century painter
Jacques Callot, whose drawings are the basis for one of
Hoffmann's tales, "Princess Brambilla" (1820). In fact,
Hoffmann's four-volume collection of tales (1814-1815) is
entitled Eaniasiesinok in Callohs Manien. Hoffmann would
have been familiar with Callotfis renditions of "The Temp-
tation of St. Anthony" which were in the Bamberg collection;
it is generally assumed, too, that the monastery referred

to by Medardus as "B." is that of Bamberg. The Editor's

143

Preface suggests the mystical quality of the artistic vi-
sions which may have included Callot's Temptation, "The air
throbs with the mystic thrill of the wonderful legends which
the paintings portray, and willingly you believe that every-
thing is really happening before your eyes" (p. 1). Cal-
lot's version of the Temptation (Figure 1), like those of
his predecessors, seems to depict a world in which the fami-
liar is metamorphosed into the unfamiliar--a parody of God's
creation is echoed in this prolific diabolical anti-creation
which seems rooted more in the imagery of dream and
hallucination than in ordinary experience. The distorted
unreal reality and internalized vision of artists like Cal-
lot, undoubtedly familiar to Hoffmann, is thus re-inter-
preted--or translated-~into the medium of the novel, thereby
engendering;a further multiplicity in the reproduction of
the original experience. Thus Hoffmann's images of multi-
plicity are both direct descendents of the original St.
Anthony legend and diabolical doubles of it: the duplicity
of the experience of St. Anthony in Hoffmann's novel dove-
tails into the complexity of St. Anthony and his double, the
devil, as well as the difficulty of St. Anthony and his
double, St. Anthony. If this complexity is confusing to
readers, it must also have been confusing to Medieval and
later Catholics who no doubt had difficulty distinguishing
an Anthony with an eloquent devil from an eloquent Anthony
who wandered ceaselessly like the damned.

Before leaving the subject of saints, we need to look

briefly at the legends from which the names of Medardus and

144

Figure l: Callot's Temptation '95 St. Anthony

 

145

Rosalia are derived. Medardus, a medieval saint, has an
interesting relationship with Rosalia in a traditional rite
in his native town of Salency:

Annually on the feast of St. Medard the

maiden who has been judged to be the

most exemplary in the district is es-

corted by twelve boys and twelve girls

to the1€hurch where she is crowned with

roses.

Two other traits Of this medieval saint seem relevant
in connection with Hoffmann's treatment of the material in
Elixins: Medardus is sometimes "represented with St. Gil-
dard, who is erroneously described as his twin brother"17
and the saint was "depicted in the middle ages laughing
inanely with his‘mouth wide open."18 Both these latter
traits forcibly remind us of Medardus' insane double, Count
Viktor.

Rosalia, a rather obscure and early saint, is chiefly
noted for paradigmatic virginity and her long-term residence
in a cave. In these traits she is scarcely like Hoffmann's
Aurelia, who, though a virgin, is no austere hermitess.
There is, however, a cave associated with the preservation
of the child of the sorceress/Venus figure in the Old Pain-
ter's narrative, which may relate to this legend and cer-
tainly makeszniinteresting connection between Virgin and
Venus--both of whom traditionally give birth without the
apparent aid of a normal male consort. We do know that
Rosalia's saint day, September 4, is the date of Aurelia's

death, and, a year later, Medardus' death.

146

We can see, then, that the saint's legends which must
have been familiar to Hoffmann19 were tightly integrated
into the context of Elixins, though never in a literal,
allegorical mannen. Thus, when Medardus equates himself
with St. Anthony or the Old Pilgrim in the Holy Linden with
Joseph and the marvellous boy with Jesus (p. 26), we know
that he has succumbed already to the temptation the tutor
will Offer in reducing the possible dimensions of a
miraculous experience to a one-to-one equation.

Medardus is clearly identified with St..Anthony at sev-
eral points in the narrative, but most particularly when he
cries out after seeing the figure behind the pillar,'"I AM
ST. ANTHONYI'" (p. 29). This is an interesting incident in
its ambiguous relationship with its predecessor Ihe.flonk.
Hiding behind a similar column, Lorenzo saw "a man wrapped
up in his cloak" (The Monk. p. 29) leave a letter for Agnes.
This incident in which a spectator accidently intrudes on a
mystery in which he is intrinsically involved sets the stage
for the rest of the events in Lewis' novel, closely knitting
together the destinies of all the main characters. In Hof-
fmann's tale, the appearance of the spectator "wearing a
purple cloak over his shoulders in a strange, foreign fa-
shion, his arms folded inside it" (p. 28), also suggests the
intrusion of a spectator and the promise of a revelation.
SymbolicalLy, a cloak suggests a veil and typically intro-
duces an inhabitant of a different realm of existence or
mirror-world. The dead are often pictured as returning from

the grave veiled, shrouded or cloaked to suggest both their

147

apartness from the realm which they are visiting and their
mysterious other-worldly knowledge. The stranger's "for-
eign" manner further underlines this juxtaposition of
worlds, just as the foreign manner of the Wandering Jew in
The Monk identifies him as a denizen of a different level of
existence, "TBy his accent He is supposed to be a Foreigner,
but of what Country nobody can tell'" (The Monk, p. 167). A
multiplicity of different images are thus generated by this
enigmatic cloaked figure. While on one hand he represents
the evidently-benign Old Painter, Medardus apparently sees
in him a diabolical impersonator:

[I] fortified myself with fervant pray-

ers to fight the tempter who had ap-

peared to me even on consecrated ground,

taking upon himself in brazen scorn the

form of the devout painter from the Holy

Linden. (p. 29)
Presumably Medardus in identifying himself as Anthony must
take the painter for the devil. Later on, though, the pain-
ter is equated with St. Anthony.

The implications of Hoffmann's deliberate (and often
frustrating) ambiguity in contexts like this seem to have a
direct relation to his emphasis on the tendency of mythic
figures to change places with characters and each other
without any apparent reason. More frighteningly, these fi-
gures can also possess the spectator of the drama who has
believed himself safely exempt from their influence. Hence,
Lorenzo, who started out with idle curiosity found himself
the star of the show. Here, too, the watcher behind the

148
pillar is in several senses the progenitor of the events
whether we see him (as Medardus thinks) as the devil or (as
Medardus' double thinks) St. Anthony or (as the reader may
later believe) the Old Painter who is the ancestor of Medar-
dus and has, like the Wandering Jew or Bleeding Nun, re-
mained in the realm of the living long after he should have
departed. And we may even want to see him as Hoffmann
himself keeping editorial watch over his creations at the
critical junctures of their lives. Certainly in many senses
this puzzling figure performs explanatory functions ordi-
narily associated with editors and narrators and his Herm-
etic volatility is in some sense accounted for by his var-
ious stages of repulsion and attraction to his creations.
And, Of course, as unseen spectators, we, too, are the
devils that hound Medardus, the doubles that understand his
hidden motives and the watchers who unexpectedly find our-
selves caught up in an enactment of our own secret drama.
Perhaps the most crucial scene in Elixins occurs just
after Medardus leaves the shelter of the monastery (letting
himself, like the elixirs, out of the bottle). Fortified by
the devil's elixirs, Medardus moves out into a fallen wil-
derness unlike the Edenic Holy Linden of his infancy:
I found myself standing on the edge Of a
fearful precipice. A rushing stream,
whose thunderous roar I had heard in the
distance, plunged between two rocky pin-
nacles into the gorge below.
Only a few feet from the torrent, on
a ledge of rock protruding over the

ravine, lay a young man in uniform . . .
he seemed to be asleep and gradually

149
falling further and further over the
edge.
I moved towards him. As I was about
to catch hold of him to stop him from
falling, I shouted:
"Wake up, for God's sake! Wake up!"
As soon as I touched him, he awoke
from his slumber, but in the same in-
stant he lost his balance and hurtled
down into the gorge, his shattered limbs
cracking as they were hurled from rock
to rock. (p. 45)
This scene seems very close to the final scene in The Monk
where Ambrosio is hurled into the Sierra Morenas by the
devil who has likewise "awakened" him as to the mythic
meanings of his actions. Here, then, Medardus acts as the
devil who hurls the unfortunate sleeper into the abyss of
another existence as a monk. Lewis suggested in his novel
that Ambrosio was born for the military, to be a noble
leader of men, not a humble monk; Medardus here gets the
opportunity to experiment with life as a nobleman while
remaining a monk, for Victor had intended to disguise him-
self as a monk in order to carry on his affair with Eu-
phemia. Medardus, Count Victor, and a third figure, Hermo-
genes, who has recently traded his military goals for monas-
tic ones, all appear in the successive scenes at Euphemia's
home in a confusing array that suggests the prolific diabol-
ical profusion of St. Anthony's Temptation. But who is the
Saint and who are the devils?
I have elaborated on the earlier portion of The Elixins
at length because I believe that in many respects the intro-

ductory portion of Medardus' story serves as a paradigm for

the transformations and metamorphoses that characterize the

150

remainder of the novel. The richness and depth of Hoff-
mann's procreative imagination demonstrated in his handling
of the St. Anthony material or his apparent borrowings from
The Monk continue to characterize the later scenes and the
earlier material constantly sets the stage for recurrence
and repetition. Let us then consider how Hoffmann's treat-
ment of one set of reproductive images permeates the text of
the novel from its outset to its ending. Gothic images
breach expected boundaries with amazing facility, evoking
the art and literature, as well as the mentality, of osten-
sibly-remote times and places. Pictures that step out of
their frames effectively underline the metaphorical sympathy
between the literal frame and the "frame oftnindfl' Hence
when Hoffmann shows us the crowd in the church shouting

"A miracle! Axniraclel. .. Do you see

the old man in the purple cloak? He

stepped out of the picture above the

altar! We saw it with our own eyes!"

(p. 313)
he simultaneously reproduces images of art-come-tO-life from
Lewis' Monk and ifs ancestor The Casile of Cinanho in which
an ancestral figure similarly exits its frame at a critical
juncture of the plot. He also reproduces the "prior" ment-
ality associated in Romantic fiction with peasants, mobs and
other representatives of an earlier, myth-based mentality.
In addition, he reproduces the seminal scene at the church
when Medardus proclaimed that he was St. Anthony.

Why should a picture step out of its frame? Perhaps

because its frame is too small to contain the content the

151

image expresses. The image in the frame, like the image in
the mirror, can never be completely isolated from the proto-
type which gave birth to it. And just as humankind becomes
conscious of itself through reflection, so the reflected
image serves to define what is human. In this sense every
picture--whether a painting, a portrait drawn in literature,
or the image produced by Pietro's art--transcends the merely
two-dimensional to "cross" into the third dimension of an
inferred correspondence between spectator and image or
reader and text. Hoffmann constantly undercuts the impulse
to limit and define art, suggesting on both the literal and
metaphorical planes what Pietro tells Medardus about art:

"Art is not so much the Art about which

people are always talking as all that

actually emerges from what people call

Art" (pp. 88-9)
Thus, when the Old Painter tries to paint an icon of a saint
to order, what "emerges" is Venus, a Pagan whore, as she is
understood by his society. Later on, the painter attacks
the boys' juvenile attempts to reproduce, implying that they
are unaware of the dangers they are inviting. Ultimately
his own frightful amour with his diabolical mistress leads
him to promote the obliteration of sexual reproduction in
his descendents. Ostensibly, this is due to their inces-
tuous attractions for each other. But we also know that it
is the only way the Painter can cease his wanderings, for he
has been told by a (presumably) heavenly voice that he must

prolong his existence'“so long as his stem continues to

152
multiply in sin and wickedness”'(p. 260). Indeed, Medardus
accomplishes this goal for him by being instrumental in the
death or cloistering of every descendent of the Painter's
union with Venus.

Sexual reproduction in Medardus' life--despite his
physical attraction to Aurelia--is eventually sublimated to
the imaginary and, finally, the literary level. While it is
evident that in every marriage a virgin is sacrificed to the
"knife" when consummation takes place, so that the girl may
give way to the expectant mother, in Medardus' story at
least, this scene suggests the sacrifice of the sexually-
reproductive Medardus for the sake of the symbolically-
reproductive Medardus, who writes literature. Perhaps this
is the reason that the Capuchin is only able to free his id-
double from the stones Maaist-highd' By his alliance with
the limiting powers of heaven, Medardus is forced to sepa-
rate and segregate the lower faculties that the energetic-
but-inarticulate double seems to embody. This paradoxical
sacrifice of the "lower" self is suggested in a symbolic
vision.

While Medardus is recovering from the effects of the
poison he has poured into his sleeve after Cyrillus' be-
heading, he has a significant dream of his own martyrdom
that hints at the ultimate reproductive implications of his
experience:

[I] imagined myself stabbed to the
heart. .. . I was lying alone in the

garden of the monastery at B. Instead
of blood, a repulsive, colourless fluid

153

poured from the gaping wound, and a
voice said: 'Is that the blood of a
martyr? Let me purify this foul water
and colour it, so that the fire which
has conquered light may crown the hero!'
It was I who spoke these words, but with
the feeling that I had parted company
with my dead self came the realisation
that I was the disembodied Spirit of my
personality, appearing as a red glow in
the sky. I soared upwards to the glit-
tering mountain-peaks and sought to
enter my castle-home, but lightning rent
the vault of heaven, and I fell back.
(pp.286-7)

This vision is first of all strongly reminiscent of the
initial "fall" scene in Lewis' Monk in which Ambrosio, lying
ill after being bitten by the centipedero, is seduced by
Matilda. The out-Of-the-body sequence in Hoffmann's tale
likewise evokes Ambrosio's final flight above the Sierra
Morenas and his literal fall to death. The conflict between
fire and light, then, seems to conjure up the traditional
antipathy between the fire of hell (and sexual passion) and
the light of heaven (and the reflective thought and medi-
tation proper to monastic life). Thus, the "foul water,"
which is evidently equated with the body and hell might be
construed as seminal fluid. The red glow, which is sepa-
rated from the body and appearstx>be necessary to produce
blood of the proper color for a martyr, however, is unable
to find its home in heaven apart from the body. The spir-
it's lofty aspirations, like those of Ambrosio and the
mythic Icarus, lead only to a devastating fall. The split-
off body reproaches Medardus' spiritual self, '"Blind,
foolish Spirit! There is no conflict between light

154

and fire, for light is the ordeal by fire and will be accom-
plished through the blood which you are seeking to poison"'
(p. 287). The "blood" which the body seems to refer to,
however, is the repulsive fluid Medardus has rejected, not
the disembodied spiritual glow he would like to achieve. As
a matter of fact, Medardus' rejection of fire for light (or
his embracing of red blood over foul water) seems arbitrary
and ironic, since we generally consider light and fire
concomitant entities. In fact, the existence of light pre-
supposes the existence of fire, just as the existence of.a
reflection presupposes an original. This relationship has
posed some difficult theological quandaries, since the fire
of hell suggests a great deal of accompanying light yet hell
is largely pictured.as a dark place. Heaven, on the other
hand, can hardly be hot enough to be as bright as it seems
traditionally to have been pictured. Can heaven be a re-
flection of hellish fire? Here the paradoxical separation
of light and fire, spirit and semen, heaven and hell under-
lines the irony of their intrinsic interdependence.

As Medardus' spiritual self falls, his double mater-
ializes, coaxing "Come with me, Little Brother Medardus . .
. come with me!" (p. 287) and Medardus moves from the "up-
per" to the "lower" perspective. The heavenly vision of the
Holy Linden with "neither the buzzing of flies or the chir-
ruping of crickets" (p. 4) is inverted: a sound arises "as
if swarms of poisonous insects had been stirred by the south
wind and were attacking the flowering grain" (p. 288). But

Medardus knows that the dream will "soothe and heal my

155
bleeding wound" (p. 288). Momentarily, Aurelia appears to
confirm "It is not the fire that has conquered, for there is
no conflict between light and fire. Fire is the Word, which
transfigures the sinful" (p. 288).

As the vision recedes, Medardus, with his usual polari-
zing self-confidence, proclaims, "Now I knew the temptation
of the Devil" (p. 288). The reader, however, can scarcely
guess what Medardus has learned, unless it is that the Word
construed as writing literature--with its resonance of the
Hermetic logos--will be the means by which Medardus lit-

erally re-collects his disparate selves.

Reproduction of Time and Space

Critics who have dealt with Hoffmann'sunaterial tend to
make far too many assumptions about the continuity of Medar-
dus' identity. Since the material is set up in what appears
to be a linear narrative, it is certainly natural that a
reader should expect continuity. However, such a concept
is, I believe, severely undercut by the content of the
narrative itself, particularly after the incident in which
Victor falls from the cliff. In order to observe more
closely the pitfalls of any assumption of usual linear
progression in this narrative, let us digress for a moment
to consider Hoffmann's handling of time in the novel. This
may give us some sense Of an over-all pattern of the rela-
tionships he describes.

Keppler in his study of the double includes an

156
enlightening chapter on the relationship between peculiari-
ties in the movement of time and the doppelganger pheno-

menon.20

His observations, however, seem relevant only to
those situations in which a doppelganger evidently repre-
sents the primary self at a different stage of existence,
some incidences of which we have already observed in The
Elikins; he does not mention Hoffmann's particular temporal
inconsistencies. Therefore, it will be essential in this
discussion of time to suggest some Of the further repercus-
sions of time "out of joint" as Hoffmann presents it.

The Monk includes a number of characters who are in a
sense exempted from time--whether because they are impri-
soned, unconscious<n~ill or because some (presumablyfi Di-
vine command has prolonged their earthly existence when they
should have been buried. As we have seen, the juxtaposition
of the mythic, circular time of the past, poetry and the
Catholic religion with.modern linear, progressive notions
seems to be a significant underlying cause of the conflicts
of understanding in that novel. Again, Hoffmann crystal-
lizes a tendency already present in the genre, by locating
the time-discrepancies in the structure of the novel itself,
a tendency that James Hogg and many later writers would
exploit effectively in connection with the doubling motif.
We can notice this "time warp" particularly in the dates
Hoffmann gives for certain incidents and relationships. The
Old Painter was supposed to have been a pupil of Leonardo,
who died in 1519, yet he is the great-great grandfather of

Medardus, who died three centuries later--certainly some

157

time before the date of the novel's publication. Moreover,
Aurelia explains in her letter that she saw Lewis' novel The
Monk in German translation on her brother's table, the
reading of which led her to wonder whether her lover was
also an evil and lustful monk. The first German translation
of this novel was in 1797; the date of Medardus' death is
recorded as 17--, giving only two years for the events
occuring between Medardus' sojourn at Euphemia's house and
his death--one year of which was the year after Aurelia's
death during which this manuscript was composed--not nearly
enough time for these incidents to have happened, it would
seem.21

In another instance, if we are to identify Count Viktor
with the mad monk whom the gamekeeper found wandering in the
forest, we must notice that two years have passed since
Medardus precipitated the Count's fall Off the cliff. But
it scarcely seems possible that so much time as this has
intervened and if the dates of 1797 and 17-- are to be taken
literally, it is impossible. Can these discrepancies be
merely flaws in the novel, "ill-advised" as Hewett-Thayer
pronounces? Or do they suggest another mode of reckoning
time or perhaps the collapsing and duplicating of time in
keeping with the alternations of several beings with one
identity and one being with several identities we have seen
throughout our examination of Hoffmann's technique?

11:13 certainly possible at some points.to see events

recurring in such a way that time seems to have taken a

different route than usual. For example, when the monk

158

Medardus meets Hermogenes he is just about to discard his
monk-self for his man-of-the-world.selfz Hermogenes has
just discarded his man-of-the-world self for his monk self.
The gamekeeper who cares for the mad monk explains that
incidents very much like those at Euphemia's house took
place at his lodge, with the young hired man Franz inter-
rupting the monk's attempt to rape his daughter much as
Hermogenes interupted Medardus' attempt to ravish Aurelia.
These incidents in turn hearken back to Ambrosio's attempts
to rape Antonia and Raymond's sojourn in the house of the
robbers in the forest, collapsing the material of the two
novels as well as the internal time of Elixins.

Another instance of ambiguous time involves the inci-
dents toward the end of each volume of Hoffmann's novel in
which Aurelia is stabbed or supposed1x3have been stabbed.
The second of these incidents, which takes place at Aure-
liafls ordination is certainly parallel to--perhaps even a
reproduction of--the first, It would even be possible to
say that the second version was simply a description of the
events that took place from a different point of view.

Concerns of time and space are always very near to one
another so that it is often difficult to say whether the
text is actually dealing with a time or a space discrepancy.
For example, we could say that Medardus'father"s death at
the time of his birth indicated an inability for both to
exist at the same time or the same place. In Elixins there
is constant confusion over 3pace--confusion rather like that

in a dream in which we can be several places and people at

159

the same time. This rampant visionary quality has even led
Horst Daemmerich to theorize:

It is quite possible that the visions Of

love, incest and salvation as well as

the hallucinations Of alter egos, crime

and atonement are projections of Medar-

dus' tortured mind while he remains

immured in his cell.‘22
Of course, this is perfectly possible, but not an especially
important concern for Hoffmann. 11‘we relegate Medardus'
vision to "only" a dream, we have failed to deal meaning-
fully with its interlocking images Of time and space: why,
we need to ask, should time and space be so distorted in a
dream? And why should Hoffmann go to such pains to evoke
this distortion?

While Medardus is at the gamekeeper's house, an inci-
dent occurs which demonstrates the significant "crossing" of
time and space, as if a special door had been momentarily
Opened. Medardus, while hunting with the gamekeeper, does
not even shoot in the correct direction but brings down two
birds. It would appear that we are dealing with a syn-
chronic event which behaves outside the ordinary rules Of
temporal and spatial continuity and cannot be contained by
them. Here, time and space fit together symbolically as the
hand fits the glove. Medardus, however, flees from this
apparent meshing of cosmic gears, fearing, it*would seem,
the loss of free will. In The Elikins, however, it is not
the loss Of choice that entraps, but rather the insistence

upon alignment with one component of an interlocking system

160
over another. Perhaps Medardus would like to be able to tip
one domino without disturbing the others upon which it
depends. The spatial arrangement of the narrative itself,
though, constantly undercuts such expectations by drawing
ever-widening circles Of reverberation.

In my previous chapter I suggested the boxed structure
of narratives like that of Marguerite, whose tale is told
inside Raymond's which is in turn inside the Editor's, had a
tendency to create time-confusion. Here an internalized
boxing structure has the same effect of infinite regression
as Euphemia confides to Medardus that she has "'the power to
step outside [herself] and view [herself] from without . . .
Is there anything greater than to control life from within
life itself?"'(p. 66). Medardus immediately realizes that
she is in fact completely at his mercy, since he is not
really the person she thinks he is. And the author and
reader in turn share this power to effectively stand outside
and see the events, believing, no doubt, that they, tOO,
have complete power over their respective decisions to write
or to read.

The convergence of presumably separate times and spaces
is likewise evoked by the spatial relations between the Old
Painter's manuscript and Medardus,' which is wrapped up in
it both literally and metaphorically. These are further
enfolded in the Editor's explanation. Moreover, when the
prior places the manuscript in Medardus' hands he explains
that "'all the confused scribblings which it contains only

seemed to me to be fanciful sketches and did not become

161

intelligible until you, my dear Brother Medardus, had made
your confession to me'" (p. 249). In presenting these
materials to the reader, however, the Editor promises to
make Meoannnsl story intelligible. Once more we are re-
minded Of the incestuous sympathy between images which Opens
infinitely-regressing doors into and through one version to
another, complementary one.

At the conclusion of Hoffmann's first volume, the iden-
titiescfi‘the mad monk and Medardus mingle confusingly in
the scene in which the naked monk rides his counterpart. A
further confusion of time/space identity is put forward in
the second volume where Pietro indicates that it was he who
carried Medardus to the madhouse:'“It cost me no little
effort to carry you'" (p. 238). Later on, he describes
Medardus' condition at the time of their arrival at the
madhouse. The description seems to correspond with Medar-
dusfl description of the mad monk who hung about his neck:

"your head drooped limply on your

breast, and when anyone tried to make

you stand erect, you wobbled about like

a badly-made skittle. Your speech, too,

was most pitiful; you became confound-

edly monosyllabic and said, in your more

enlightened moments: 'HOO, hoo!' and

'Me--Me'" (p. 239).
In another, much later, incident, Medardus is witness to
Cyrillus' beheading and is given poison to drink which he
believes is the same sort Euphemia offered him. Thus, this

incident seems parallel to the earlier incident in which

Medardus killed the monk Hermogenes with a knife and again

162
avoided poisoning by exchanging cups with the poisoner.

The clock gives each minuteeits alloted sixty seconds
whether it is the night before our execution or the night
before Christmas; neither fiction nor thought does this.
Hence the move from a tale told by an external narrator to a
novel with an autobiographical pretense emphasizes the shift
to a mental clock which merges, distorts, and re-arranges
the actors and events of physical space and time. Perhaps
it also suggests that the way in which the events of ordi-
nary time are re-envisioned relates mental time more closely
to mythic time as it is understood in folklore and supersti-
tious tales so that the symbolic meaning Of an event
overides the considerations of the amount of space or time
it occupies. Thus, the major hallmarks of life's passages--
birth, circumcision, marriage/ordination, parenthood and
death--which actually occupy only minute spans of time
within one's total existence would assume major importance
in the scheme of life or the scheme of fiction. In mythic
time, they would be seen as concomitant rhythms: birth
necessitates death as death necessitates birth--neither is
the superior position; in linear time they would simply
represent a movement from the lowest to highest development
of the individual like that suggested on the species level
in Darwin's theory of evolution.

Spatial ambiguity may similarly be understood in terms
of its reference point. The traditional Seven Directions of
Space, i.e., zenith, nadir, north, south, east, west and

here, can be described in either relative (mythic) or

163

absolute (empirical) terms. These designations would cor-
respond tO the Medieval distinction between a geocentric and
a heliocentric conception of the earth's importance in the
solar system. If Medardus, as our point-of-reference for
the majority of the tale, constitutes "here," then the
figures revolving around this "hub" may be defined as
"above", "below", "left," "right," "before" or "behind"
variously, depending upon the central figure's current or-
ientation.11, on the other hand, we define space in abso-
lute terms, Medardus' presence in any particular place will
have no bearing on the relative positions of these other
"planets." It is evident from this scheme that Hoffmann's
presentation of spatial data leans heavily toward a rela-
tive, mythic space which evokes the various symbolic conno-
tations cfi‘ positions (left/sinister; up/heaven; down/hell,
etc.) depending upon the vantage point of "here" rather than
presenting finite and absolute places separate from one
another by definition.

Each of the novelists I consider has made significant
efforts to provide a mode of temporal and spatial structure
which transcends the most typical contemporary linear struc-
tures of both scientific and literary contexts. In doing
so, each evokes what might be called sacred or mythic time
as Opposed to goal-oriented linear time. Sacred time, like
ritual, revolves in perpetual cycles, while linear time, as
I have suggested, presupposes a progression from one point
to another and Often is prejudiced in favor Of a superiority

of vantage point for the later position along the line of

164
time» These authors associate mythic time and space with
the traditional folklore and knowledge typical of "ghosts"
from the past, figures associated with insanity or poetry
and outmoded religious and art forms. Such figures seem to
circle back as naturally as the successive seasons, deman-
ding that their perspectives receive due tribute but making
no explicit statements about the superiority of one's pre-
sent experience or state of being over any other past or
present mode of existence. It is this circling motion
which we can say is in fact most typical of the Hermes who
is a god of commerce and associated with the rises and falls
of the wheel of fortune. Pietro, who, as I have suggested,
embodies the Hermetic force quite distinctly in this novel,
defends the lack of linear progression in his own quasi-
philosophic style. In the madhouse, Medardus describes his
companion in terms that remind us of the whirling Gypsy

Prophetess who accurately foretold Antonia's fate:

"There is often a profound meaning un-
derlying your drolleries, but you deck
out everything with such lurid images
that a genuine thought portrayed in
natural colours appears ridiculous, like
a robe draped with motley rags. You are
like a drunkard who cannot walk straight
but staggers from side to side; your
sense of direction is crooked."

"What is direction, reverend Capu-
chin?" [Pietro] said softly. .. . "Di-
rection presupposes a goal from which we
take our bearings. Are you certain of
your goal, dear Brother? Do you not
fear'that you may sometimes have over-
indulged your taste for alcoholic liquor
in the inn, so that, like a steeplejack
who feels dizzy, you see two goals
without knowing which is the right one?"

165

Indeed, Medardus is constantly confused about his
goals, sometimes wanting to assume the ordinary life of a
gentleman wed to Aurelia, sometimes gloating over the para-
dox of alnadxnonk possessing and murdering this incarnate
saint like his predecessor, Ambrosio. The Old Painter, too,
enigmatically evokes the notion of a goal without explaining
his meaning. When he visits Medardus in his prison cell, he
predicts'"Medardus, you will arrive atjyour goal--tomor-
rowl'" Medarus thinks the Painter means he approves of the
monk's plan to kill himself and asks "'When shall I see you
again?'" The Painter replies "'When you reach your goal!'"
and Medardus asks "'You mean tomorrow?'" (p. 192). But the
painter has vanished. Evidently the Painter's understanding
of the term "goal" differs from Medardusu for when Medardus
is released from prison on the next day he does not see the
Painter, who only re-appears at the end of the novel when
Aurelia is martyred at the altar. Medardus does see his
mad-monk double, however, on the next day, but it is cer-
tainly not Obvious whether we are to understand that the
doubles are interchangeable, as Pietro suggested in identi-
fying the Old Painter's possible names, or separate enti-
ties, as Medardus has led us to believe.

The merging and splitting of character and episode in
Hoffmann's novel can certainly be correlated with an ex-
panded notion of time and space. If two times or two spaces
were to momentarily overlap, we would have a character with
separate identities who appeared to be a unity. However,

the moment that the times (or spaces) returned to their

166

usual orientations, the character would appear to split.
The point--an important one I think for Hoffmann and Hogg in
particular--is that enormous effort must be exerted to main:
Lain the illusion of unity, not to split the experience of
the psyche into its ordinarily disparate portions. Boxing
of narratives, overlapping and deliberate confusion of iden-
tities of characters, unaccountable time lapses (either
shorter or longer than we would expect) and synchronicity or
repetition of events all contribute to the suggestion of
constant entrophy only maintaining the semblance of unity
and linear progression by a huge expenditure of effort which
is easily nullified. No longer does the story have a neat
Aristotelian beginning, middle and end, because it is no
longer possible to maintain the fiction of purpose, direc-
tion and goal in a world of self-conscious refraction whose
unity is only maintained by the most steady and concerted
effort of the observer. In the blink of an eye it can all
dissolve into a madhouse or a hallucination like St. An-
thony's vision. Instead, narrative is a nannis tale of
fantasy and illusion. As Pietro confides:

"And whether you know it or not, Medar-

dus, I am myself the Folly that is al-

ways pursuing you in order to assist

your power of reason. And whether you

realize it or not, you will only find

salvation in Folly, for your much-

vaunted reason is an utterly worthless

thing and cannot sustain itself; it

stumbles backwards and forwards like a

frail child and has to enter into a

partnership with Folly, which then helps

it along because it knows how to find

the right way home--to the madhouse."
(p. 234)

167

The apparent continuity of the central character, Me-
dardus, classifying and explaining experiences for the
readers insofar as it is possible for each image to maintain
a pristine identity, is undoubtedly the most notable uni-
fying feature of this novel. This artificial classification
system, which resembles the nomenclature common to most
sciences (particularly in the early nineteenth century) has
several advantages for preserving the illusion of a contin-
uous identity: 1) the isolation of each image from others
within its matrix diminishes the fearful chaos and entrophy
they suggest by reducing the shifting figurations to an
orderly, manageable procession of "dangerous" and "friendly"
forces, 2) the terrific effort required to sustain the
tension between previously-classified images such as Pietro,
the Old Painter, Count Viktor, Euphemia and Aurelia (which
might otherwise collapse and transmute into each other as
they would in a dream) serves to reinforce the notion of a
unified time-space identity, since the "I" becomes that
function which maintains this mental apartheid--Pietro's
"pettifogging toll-keeper" (p. 239) and 3) the implicit
designation of each component as "devil," "saint," "fool"
etc. supports unified identity because it is inherent in the
notion of perceiving a single identity that the perceiver
must likewise be a unified entity him/herself. But Pietro,
as spokesperson for Folly, attacks the limitations of this
central point-of-view as self-destructive and inadequate for

life or literature:

168

"Reason is nothing but an inefficient
ohange oi affaines who never troubles
about what goes on outside his sphere
and makes the troops drill on the bar-
rack-square out Of boredom; as a result,
they are incapable of firing a single
decent shot when the enemy attacks. But
Folly, the true Queen, enters in triumph
with trumpets and drums, followed by
jubilant crowds. The serfs rise from
the corners to which Reason had banished
them, and will no longer stand up or sit
down at the Chamberlain's behest. Look-
ing down his list, this worthy says:
'Look, Folly has knocked my best pupils
off their balance; in fact, they have
all become unbalancedd That's a play
on words, Brother Medardus; and a play
on words is a hot curling-iron in the
hand of Folly, which uses it to shape
its thoughts." (pp. 234-5)

Did Pietro "really" carry Medardus? Or did Medardus
"really" carry Viktor? If at this point, we still feel
compelled to ask, we will probably go on like Medardus
vainly trying to flagellate our multiple selves into submis-
sion to some hypothetical "real" self—-a process no more
rewarding, it would seem, than Ewson's nightly flute-playing
exercises. Puns, like Pietro's, on the other hand, open
metaphorical doors to alternate modes of understanding and
divergent perspectives ordinarily segregated from reason's
"barrack-square." The huge leaps in logic required by a
movement from one word to another or from one artistic
perspective to another are entirely beyond the scope of
definition and classification, yet their creative audacity
seems both to support and defy the razor-edge of reason.

The knife of reason is certainly suggested in the ap-

pearance of a double each time Medardus uses--or

169

contemplates using--his fatal ancestral weapon. Upon stab-
bing Hermogenes, he sees his mad-monk self appear; in prison
he uses the knife handed up from below to literally make his
double appear; when he considers suicide, the Old Painter
appears by his side; when he stabs himself, believing he has
stabbed Aurelia, his naked double mounts him and when he
contemplates murdering Aurelia at the end of the novel, his
monk-self appears to do the deed for him. It seems evident
that Medardus' doubles, like the Bleeding Nun, are present
at all times, though they only seem to physically mat-
erialize as separate individuals at certain mythically mean-
ingful moments that symbolize their artificial segregation.
Very explicit segregation occurs when, for example, Medar-
dus' attempt to "awaken" Viktor to his dangerously border-
line state causes him to fall into the gorge. Similarly, in
the gamekeeper's house, the monk who has been locked up
breaks loose and finds his way into Medardus' room in the
night to suggest the necessity in Medardus' mind of a combat
between his component selves from which a victor will ulti-
mately emerge:

"you must come withrnefl'it said. "Let

us climb on to the roof beneath the

weathercock, which is playing a merry

tune for the owl's wedding. Up there we

will fight with each other, and the one

who pushes the other over will become

¥[?§ and be able to drink bloodJ'(p.

Medardus' propensity for delineation and naming is evident

in his response to the mad monk's challenge: "I screamed:

170

'You are not me, you are the DevilU--and clawed at the face
of the menacing spectre. But my fingers went through his
eyes as if they were empty cavities, and the figure burst
into strident laughter" (p. 111). Medardus wakes from this
dream to discover that his monk-double has actually mat-
erialized beside his bed, implying the possibility of an
infinite regression of layers of identity, each enfolding
within it another. As Medardus awakens, the clock strikes
three, reminding us, too, of the manner in which Antonia
learned of her imminent sacrifice from Elvira's ghost:
another echo from the past. Whenever Medardus hopes to
delineate his identity, he finds other identities breaking
through at the most inopportune moments. Thus his double
breaks down the door and enters while he is speaking with
the physician after his release from prison (though no one
but Medardus observes this) and his double appears at the
very moment preceding his marriage to Aurelia to remind him
that union with one component figure invokes other--less
desireable--ones.

There seems, then, in Hoffmann's view, to be an inverse
relationship between mimetic accuracy of time-space contin-
uity (at least in terms of our usual criteria of such in-
dices of movement) and translation. Evidently the temporal
and spatial categories which we impose upon experience
effectively arrange our component selves into a hierarchical
arrangement of "master" self and "servant" selves. To our
"I" master-self, these latter are either rebellious angels

like Satan or angels-in-good-standing like St. Anthony. But

171

deprived of the benefits of nomenclature and classification,
these underling angels may have difficulty distinguishing
whether the master is an intolerable and SOphistic tyrannt
like the Pope (and like Pietro's David who slays Goliath
after a lengthy disputation proving why it ought to be done)
or a benevolent, but rather misguided overseer like the
Prince. They may even believe that there is in fact no
difference between the "master" and themselves and attempt
to overthrow his power by presenting themselves in such a
chaotic and confusing array of multiplicity that the master
is hard put to know where to cut and, like Medardus, in
stabbing at Aurelia only stabs himself.

Daemmerich contends "[Medardus'] encounters in the
search for self-realization prove to be illusory; he ulti-
mately remains caged."23 Can we likewise denominate Med-
ardus a miserable failure? The notion Of failure would seem
itself to pose a possible heroic and triumphant progression
over dangerous forces to ultimate unity. However, such a
notion seems inconsistent with the circling motion of Hoff-
mann's vision. Medardus, as a child Of reason and empiri-
cism, is the perennial fool of the Tarot's first enigma,
gazing at the stars while failing to note that he is step-
ping over the edge of a cliff. He cannot see all his selves
at once because the very faculty that enables him to see at
all only permits him to focus on one at a time. Is this an
unfortunate or pessimistic state? Or does it only suggest
that awareness itself is unaware and requires an infinite

regression of observers to adequately evoke its potential?

172
To some extent, I believe, these observers are provided by
the complicated dance Of character, reader, author and text-
ual ancestors Hoffmann sets in motion.

The herms that mark out Hermes' precincts are very much
to the point in this realm of delineated and transmuted
identity. They suggest that Hermes' relationship to bound-
aries and to limitations is, as usual, ambiguous. He cer-
tainly recognizes the significance of boundaries, whether
these are the lines between different countries, different
modes of expression or different beings. He likewise is
aware of the significance of separate times whether in the
historical sense or in the individual's movement from one
stage of his/her life identity to the next. But it is
Hermes' function (as it seems to be Hoffmann's) to encourage
us to draw circles and lines of demarcation so that we may
enmesh ourselves in our own handiwork. Thus, like Christ,
he is described with the word logos. For his transmut-
ability mimics the subtle processses of translating the
thoughts in our minds into the words we speak and then into
a written language which finds its way back into the thought
process, perhaps by way of speech. In essence, through
Hermes, spirit becomes matter and matter spirit just as they
do in the mystery of communion. 'The spectrum of words--from
literal meanings to metaphors and puns of the most out-
rageous sort--becomes the medium by which we are initiated
into our finiteness and our infinity. Perhaps, then,
through Hermes' mediation we can recognize the limitations

of our time/space perspective by our insistence on retaining

173
these modes of perception to try to comprehend a narrative

that flagrantly and whimsically violates them.

CHAPTER FOUR
VERSION AND INVERSION: HOGG'S CQMEESSIQNS

Introduction

Although I have not put any exceptional emphasis upon
individual biographies, it might be useful to notice that
each of the three writers with whom I am concerned has in
some sense become identified more closely than is usual with
his literary work--each has become a figure in literature as
well as a literary figure. Lewis has been commonly referred
to as "Monk" Lewis since his novel's publication. Hoff-
mann, while not specifically identified with the Elixins
over his other works, appeared as a double of himself in
Jacques Offenbach's 1881 opera, Les Comoies Di Hoffmann
(The Isles of Hnflfimann), an effect which emphasizes the
framing device of a story-teller within the story. James
Hogg--perhaps the most "devilish" of these three--made regu-
lar appearances in Elaoknoonls Magazine as the rustic Et-
trick Shepherd (the name by which he was known in his poetic
career). Published from 1822 to the early 1830's, the
initial "Noctes Ambrosianae" were written by John Wilson (as
"Christopher North") in collaboration with Hogg, though
later Wilson took full control. Hogg also wrote parodies
of his own work in his foeiio Minnon and created doubles of

174

175

himself and his work in the Confessions. In fact, criticism
has even generated a doppelganger for this ubiquitous
author:

The Confessions makes Hogg's other fic-

tion look so amateurish that George

Saintsbury decided Lockhart must have

helped. This notion, seconded by Andrew

Lang, was indignantly countered by

Hogg's daughter . . . . [But] when Earle

Welby revived The Confessions in 1924,
he assured his readers that the Look-

hart-debt could 'hardly be disputed.'

Although modern critics see little reason to uphold these

claims of dual authorship2

' it is worth noting that Hogg's
Hermetic text continued to generate a doubling impulse in
his readers long after his lifetime. In the more remote
past, critics might have said that a work of such aston-
ishing complexity could only have been accomplished with the
help of the devil; moderns have substituted the more mundane
figure of Lockhart.

Whether intentionally or not, then, each writer has
become a participant in his own drama--an interesting pat-
tern if we are to consider the ambiguous and duplicit nature
of these dramas which seek to draw reader as well as charac-
ter into an endlessly reflecting and re-reflecting house of
mirrors. Evidently, the potent charge of the regressing
mirror-images in these novels is neither contained by the
margins nor de-fused when the booklcovers are closed. In-
stead, the mirror-images reverberate endlessly through later

generations of readers and critics raising the same doubts

about identity in the spectators as in the characters.

176

Illuminators of medieval manuscripts often personified their
pages by including a literal head, pair of feet, right and
left hand in the appropriate margin on each sheet. In
similar fashion Hogg (and to a lesser extent his predeces-
sors) looms behind each page as an elusive authorial iden-
tity informing and forming his text. In effect, the text
has created the author as much as the author his text and
the repulsions and attractions of critics are only ongoing
extensions of this dialectic between creator and creation.
With this paradigm in mind, then, it would seem appropriate
to look briefly at the manner in which James Hogg, the
historical figure, reflects the Hermetic multiplicity of his
best-known novel.

Hermes is the god of shepherds and borderlines; James
Hogg was both a shepherd by profession and an inhabitant of
several borderlines, physical and metaphysical. Like the
god's herms, Hogg marked the meeting place of times and
traditions in his life and work. He dwelt on the border
between two worlds as well as on that between England and
Scotland and his life (1770-1835) was nearly evenly divided
between two centuries. He was, on one hand, the direct heir
to countless centuries of ballad tradition. Chathe other
hand, he was a modern man who desired above all to emulate
the urbane, subdued, and reasonable Romanticism of his re-
nowned neighbor, Sir Walter Scott. Like his mother, a major
contributor of ballads for Scott's Minsinelsy of ihe
,Sooiiish Bonnen, Hogg recognised that the age of the oral

tradition was passing with the fossilization of its material

177

in these compendiums of scholarly research. In a sense,
Scotths gentlemanly translations of oral tradition were as
distant £11m: their originals as Ewson's dictionary defini-
tions of "Oblate"--and as little to the point as far as the
bearers of the old tradition were concerned. As Hogg's
mother told Scott when he recorded her version of "Auld
Maitland," "Ballads were made for singin' an no for readin'
but ye hae broken the charm noo, an they'll never be sung
mair."3 Despite his deep admiration for them, Scott's
translations of traditional ballads into morocco-bound monu-
ments of nineteenth-century knowledge demonstrates a primary
Romantic paradox: the object of Romantic admiration could
only be appreciated after it was functionally dead to soc-
iety and deprived of that organic spontaneity that made it
so interesting in the first place. The ballads of tradi-
tion, like the haunted ruins of abbeys, fascinated both
Scott and Lewis, but chiefly because of the life that they
had presumably once contained--a life only accessible to
modern literary archaeologists in the most fragmentary way:

On looking around, we found some frag-

ments of clothes, some teeth, and part

of a pocket-book, which had not been re-

turned into»the grave when the body had

been last raised, for it had been twice

raised before this, but only from the

loins upward. (p. 225)
Hoffmann also set up his novel to reflect a bygone
mentality--a way of seeing things no longer available to

modern humanity but still lamented by those who recognized

in it an ability to express psychic content not available to

178

a perspective based upon empirical delineations. Indeed,
the ability to systematically analyze and classify human
artifacts (whether the words of "ancient" ballads or the
bonnet of a Scots mummy a hundred years Old) in terms of
historical time, geographic space and physical causality was
likewise symptomatic of a mindset no longer capable of
producing them. Insects (if we could ask them) would prob-
ably display little enthusiasm for the subtleties of enty-
mology; it seems equally likely that the bearers of oral
tradition--like Hogg's mother--would exhibit slight patience
with the scientific classification and historical conscious-
ness inherent in Romanticism that sometimes converted taxo-
nomy into taxidermy.

Despite our romantic tendencies, few of us would really
want to be transported into the time periods which we have
admired from afar. It seems axiomatic that in order for one
to yearn for a bygone time, one must be permanently (and
securely) separated from it in all but psychic time and
space. Yet James Hogg's perspective was almost unique (a-
part, perhaps from the plowman-poet he greatly admired, RO-
bert Burns) in that he alone of the Romantics was a direct
heir to the folk tradition, detached from it by neither
urban environs, middle-class values nor education. From
this liminal position on the brink of the modern world, Hogg
was able to compose fantasy material about the supernatural
almost as naively as a Medieval balladeer, while his sym-
pathy with the empirical world-view of the Enlightenment en-

abled him to discourse prosaically in a treatise on the

179

diseases of sheep)4

and to devise merciless parodies of the
Romantic supernaturalism of Coleridge in his footie Minnon
(1816).5 In this light it does not seem surprising that
Hogg was so readily able to conceive of himself as more than
one person at the same time. Indeed it is difficult for
most of us to imagine that two such contradictory spirits
could amicably inhabit the same frame. Perhaps it was only
possible within the context of Hogg's unique time and place.
But that conjecture itself derives from an empirical tend-
ency to account for his strange duplicity. If we were to
attempt to explain his duplicity in mythic terms, we would,
perhaps, say that he had a spiritual twin--a devil who
walked beside him wherever he went and enabled him to sur-
pass the usual limitations of human vision.

We have seen that critical reaction to The Monk at the
time of its publication was predominantly negative. In
fact, even the authors of these texts seem to have had mixed
feelings about the quality Of their novels: Lewis apolo-
gized for the unintentional Offensiveness of The Monk, while
both Hogg and Hoffmann seem to have under-rated the import-
ance of their respective achievements in Confessions and
Elixirs.6 Hoffmann's reviews were mixed, but as Daemmerich
notes, "Undoubtedly [Hoffmann's] tales called forth not only
great admiration but also deep aversion."7 The reaction to
James Hoggfls Confessions, however, was almost entirely nega-
tive. It was scarcely reviewed at all, but the few

reviewers who noticed it attacked it, describing it as

"uncouth" and "extraordinary trash" among other epithets.

180
Even though the novel has received a great deal of belated
critical acclaim in the twentieth century, critics still
feel compelled to express certain reservations. In his
Introduction to the novel, for example, Robert M. Adams
refers to Hoggfls "uneven and imperfect list of books" and
emphasizes that Hogg was "perfectly frank about acknow-
ledging that much Of his writing was careless and slip-
shod."8 I believe, however, that it is quite impossible to
effectively separate James Hogg from his novel, for the
simple reason that Hogg himself figures in the novel as a
significant (if minor) character--or perhaps two or three
characters. We need to consider both him and his novel as
sympathetic entities. We cannot lament our lack of object-
ivity when confronted with the data presented by Hogg's
novel or Hogg's rendition of his relationship to it. Both
are of a piece or wrapped up in one another like the sui-
cide's cloth samples. Any statements Hogg made about his
relationship to the novel must almost be counted as part of
the experience of the novel. When Sir Walter Scott attacked
Hogg's version of history in The Confessions, saying "'it is
a distorted, a prejudiced and untrue picture of the Royal
party,"' Hogg reportedly replied,'“It is a devilish deal
truer than yours though.'"9 Of course, we cannot determine
from this cryptic statement whether Hogg simply meant that
his was the more authentic of the two or that he was en-
acting the role of devil's advocate in creating a diabolical
inversion of Scott's historical truth. Indeed, in Hogg's

deliberate devilishness we are reminded of the sublime

181
ambiguity of Blake's Proverbs of Hell: fantasy has merged
so strongly with personal identity that they are virtually
inseparable.

On occasion James Hogg boldly reconstructs empirical
truth into mythic truth. So, for example, he seems to have
been convinced that he was born on the same date as his
illustrious countryman, Robert Burns, (January 25, 1770)
while the parrish registers list an entirely different date
(early December, 1770):10 Yet it is undoubtedly mythically
appropriate that the shepherd author of The Confessions
should Share a common date of genesis with his double the
plowman author of "Holy Willie's Prayerd‘ But the meta-
morphosis functions in both directions for the versatile
Hogg. He was equally capable of reconstructing mythic mat-
erial according to empirical perspectives, as, for example,
in his letter to Blaokwoodls Quoted in the novel. Here Hogg
presents a scientifically-precise analysis of the material
evidence disinterred from the suicide's grave which differs
strikingly in several respects from the data presented from
Robert's point-of-view in the manuscript as well as our
expectations about the contents of the suicide's grave.
The empirical perspective presents all it can know of such
disturbing tales of the supernatural as Robert's, under-
scoring the author's amazing ability to mimic a variety of
modes.

Hoggfls skiLl at metamorphosing convincingly into sev-
eral widely different personas is certainly akin to the

ability of Gil-Martin to mimic in appearance those about

182

whom he is thinking and thus discern their innermost
thoughts. Hogg specifically identified this trait as his
own in an earlier essay for 1113pr where he wrote:

I am now become an observer so accurate

that by contemplating a person's fea-

tures minutely, modelling my own after

the same manner as nearly as possible, I

can ascertain1she compass of their minds

and thoughts.
It is quite evident, then, that the Hermetic facility of
Gil-Martin can be identified with the authorial facility of
imitation and reproduction of a variety of different per-
spectives and states-of-mind. Ih fact,11:is often quite
obvious to the reader that Hogg appears in the guise of this
ironic devil, winking as confidentially as his creation to
suggest that the reader and author are conspiring to bring
about the downfall of the pathetic and apalling hero.

Because of Hogg's mercurial shiftiness it is necessary

that the critic recognise that statements he might have made
either about the novel or in the novel are by their very
nature bound to be double- or triple-edged. If we search
for a direct correspondence between Objective fact and
Hoggfls re-imagination Of it, we are simply succumbing to the
same temptation as Robert by clinging relentlessly to one
line of reasoning to the virtual exclusion of others. If we
trust entirely to our guide to rescue us from the intri-
cacies of his text, we are likely to find ourselves firmly

enmeshed in his spider's web or turned over to the authori-

ties for the violations we have committed under his presumed

183

auspices. There is no friendly authorial compassion in Gil-
Martin's domain as there is in the Editor's treatment of
George; there is only a cold, heartless, even sadistic
impulse to vicariously break every boundary Of society and
honor in the name of God as if to demonstrate the boundless
capacity for evil in this inverted Job. If the first narra-
tive has strong comic elements despite the tragic demise of
the young hero, the second emphasises a more brutal impulse
of comedy that sends the hero down to absolute death and
damnation as part.of'a ritual game. Robert, the sacrifice
in this ritual, has failed to answer the questions requisite
to achieve the self-awareness essential for survival; in the
end he is hanged by the rope of his own weaving albeit of
the flimsiest sort.

In many ways Hogg's work does uniquely combine the folk
tradition with the scientific empiricism of his age. In
other ways, however, it underscores the innate repulsion
between these two differing Weltanschauungen. In the char-
acter of the Ettrick Shepherd at the Thirlestane Fair, Hogg
expresses a boorish contempt for gentlemen's scientific cu-
riosity; in the character of the Editor he embraces the
empirical tenets so enthusiastically that he seems to ignore
the major questions raised by the text in favor of trivial
details about broad bonnets and Drummond's fate. Hogg poses
the delicate, impressionistic interlacings Of the "fairie
web" against the more severe analytical world of endlessly
multiplied distinctions like Rabina's "12 ways" or volumi-

nous taxonomies like those of nineteeth-century science,

184
giving now one, now the other, his support, but never taking
a firm stand at either pole. Of course, his ambiguity is
itself symptomatic of the direction in which he often
leaned: a viewpoint typically Romantic in its emphasis upon
the relativity of experience to the experiencer. While the
Enlightenment's‘world-view tended to enforce a binary system
upon the accuracy of its data (decreeing that a statement of
fact must be either true or untrue regardless of the point-
of-view from which it was seen), the mythic Weltanshauung
demanded a truth-of-vision based upon the observer's nature
so that a statement must be an authentic outgrowth of char-
acter, regardless of what others might have observed about
the events described. For the mythic perspective, the in-
ternal experience (and the outward expression of that ex-
perience) were foremost; for the empirical viewpoint the
data of the event insofar as it could be isolated and ab-
stracted from the particular biases of character was para-
mount. In straddling the line between empirical and mythic
viewpoints, then, Hogg gives us something of each, but
emphasizes the manner in which each perceiver views his/her
own "truth." For example, when George, who presumably has
had some scientific education, sees the earth-bound rainbow
near Arthur's Seat, he immediately perceives "the cause of
the phenomenon" according to the scientific terms of the
refraction of the sun's rays on the mist. The Editor then
reinforces this empirical explanation by stressing its
superiority over other ways.in‘which.the phenomenon might

have been viewed by the uneducated:

185

That was a scene that would have en-

tranced the man of science with delight,

but which the uninitiated and sordid man

would have regarded less than thelnole

rearing up his hill in silence and in

darkness. (p. 38)
The Editor's condescending attitude toward the common
people, however, seems contradicted by his admission that
the terrestrial rainbow "cannot be better delineated than by
the name given of it by the shepherd boys, 'The little wee
ghost of the rainbow'" (p. 38). Moreover, George, who has
had the Editor's sympathies from the beginning does not
react with detached scientific curiosity either to the "fai-
rie web" of dew on his hat or to the subsequent apparition.
In the first case, he responds with a species of awe and
reverence scarcely in keeping with the Editor's removed
analytical attitude, but of which the Editor obviously ap-
proves. Perhaps, like many Romantic empiricists, the Editor
tends to idealize the naive perception or perhaps he views
George's respect as evidence of an aesthetic sensibility
superior to that of ordinary "moles." At any rate, the
Editor seems confused about whether to apotheosize or con-
demn naive perception of this type but does maintain a kind
of smug superiority to it. This attitude emerges a little
later as the Editor dilates at length on the marvels of "the
controller of Nature" who "causeth the mole, from his secret
path of darkness, to throw up the gem, the gold, and the
precious ore" (p. 52). The Editor does not explain whether
this "ore" is valuable in itself or chiefly in its capacity

as fuel for the consumption of empirical furnaces. The

186

reader, however, is left with the distinct feeling that Hogg
is the "controller" of the Editor here, manipulating him
into absurdity as neatly and ironically as Gil-Martin mani-
pulates Robert, In essence, the Editorial mole throws up
rhetorical gems, suggesting something of the same effect of
infinite regress of controllers that we have seen in Hoff-
mann's novel.

George's reaction to the apparition is likewise devoid
of scientific detachment and more appropriate to those "un-
initiated and sordid" beings who are later personated by the
Ettrick Shepherd himself:

George conceived it to be a spirit. He

could conceive it to be nothing else;

and he took it for some horrid demon by

which he was haunted, that had assumed

the features of his brother in every

lineament. (pp. 39-40)
The Editor, like Lewis' narrator, does not comment upon
George's apparent inability to maintain the appropriate
semblance of scientific aloofness. Despite science, it
takes a good deal of persuasion on the part of George's
friend, Adam Gordon, to convince him that the phenomenon at
Arthur‘sISeat was indeed in the course of nature and not a
supernatural visitation. The narrator intrudes to moralize
upon the virtues of science when it is convenient and the
action in the story is consistent with empirical thought;
when supernatural events occur, he moves back behind the

curtain. Perhaps, like Robert, he suffers Mnemory lapses"

about these embarrassing moments.

187

Hogg's elusive informing presence flits constantly from
one voice to another like the fluctuations in Gil-Martin's
appearance, scarcely giving the reader a moment to digest a
particular mode before pushing relentlessly into a polarized
or parodied version of the material. Like Hoffmann's meta-
morphosing personas, Hogg's voices are characterized above
all by their constant fluctuations, as fleeting as one's
image reflected in a stream. Much of the immediacy of
Hogg's vision--its genuine epiphany of conflicting perspec-
tives with their paradoxical juxtapositions of humor, tra-
gedy, absurdity, cynicism and naiveté seems to stem from the
author's almost terrifying nearness to his originals. But
he is at the same time shockingly close to us. And it is
this perpetual dialogue between modes which renders Hogg
such an able adept and guide in the Hermetic mystery.

The borderlines which dramatize conjunctions of mirror-
images are omnipresent in Hogg's Confessions, too. Some-
times these boundaries emphasize the separation Of entities
so obviously polarized as to appear incapable of ever meet-
ing on common ground. In this category we have particularly
the elder George Colwan and his wife, Rabina Orde, as well
as their two sons, the younger George and Robert Wringham.
After their initial attempt at compatibility, the fun-loving
old Tory and his young, Puritanical wife quickly discover
that their union is "a conjunction anything but agreeable to
the parties contracting" (p. 3). Since neither party makes
any appreciable compromise to the principles of the other,

it is evident that, as George puts it, this marriage is

188

"like reading the Bible and the jest-book, verse about, and
would render the life of a man a medley of absurdity and
confusion" (p. 6). The wife leaves her husband, but her
"reputed" father locks her in a tower "five stories high,"
indulging her propensity to isolation but "she was at a
great loss for one to dispute with about religious tenets"
(p. 11); so eventually this unlikely fairytale princess
returns to her spouse. Still, George and Rabina never
agree on anything except that they should remain apart:

The upper, or third, story of the old

mansion-house was awarded to the lady

for her residence. She had a separate

door, a separate stair, a separate gar-

den, and walks that in no instance in-

tersected the laird's; so that one would

have thought the separation complete.

(p. 12)
Of course, the Editor's language in the latter sentence
suggests that although the separation seems absolute, it is
not. The attraction/repulsion principle, always so remar-
kable with mirror images, is quickly brought into play as
the two sons of Rabina, representing the contrary poles of
the initial unsuccessful marriage-of-contraries, are drawn
fatalistically into each other's presence without either
young man being,quite sure how it is possible for them to
meet so frequently. George claims that often his movements
are random with no specific goal, as for example when his
friend invites him to go to the church to see a girl. Ro-
bert claims that his diabolical friend keeps him informed of

George's whereabouts and urges him to follow. However this

may be possible, the meetings no occur with increasing

 

 

Cat

189

frequency in both the Editor's and Robertfls narratives. As
the conjunctions of the two brothers (initially described as
almost completely opposite in personality, appearance and
inclination) continue, the sharpness of the distinctions
begins to blur. As in the Oriental Yin-Yang symbol, the
mirror images cling together, each bearing within it the
seed of its opposite. At times, in both narratives, the
seemingly separate identities merge and metamorphose into
each other as confusingly as do those of thexnain partici-
pants in Medardus' narrative. For example, the Editor
informs us "the report had spread over the city that a young
gentleman had been slain," by which we are to assume that
George is dead, presumably at the hand of his antithetical
brother; Bell Calvert seconds this information by describing
to her mirror-image Arabella Logan the very circumstances of
George's murder by Robert. Yet later both Arabellas see a
man walking amicably with Robert who looks exactly like
George. Robert, too, tells us he confuses his own identity
with that Of his brother while he is ill:

over the singular delusion that I was

two persons my reasoning faculties.had

no poweru The most perverse part of it

was that I rarely conceived myself to be

any of the two persons. I thought for

the most part that my companion was one

of them, and my brother the other; and I

found that, to be obliged to speak and

answer in the character of another man,

was a most awkward business at the long

run. (p. 140)
Later Robert claims he has killed his brother with the

assistance of his questionable companion, but when he

190

awakens from a presumably prolonged revelry as the new laird
of the Colwan estate he meets his diabolical friend who
"bore the figure, air, and features of my late brother, I
thought, exactly" (p.17TD. So although George's apparent
death seems to separate the brothers even more permanently
that their parents' separate living arrangements, it by no
means does 30. Robert, much like Medardus, is caught up in
constant mutations of identity. Sometimes he is subject to
lengthy memory lapses during which he seems to behave much
as his brother might at his worst--drinking, carousing and
ruining a young lady of the neighborhood--and sometimes he
appears in his usual Puritanical guise side-by-side with a
friend bearing George's features.

The dialectical tension between the Opposing images is
further underlined by the emphasis Hogg places on the con-
stant pregnant distance between doubles, whether the pair is
George and Robert or Robert and Gil-Martin, in each of the
narratives. A rhythm of sympathy and antipathy between
paired images also marks the relationship between Arabella
Logan, the elder George's mistress, and Arabella Calvert,
her underworld counterpart. Images of separation and vio-
lation of imposed boundaries are invoked in the breaking of
the locks on Arabella Logan's door by her counterpart, the
latter's expulsion from Bell Calvert's cell and her sub-
sequent refusal to condemn her double despite the latter's
non-cooperative attitude. The rather elaborate ritual of
denial and refusal in the courtroom scene where mistress and

maid refuse to swear to their property later leads to a kind

191

of intimacy and conspiratorial closeness on the part of the
two women. A motif of alternating separation and attrac-
tion is the predominant rhythm of this dance of images with
the women's separate intimacy further underlined when they
crouch "a small distance from each other" (p. 81) in the
bushes to spy on Robert and Gil-Martin. Robert attacks Mrs.
Logan but fails to see her counterpart, who swiftly comes to
her aid. Thus this negative space, like the spaces between
the letters of the text, seems to play as critical a role in
the drama as the positive figures of individual characters.

This interdependent separateness of images is further
highlighted by the structural separation of the two narra-
tives into the Editor's and Robert's versions. While each
rendering is indeed different from the other, the two over-
lap, intermingle and converge at some points while they take
entirely different routes in other instances. For example,
in the Editor's narrative Mrs. Calvert tells Arabella Logan
"'I am almost certain [Gil-Martin] was using every per-
suasion to induce [Robert] to make away with his mother; and
I likewise conceive that I heard the incendiary give his
consentv" (p. 83). In Robertfis narrative, however, we hear
that he has been "in a profound and feverish sleep" (p. 168)
and has slept for at least the six months since his Old
servant died. Gil-Martin, Robert relates, re-appears after
this sleep claiming he "was forced .. . from [Robert's]
side for a season" due to his "crimes and extravagances'"
(p. 172). Gil-Martin further explains that Robert is "'ac-

cused of having made away with [his] mother privately”'(p.

192

173). Somewhat later, Robert relates the incident in which
Gil-Martin "left me to the mercy of two viragos who had very
nigh taken my life" (p. 186). Although the two versions of
the events agree specifically in several details, they di-
verge appreciably in point of time, for Gil-Martin could
hardly have been engaged in persuading Robert to matricide
if the latter had already done the deed. We cannot easily
"justify" these disparate accounts. Nor can we readily
reconcile the Editor's contention that the mother was never
found ("his mother also was lost" [p. 85]) with Robert's
account of Samuel Scrape urging him to flee since the bodies
of his mother and mistress were being borne toward the house
and Robert's testimony that shortly after he left Dalcastle
he saw a party approaching bearing two bodies "decently
covered with white sheets"(pu 189)—-evidently the corpses
of his mother and mistress. We can speculate that Robert is
lying about some of the events or simply confused about time
as his state of mind seems to indicate. We can even wonder
whether Bell Calvert (whom the devil winked at so confid-
ingly) told the truth or whether the Editor might have re-
ceived the wrong information from a tradition corrupted by
the intervening century. But no one explanation conven-
iently accounts for all the discrepancies (or even all the
similarities) without raising more questions than it an-
swers.

In like manner, the descriptions of the three graves at
the end of the novel underscore the various permutations of

attracting/repulsing images. On one hand, as Michael York

193

Mason has demonstrated in his analysis of this section,12
the data we are given undoubtedly describes ihnee seoanaie
stains with three different inhabitants whose garb and
features differ significantly from one another. Yet their
conjunction in the novel along with a vague patchwork of
minute descriptive detail and a great deal of emphasis upon
the burying and unearthing of different portions of the
suicide'SImummy suggests a sympathy among the three as well
as a distinction. As in the syzygy of George and Robert and
Gil-Martin we find ourselves confronted with an empirical
truth of three different, evidently unrelated graves, but
simultaneously with a mythic truth of three graves and three
mummies exemplifying a trinity as mysterious and inpene-
trable in its separate inclusiveness as the Trinity of
Christian doctrine.

Indeed, with all the considerable store of tricksterish
facility at his command, Hogg constantly refuses to play the
authorial game according to its established rules or pro-
vides apparent rules which he later*whimsically violates.
Thus he offers his readers no secure information about the
way in which they ought to regard evidently-supernatural
events such as the re-appearance of the younger George
Colwan after his death in both Editor's and Robert's narra-
tives. The Editor, on the other hand, gives us a great deal
of guidance about the way in which we should regard the
contrasting Colwan brothers, casting them much in the light
of Tom Jones and his hypocritical brother Blifil. Of

course, this Editor is himself a biased Tory with Obvious

194

prejudices who glosses over or ignores some fairly crucial
material. Critics have made much of this "discovery" that
the Editor is not without his prejudices, but ultimately
this observation is no more profound than the more obvious
impression that Robert, too, has his biases. We are remind-
ed of Robert's ironic condemnation of the fairness of the
trial of the innocent preacher: "If once a man is pre-
judiced on one side, he will swear anything in support of
such prejudice" (p. 129).

Hoggfls ability to identify with a bluff Tory of anti-
quarian tastes (possessing, no doubt, some Of the traits of
Hogg's friend, Sir Walter Scott) was undoubtedly countered
by his sympathy with his ancestors' and predecessors'
direct, often-fanatic involvement with topics which polite
nineteenth-century gentlemen only knew of second-hand
through their scholarly research. Lewis Simpson notes that
Hogg was certainly familiar with the history of a Reverend
Thomas Boston, minister at Ettrick from 1707 to 1732 who,
along with one lanes flag of Carnock, was accused of holding
antinomian Opinions similar to those espoused by Robert
Wringham.13 It is by no means far-fetched, then, to suggest
that a man as obsessed by mirror-images as ouriJames Hogg
would attempt to come to terms with his spiritual ancestor
by justifying his own views with those Of the antinomian
Hog. No doubt these sudden shifts from one set of ground
rules to another are in part responsible for the unap-
preciative reception Hogg's contemporaries gave kflflh Just

as Robert Wringham interupts his brother's youthful heroics

195

at tennis--in Kiely's term engendering "an unstated chal-
lenge to the conventional roles of spectator and player"1u--
Hogg devilishly interferes in his own game, leaving each
spectator to devise his/her own explanation according to
his/her viewpoint. Or, perhaps, the viewer must simply
recognise that no one perspective is adequate to the task of
resolving a true mystery. As Kiely reminds us:

A "mystery," for Hogg, is not a chal-

lenge for a solution; that only means it

will be deprived of its essence and

convertessinto the terms of a different

reality.
Like Lewis and Hoffmann, then, Hogg does not permit any one
narrative voice to dominate over the others, but teases his
readers with a smorgasbord of incompatible versions of his
tale.

Hogg is above all a master of mystery, extraordinarily
proficient at casting shadows of himself in such a way that
he seems to constantly shift his ground from one Hogg to
another, rendering it ultimately impossible to keep track of
his transformations. And the effect of these continual
metamorphoses is to move the reader from one perspective to
another so rapidly that he/she also becomes unsure whether
this point-Of-view or that one most accurately represents
his/her "real" view. Hogg uses these identity shifts most
masterfully in The Confessions where we see him parading
first in the guise of Editor, later quoting somewhat inaccu-

rately from an actual letter he wrote in the previous year

to Blaoknoonls, and then appearing as the no-nonsense

196
shepherd (like the Ettrick Shepherd of the "Noctes," uncon-
cerned with the whims of gentlemen antiquarians. This
enigmatic authorial personality even disappears momentarily
behind a ruse of anonymity when he originally relegates the
authorshipiof The Confessions on his title page to "a gen-
tleman from Glasgow," and in a later passage calls up his
own shade to bear witness against his credibility: "'But God
knows! Hogg has imposed as ingenious lies on the public ere
now"'(p. 222%. Elusive and omnipresent as the fairies and
the wills-o-the-wisp he so Often evoked, Hogg's presence in
every sense informs his text, tempting the reader to become
hopelessly entangled in its chaotic visions. Unquestion-
ably, Hogg is one of the slipperiest of literary figures,
both as guide and as participant in the mysteries he
creates, evoking the most Hermetic spirit of the romantic

period.

lustifioaiion

Every gentleman brought in exclaimed
against the treatment he had received,
in most bitter terms, blaming a mob set
on him and his friends by the adverse
party . . . until at length they began
to perceive that they were examining
gentlemen of both parties, and that they
had been doing so from the beginning,
almost alternately, so equally had the
prisoners been taken from both parties.
(pp.29-30)

As we have seen, Hoffmann repeatedly raises disturbing

questions about the continuity of the self and its usual

197

points-of-reference, time and space, suggesting that the
refracting components of what we ordinarily deem the self
bear within them paradoxical antipathies and attractions
which by their very nature cannot be subdued into a harmo-
nious whole. "Home" as Pietro says, is indeed the madhouse.
With his chaos of alternating perspectives, James Hogg
builds still further on this irony, not so much to regret
the losscn?a presumed original idyllic harmony, as some
critics want to suggest,16 but rather to explore the inher-
ent resistance of psychic components to any artificial "jus-
tification" to the needs of the others or any enforced
unity. Josiifioaiion is unquestionably a key concept in
Hogg's novel, as the title indicates. But because it is a
complex concept insofar as literature is concerned, perhaps
it will benefit from a little amplification.

The notion of insiifioaiion was one of the cornerstones
of the Protestant Revolution. Religious justification may
be described as the means by which a person passes "from a
state of damnation due to sin to a state of grace."17 The
manner of adjusting the human perspective to that of God so
that the sinner miraculously becomes righteous has:always
been a difficult theological problem. In fact, Martin
Luther's major quarrel with the Catholic church stemmed from
the question of whether the justification of the sinner was
to be accomplished by good works together with faith (as the
church contended) or by faith alone (as Luther argued). The

central Protestant duality is aptly expressed by this ex-
cerpt from the Catholic Enoxolooodia of 1913:

198

In the Protestant system . . . remis-

ssion of sin isru>real forgiveness, no

blotting out of guilt. Sin is merely

cloaked and concealed by the imputed

merits of Christ . . . whilst in reality

it continues undercover its miserable

existence till the hour Of death. Thus

there exist in man side by side, two

hostile brothers, as it were--the one

just and the other unjust; the one a

saint, the other a sinner; the one a

child of God, the other a slave of Sa-

tan--and this without any prospect of a

conciliation between the two.
Luther referred to this marriage of contraries as "an 111-
matched couple, who are continually complaining of one ano-
ther, and what one will do, the other will not." 19 By its
emphasis on the distance between the lost sinner (who seemed
to be capable of doing almost nothing in his own interest)
and a gracious God attainable only by the faith which He
himself bestowed, the Protestant ideology constantly juxta-
posed opposites and in doing so prompted consideration of
those critical points at which one antithetical system made
contact with the other and the means by which contact was
accomplished. The theological method is strongly reminis-
cent of the techniques of juxtaposing opposites that occur
in all three of our authors. It is of considerable signifi-
cance in their forerunners as well.

Milton ostensibly wrote fanaaise Loss to "justify the
ways of God to men." Presumably, this does not mean that he
intended to absolve God of guilt in man's fall, sin'ce man
could scarcely accuse his Maker Of wrongdoing, no matter how

arbitrary His behavior was. Instead, we need to understand

the concept of justification in terms of alignment or

199

adjustment of one perspective with another. Hence, Milton
would adjust the earthly perspective to the spiritual,
heavenly one so that human perception could momentarily
encompass the breadth of the divine scheme. Interestingly
enough, in Milton's vision--as in Lewis" and Hoffmann's--
several successive "versions" of the initial transgression
and "fall" are required by way of testimony in order to
ultimately arrive at "justificationfl' In Milton's scheme
Satan, his fellow devils, several angels, God, Christ, Adam,
Eve and the narrator all contribute variants of the "fall"
story. Milton's epic of justification also moves freely and
Hermetically through time and space, encompassing the vast
scope of creation as well as its past and futureeto finish
with an ironic union of contraries as Adam and Eve, excluded
from Paradise, " hand and hand, with wandering steps and
slow, / Through Eden took their solitary way" (Book 12, 648-
9). Justification, then, would not necessarily heroically
resolve conflict by allowing one perspective to triumph over
all the others; instead it would unfold a panorama of con-
trasting perspectives, each of which reconstructs or re-
envisions the events anew as it emerges. Each new figure
justifies the overall configuration to agree with its parti-
cular point-of-view as each new figuration eclipses some
others and reveals still further ones.

The idea of justification has additional significance.
For example, in Scotland "to justify" could mean to "bring
to justice," iJL, to execute. Hence a man who was hanged

would be said to be "justified." Since the Scottish

200
meaning of the word encompasses the antithetical irony of
vindicate/execute, it is further significant that in the
novel the Editor tells his readers:

I altered the title to A Self-justified
Sinnon, but my booksellers did not ap-

prove Of it; and there being a curse
pronounced by the writer on him that
should dare to alter or amend, I have
let it stand as it is. (p. 228-9)
In fact, Robert Wringham (presumably the sinner to whom the
title refers) does "justify" himself both in terms of writ-
ing a public vindication of his behavior and in terms of
performing his own emecution. His written justification,
too, reflects a double-edged understanding of the term, for
while Robert apparently believes.that.his«confession will
vindicate his behavior in the eyes of his auditors, the
document itself tends to lead the reader to agree with John
Barnet's judgment that "it would not much astonish him if
[Robert] brought [himself] to the gallows" (p. 92).
Justification may well be devil's work in more than one
respect. It is certainly relevant that the use of the word
"justification" in connection with the [winter's art seems
to act quite naturally in a metaphorical capacity here, for
Robert works for a time assisting a printer and either he or
the devil in his likeness has actually printed the manu-
script found in the suicide's grave. Presumably anyone
familiar with the printer's trade would be versed in the art

of justification of printed lines as, for example, they are

arranged on this page. For a printer, "to justify" means

201

to arrange a combination of letters and the spaces between
them to coincide in every instance to a pre-determined
spatial limitation. Hence, in each line, the material prin-
ted must be arbitrarily confined within a pre-ordained
scheme without regard for the value of the printed material
relative to the human meaning it is intended to express: a
"the" is as valuable as a curse or a cry for help, provided
it take up a similar proportion of the page. There is
certainly some relationship, then, between the printer's art
of justification and Robert's unilateral mode Of thinking,
which only permits him to view other people as.absolutely
predestined to salvation or damnation, i,e., to being either
a space or a letter--a black mark or an undefiled white
space. As Kiely remarks, "For Robert, language becomes a
closed system which imposes on life rather than a loose
organization of signs which shift, fuse, and alter meaning
according to circumstance."20

In the context of printing and the devil, Martin Lu-
ther's well-known act of throwing the ink-pot at his infer-
nal adversary summons up another interesting conjunction of
writing and hell that reminds us of the constant diabolical
attentions St. Anthony received. There is certainly a sug-
gestion, at any rate, that the devil is as likely to be
attracted by written and printed forms of reproduction as by
sexual manifestations of it. In fact, books are frequently
associated with the revelation Of real or apparent guilt in
Hogg's scheme: Arabella Logan and the elder George Colwan

are discovered sharing the same book when Rev. Wringhim

202

comes to remonstrate with them; Robert draws the school-
master in "ludicrous situations" in M'Gill's book in order
to effect his expulsion from school; and when Robert first
encounters Gil-Martin, the latter is reading a book--his
"Bible"--which strongly affects Robert, "a sensation resem-
bling a stroke of electricity came over me, on first casting
my eyes on that mysterious book" (p. 113). Of course,
Robert's manuscript of justification which forms the central
narrative of the novel is also the revelation of his guilt.
Can it be further argued that the reader's particular guilt
of prior assumption is likewise revealed by the nature of
his/her conjunction with the text?

In discussing time discrepancies in Hogg's novel, Adams

"21 Since

concludes with the remark, "reconcile it who can.
he has already referred to Hogg's disregard for temporal
continuity as "untidy," we can guess that he believes the
novel would have been improved if these problems with time
had been resolved. George, too, seems to believe that a
heroic resolution Of conflict is both possible and desire-
able as we see in his numerous good-natured attempts to win
over his brother. But in light of George's fate it would
appear that his solution is inadequate. Both Robert and the
elusive authorial presence continue to insist stubbornly on
the psychic significance of an antithetical impulse toward
isolation and separateness. Perhaps George is "cut off"
himself because he views the multiplicity around him as some

benign force like the "fairie web" on his hat and fails to

recognize the validity of an impulse which rejects and

203

opposes every principle in which he believes. Theologi-
cally, we could say that he denies the reality of evil.
Psychologically, he represses the knowledge that he himself
possesses any of the impulses displayed by Robert. But the
forces antithetical to reconciliation loom so large in this
novel that the critic who requires consistency and unity
would seem to undervalue the major portion of the text and
to misunderstand one of thelnost insistent themes charac-
teristic of the doppelganger motif.

Everyone has heard of a "printer's devil," usually a
boy apprenticed to the printing trade. 111fact, Robert is
employed as assistant to the printer much as a printer's
devil would be. A great deal of literary tradition asso-
ciates the printer's art with the devil--a tradition no
doubt beginning when the first appearance of printed matter
threatened the continuation of the oral tradition. As we
can see, this attitude evidently continued long after print-
ing had severely undermined the supremacy of the balladeer
as storyteller. In William Blake's Manniage of Meayen and
Hell there is a similar conjunction of the printing process
and hell. The section of this work entitled "A Memorable
Fancy" begins "I was in a Printing house in Hell & saw the
method in which knowledge is transmitted from generation to

generation."22

Blake's image suggests something of the re-
sounding reproductive repercussions of the printer's art:
just as each successive generation of humankind is stamped
with the more or less unalterable species characteristics,

so is each successive generation of printed human knowledge

204

stamped with the characteristic perspectives and limitations
which represent its particular pact with the devil. Written
matter--and even more obviously pninlsd matter--is in a
sense fixed and inviolable, no longer open to the organic
personalisation of the mythic tradition but become a thing-
in-itself apart from human interference. Hence every writer
ona writer must function as an infernal advocate. Con-
sequently, Robert specifically prohibits alteration to his
manuscript and text. Hogg, of course, in the guise of
Editor, is tricksterish enough to try to violate this taboo
by changing the title, but because the Editor himself repre-
sents a very specific point-of-view, this alteration is not
permitted.

The novel, like Lewiev, has an interesting feature in
its preliminary material. Bound into the novel is a fac-
simile of the original manuscript from which the present
work is supposed to be derived. Presumably this manuscript
page in an old-fashioned hand supposed to be a fragment Of
the original manuscript found in the suicide's grave vali-
dates the Editor's claim to historical accuracy. The inclu-
sion of this manuscript page adds a further dimension to the
complex duplicity Of Hogg's novel. First of all, the bound-
in copy of handwritten text differs in punctuation from the
text as published. In the second place, we need to keep in
mind that the facsimile is itself a copy--a printed copy--of
a supposed original manuscript. Thus it has been translated
from the hand-written to the printed medium. The suggestion

by critics that this enigmatic hand-written page is supposed

205

to demonstrate the unreliability of traditional sources,
however, does not go nearly far enough toward explaining
what it contains. Is this fac-simile a double-hoofed devil
or is it the real thing and the copy in the printed text
before us a diabolical double? Or are they both forgeries
or both real? Robert's text, fixed forever in his time and
place, is yet subject to subtle alteration, for the fac-
simile Hogg provides does not match the printed text. Per-
haps we can see similarities between this copy and the "old,
false, and forged grant" (p. 164) Robert unearths to ruin
Mrs. Keeler and her daughter. Although fake, its effects
are real. Thus while printing is the metaphor oan,exoel;
lanoe for uncontrollable multiplication of "inviolable"
material, there is also a suggestion that the oral and
written traditions can commingle more amicably than we had,
perhaps, supposed.

Furthermore, in Hogg's text there is the suggestion
that the "traditionary" narrative may even have been derived
from Robertfis manuscript and the unusual circumstances of
its production and destruction:

the numerous distorted traditions, etc.

which remain of that event may be attri-

butable to the work having been printed

and burnt, and of course, the story

known to all the printers, with their

families and gossips. (p. 229)
This circular effect of a story derived from itself yet
materially different underlines the Hermetic paradox of re-

production as an unbreakable circle that nonetheless can

206
produce heirs of an altogether different cast than the
original.

Whethem* the story reached successive generations
through this means, through the Editor's efforts, through
oral tradition or through the present manuscript's dissemi-
nation, the devilishness of the printer's art is inherent in
the very medium by which the author expresses his content.
And, of course, the oral tradition remains: twentieth-cen-
tury critics have in a real sense disinterred Hogg's largely
neglected manuscript to speculate endlessly on its meaning
almost as if it were the suicide's manuscript. As Barbara
Bloedé reminds us,

It occasionally happens that a work,

almost unknown during its author's life-

time, receives universal recognition

within a few years after his death; it

is much rarer for that recognition to be

witheld for a hundred years. Yet such

was tag fate of James Hogg's master-

piece.
And such, too, was the fate of Robert's text. Hence the
"undead" manuscript continues to live in constantly-multi-
plied editions and versions despite the prohibition on al-
teration. The reader is constantly thrown into doubt about
his/her "real" position in relation to the novel until the
very notion of reality, endlessly refracted, seems irrel-
evant, a circumstance notably akin to Robert's despair over
the multiplicity of his sins. Robert's pamphlet was "wrap-

ped so close together, and so damp, rotten, and yellow that

it seemed one solid piece"(1u 227); the separate versions

207
of Hogg's text cling closely together, too, so that they
appear to be of one reconcilable fabric. But the appearance
of solidity is illusive in this patchwork of mis-matched
detail.

Ultimately Hogg's novel itself does not justify. Like
the lines of the manuscript fac-simile, the segments of the
text respond to internal rather than to external concerns,
leaving the reader to justify the inconsistency with his/her
expectation in whatever way it is possible. The author's
multiple modes bring to mind Robert's plethora of pockets,
evoking in turn Hoffmann's image of the devil who appeared
to St. Anthony with his pockets full of elixirs suited to

the taste of every potential victim.

Translation and Inversion

"I will overturn, overturn, overturn it;
and it shall be no more, until he come,
whose right it is, and I will give it
him" Ezekial 21:27 (9. 181).

Many Gothic and Romantic novelists insisted on providing
their readers with a rational solution to evidently-super-

natural matters. As Kiely remarks,

When a story is told twice in a novel by
Radcliffe or Clara Reeve, it is first
told, whether or not the first person is
employed, as if through the eyes of a
terrified, confused, and highly excit-
able heroine and, only at the end retold
"as it really was" by a sensible, all-
knowingunarrator or a wise family
friend.

208
An immediate on-the-scene emotional response is later adjus-
ted to the expectations Of modern empirical perspectives by
focusing expressly on the apparent causal components which
engendered the initial reaction in the perceiver while deni-
grating the significance of the data provided by the ori-
ginal response itself. Hence the reader's attention is
effectively diverted easy from the psychic data of the
excited person's behavior toward the physical data of its
evident material cause. Both Lewis and Hoffmann, however,
while making certain references to this formula produce
variants which ultimately resist the transfer of attention
to external objects, preserving the emphasis upon the exper-
iential dimension and consequently reinstating the mystery
itself as the central concern of the drama. When Lewis
presented his three versions of Elvira's supernatural visit
to Antonia, the reader might well have expected that the
third account would "clear up" the misunderstandings of
Antonia's highly-excited state engendered by her reading
choice and of the landlady's superstitious babble engendered
by her upbringing and expectations. But although the monk
found only a frightened Old woman behind the bed curtains,
the reader was by no means convinced that Donna Flora was
responsible for the visions of Dame Jacintha or Antonia.
Each vision, instead, maintained its own set of ground rules
derived from the nature of the observer rather than the
event itself. And significantly the narrator made no at-
tempt to arrange them hierarchically to suggest which of

them might have been the most valid expression of human

209

experience. In like manner, while Hoffmann's inclusion of
the Old Paintem”s narrative would seem to Offer a solution
to the foregoing text from the point-Of-view of a quasi-
omniscient person, as we have seen, it offered almost none.
In effect, the information provided about the causal ur-
sprungs of Medardus' bizarrre adventures seemed as tangen-
tial and extraneous to the experiences recounted by the monk
as Hogg's Editor's discussion of highland bonnet styles.

It is all the more interesting to note, then, that
while Hogg employs the narrative type utilized by his Gothic
predecessors which includes the account rendered by a de-
tached and presumably reliable narrator and a highly excited
interested party, his method of presentation in terms both
of structure and content leaves the reader wondering who to
believe or whether to believe anyone. In the first place,
as several commentators have noticed, Hogg's novel reverses
the usual pattern of irrational account followed by rational
explanation in Offering the Editor's "traditionary" account
hefone the fanatic's text. Furthermore, Hogg completes the
inversion of his novel's structure by including at the end a
set of comments, empirical observations and explanations
about the text's origins which ought, by usual Romantic
standards, to be at the beginning. Sir Walter Scott, for
example, frequently constructed fairly elaborate fictional
introductory explanations for the manuscript's genesis--
often detailing the circumstances of the discovery of the
text in some romantic concealed spot, from whence the editor

rescued it to present to the public. This "discovery"

210

technique, of course, was employed by Walpole in the intro-
duction to The Castle of Otnanto. presumably to enhance its
acceptability but also to focus on the experience of epi-
phany so central to the Gothic imagination. True to his
Hermetic form, however, the Ettrick Shepherd gives us the
preliminaries at the end of the novel, and in such a confu-
sing and disjointed array as to encourage the reader to
perceive of all such causal explanations as more lame and
fragmentary afterthoughts than intrinsic functions of empi-
rical truth.

The inversion of structure in Hogg's novel is no doubt
inter-related with a variety of other inversions which the
author effects on a more minor scale. One of the most
striking instances of inversion involves reader expectation,
a tendency we have already seen very much in evidence in
Lewis' and Hoffmann's works. As Elizabeth 1L Harries
explains,

[Hoggfls] novel demands that we contem-
plate two incompatible versions of the
same sequence of events simultaneously
without insisting on a third version
that mediates between them or rounds out
the gaps in the circle. In placing
these narratives side by side, Hogg is
challenging our comfortable assumption
that this kind of juxtaposition will be
illuminating, that it will make it pos-
sible to construct a coherent reading of
two narratiges that are incoherent in
themselves.

The most Obvious effect of the author's deliberate refusal

to "play the game" according to the assumed rules is a

211
heightened self-awareness on the part of the reader. Simi-
larly Robert's refusal to remain only a spectator or only a
player of the game forces George to beiconstantly aware of
his movements. But collisions nonetheless occur and these
are subject to radical reconstructions reversing the Edi-
tor's bias to implicate George and absolve Robert.

Because self-awareness is such a crucial concern within
the context of the doubling impulse in literature, let us
examine its implications for the reader a little further.
By analogy we can look at our usual behavior when driving an
extended distance on a freeway. As long as the expected
monotonous routine is not interrupted, we can be mentally
immersed in a number of other concerns: listening to the
radio, chatting with a companion, thinking over a difficult
problem, or even all these at once. Our body operates the
car mechanically without any caretaking on the part of our
conscious mind--almost as though the effort were as
involuntary as breathing or metabolism. However, let some-
thing out-of-the-ordinary occur (particularly something
likely to be dangerous such as a sudden stop by the driver
ahead) and our body abruptly shifts control over to the
conscious mind optimising our chances of safely dealing with
this "non-standard" situation. Perhaps we are similarly
prevented from being lulled into a dreamy state of met
expectations by our Hermetic author. If so, we can assert
that the Hermetic function of inversion seems constantly at
work behind-the-scenes as well as onstage to force us into

awareness of what we are presently doing despite our

212

inclination to avoid this sometimes-painful effort. Looking
into mirrors is certainly far more Often an unpleasant than
a pleasant experience. In fact, we generally do not exert
ourselves to look into mirrors unless we have reason to
believe something is wrong with our appearance. And what is
wrong with appearances is precisely Hogg's theme so that our
reflections in his mirror may be grotesquely altered though
still faintly recognizable or almost identical except for
some small flaw. In either case the tiniest clues are
crucial and without full consciousness of the intricate
twists and turns of the text we will quickly find ourselves
in Robertfls unenviable position in the web, wanting only to
"be at the light," but finding ourselves being pounded into
oblivion by the merciless weaver.

The reader, it would seem, desires the luxury of a
straightforward narrative with no inordinate amount of
sorting out to do. As an 1824 critic affirms:

to preserve that unity which is essen-

tial to the production of a pleasurable

impression on the reader, one of two ob-

vious courses must be consistently ad-

hered to. The phantoms Of that super-

stition must either have a real, exter-

nal being;<n‘they must exist solely in

the disggsed imagination of the supposed

writer.
The critic goes on to lament that Hogg does not "adhere" to
either course consistently. Similarly George asks Robert to
"tell me plainly" why he follows him. The Editor, too, want
to "be at the light" and to forward this purpose he makes a

great deal Of effort to give a careful analysis of names,

213

dates, artifacts, and observable behavior on the part Of his
characters. In keeping with the Editor's fondness for clar-
ity, his hero George is constantly depicted as honest,
forthright, and outgoing. George seems to have nothing to
hide; indeed when he sees his reflection in the scene at
Arthur's Seat "he perceived nothing but a halo Of glory
round a point of cloud that was whiter and purer than the
rest" (p. 44). Yet this impulse to the clear, no-nonsense
revelations of daylight and scientific scrutiny is undercut,
interrupted, and inverted constantly by the machinations of
a darker, more chaotic germinative force that appears to
Oppose every pretense to purity. Ironically, this force is
represented chiefly by Robert who fancies himself purer than
those around him. But it is also evident in more positive
voices like those of John Barnet and Bessy Gillies who
refuse to be exact about anything. And, Of course, this
same impulse is constantly at work in the labyrinthine
design of the text itself and the machinations of its elu-
sive, omnipresent shepherd.

The acute intensification of self-conscious focus re-
quisite for maximum self-awareness in moments of urgency is
clearly too painful and difficult an effort to be prolonged
indefinitely. We Observe it stretched to its limits in the
most elaborate boxed narratives such as Robert's rendition
of Samuel Scrape's account of the wives of the clachan's
tale of the devil's sermon to the people of Auchtermuchty.
Here it is even more critical than usual for the reader to

pay careful attention to the intricate interweaving of

214

language, character and theme if he/she is to safely thread
through this textual labyrinth about the interpretation of
texts. However, self-awareness repeatedly attenuated by
these regressive steps can lead to another kind of com-
placency: relativism with its accompanying introverted
thrust which denies the power of action in the world or even
the possibility of escaping from the encompassing prison of
Self infinitely multiplied. Thus the complementary motion
from heightened self-awareness to inattention is likewise
characteristic of Hermetic facility. Hermes both leads the
dead to the underworld and returns Persephone to the land of
the living. Consequently, we find that the character most
representative Of this tricksterish force, Gil-Martin, is
the most predictable of all. His appearance, his behavior,
his ironic wit--almost everything about him isailiterary
cliche based upon the traditional attributes of this pre-
eminent fiend. And Gil-Martin constantly persuades Robert
to interact with the world in complete contradiction to
Robert's relativistic notions about absolute predestination.
Thus, as we have observed in Medardus' manuscript, the
impulse to the serene monastic isolation of self-awareness
is continually mirrored by a maniac instinct for the strong-
est proofs of being able to make an impact on others: rape
and murder.

Hogg orchestrates a highly unpredictable medley. Only
the arch-felon and the arch-fiend seem to know with cer-
tainty; even Robert has his doubts. For everyone other than

these two, like is an ill mark and scarcely to be relied

215
upon for making predictions about what will occur next. The
predictability so valuable to scientific validation is top-
pled by a chaotic undercurrent suggesting that the apparent
repeatability of an experience or an experiment can never be
wholly relied upon. We may instead be dealing with a dia-
bolical likeness in substance wholly different from the ori-
ginal. Indeed, the disparate descriptions of the suicide's
grave seem to affirm such a possibility. This Hermetic
"uncertainty principle," then, functions within and outside
the novel like so many precipices opening suddenly before
us: it effectively shakes our confidence in involuntary
routine, forcing enhanced attention to every detail that
might serve as a clue to an overall understanding of the

viewer's position in relation to the textual landscape.

In Hogg's scheme, the notion of translation is closely
akin to that of inversion and promotes some of the same
sudden shifts and turns of text we have already noted. Like
Lewis and Hoffmann, Hogg uses movements between different
languages to evoke the confrontation Of mirror-worlds. His
alternate reproductions of the Scottish dialect, the quasi-
Biblical rhetoric of the Covenanters, the Enlightenment per-
spective of modern man and the ironic, double-edged ambigui-
ties of Gil-Martin in turn have the effect of disorienting
the reader and making him/her constantly aware of multiple
perspectives. Perhaps, then, it is not an altogether care-
less attitude that prompts the author to present in Robert's

narrative of Samuel Scrape's tale of the devil and the pious

216

people of Auchtermuchty a shift in the middle of Scrape's
story from Scottish dialect to modern English and then a
return to dialect at the end. To complicate matters even
more, the passage spoken by the Wcorby craws" immediately
preceding the shift into modern English specifically invokes
Shakespeare:

"Come all to church tomorrow, and I'll

let you hear how Iflll gull the saints of

Auchtermuchty. In the meantime, there

is a feast on the Sidlaw hills tonight,

below the hill of Macbeth--Mount, Diabo-

lus, and fly" (p. 181).
In fact, Scrape's tale itself deals with language and the
importance of being able to easily shift perspectives. Its
hero, Robin Ruthven, "'had been in the hands 0' the fairies
when he was young, an' 0' kinds 0' spirits were visible to
his een, an' their language as familiar to him as his ain
mother tongue '"(p. 180). Robin's Hermetic flexibility in
moving between languages enables him to discover that the
popular preacher has a pair of cloven hoofs. Had he taken
the crow's speech for mere meaningless squawks he would not
have been able to out-trick the Master Trickster. Robin is
resourceful, recognizing that, as Kiely suggests, "to adopt
one system or one vocabulary.....is to ignore or annihi-
late the others."27

Examples of Hermetic translations are:u>frequent in

Hogg's text that only a few can be discussed here. One of
the most interesting of his slippery word-amplifications

relates to Robert and George's surname, Colwan or Cowan. As

217

I have already suggested, the name "cowan" referred to a
person not yet initiated into the rites of Freemasonry. It
is also obviously evocative of "coward," a word which accu-
rately describes Robertfls behavior at almost every critical
turn of the narrative, but can scarcely be applied to the
manly George. Brave behavior implies the sacrifice of self
for others, or for the greater good; both the notion of
cowardice and the concept of an uninitiated person suggest
self-serving behavior based on the preservation of the indi-
vidual even at the cost of the group or species. Robert
has,ixafact, severed himself from nearly all wordly rela-
tionships. As the weaver puts it:

"That waratch that the Deil has taen the

possession o,' an' eggit him on to kill

baith his father an' his mother, his

only brother an' his sweetheart." (p.

192)
Evidently, the name "cowan" is more strictly applicable to
Robert than to George (who is a Colnan) for several reasons.
First of all, as we have seen, Robert says that he is not a
Colwan when he confronts George; George likewise denies that
Robert is a Colwan. Second, Robert identifies himself dur-
ing his stay at the weaver's house as "Cowan," a name which
immediately alarms the head of the household as but one
letter different from that of the notorious murderer. Fin-
ally, the suicide's grave is known as Cowan's-Croft, even
though, when we last hear from the sinner, he is calling

himself Elliot. We do know, however that.he has vowed to

put his "real" name on his manuscript: "1 determined with

218

myself that I would not put the Border name of Elliot, which
I had assumed, to the work" (p. 201), but the manuscript as
printed only includes the highly ambiguous "WRITTEN BY
HIMSELF" in the place of the author's name. Like The Con:
fessions, then, this portion of it seems to resist certainty
by deliberately embedding itself in mystery. One final
meaning common in Haggis day for the word "cowan" (no doubt
it was from his usage that the term was adopted to Free-
masonry) is particularly appropriate in this context: a
"cowan" was a builder of stone walls.

It would appear, then, that Robert serves as a force
representing the resistance to translation, movement, or
communion: in effect, Robert would seem to enforce segre-
gation and compartmentalisation of separate entities much as
scientific classification did and much in the way that his
mother and the Rev. Wringhim attempted to maximize disson-
ance in their religious rhetoric. This is not strictly so,
however, for in many ways Robertfls behavior is so constantly
disruptive of everyone else's lives that we can hardly see
him as a force for order. At least according to his narra-
tive he is continually moving others from one state Of being
to another like a Hermetic agent of fortune: he brings
shame upon several honorable people, commits several mur-
ders, disrupts the households of others and probably gets
Mrs. Keeler's daughter pregnant. Unlike George,*whom we see
as an outsider viewing the "fairie web" of interaction or
playing orderly games, Robert is firmly caught up in it and

constantly demonstrating to everyone he meets that he is a

219
force for chaos and change--not order and isolation. Is it
possible, then, that the "l" in George's name is a wall
which Robert's lacks? At any rate, the stance of detached
"scientific" aloofness maintained by the Editor would seem
to be severely undercut by Robert's failure to maintain his
predestined purity in the hands of1311-Martin despite his
considerable rhetorical skills. Robert's notion of the
world is one in which neither choice nor change is possible:
one is predestined to either heaven or hell from birth. It
is a rigidly monistic system in which there is only one
reality which is unalterable. Gil-Martin, however, in push-
ing this notion to its an ahsnnonm extreme in his gullible
adept, demonstrates that the extremes do, in fact, meet and

absolute monism is identical with absolute chaos.

Excursions into Time, Space and Causality

There can be little doubt that time is strangely askew

in Hogg's Confessions as it was in Hoffmann's Elixins,
though not necessarily the result.of "a little untidiness"

23. There are peculiarities in time both

as Adams suggests.
within the Editor's and Robert's narratives that seem only
vaguely explained by the usual excuses of authorial care-
lessness, the unreliability of traditional sources upon
which the Editor supposedly drew or even Robert's presumed
psychiatric disorder. If we notice, though, that these time

lapses follow much the same pattern as those of Hoffmann, it

will be reasonable to suggest that they are symptomatic of

220

the mythic mode within which Hogg is working. Perhaps the
most obvious distortion of expected linear time occurs in
the arrangements of different parts of the text. For exam-
ple, a page from Robert's manuscript opens the text where it
is considerably out of order in terms of the time of the
material which immediately follows it--it isan:once much
earlier than the time in which the Editor himself was writ-
ing and details events which evidently occured much later in
the story. This difficulty is complicated by the use of the
Editor's later narrative before Robert's contemporary narra-
tive, finishing with a return to present time. In all, the
pattern reminds us of Hoffmann's deliberately ambiguous tem-
poral frame.

One Of the most interesting problems with time in
Hogg's text concerns Robert's birthdate. According to the
Editor, George Colwan marries Rabina Orde after he succeeds
to Dalcastle in 1687. Later, we learn that Robert, the
seoono son is seventeen in March, 1704, when helneets his
elder brother, George, for the first time. Not surpris-
ingly, this ambiguity of date reinforces similar ambiguities
of identity between George and Robert which occur throughout
the novel. Are they spiritual twins or the same being? In
this context it is interesting to remember the ambivalence
Hogg himself displayed toward his own birthdate. Perhaps
there is at work here a kind of Hermetic scorn for the
limitations and finiteness implied by precise dating to-
gether with a certain fascination with the human need for

such guideposts.

221

A similar discrepancy in dating occurs in relation to
the parliament session in Edinburgh. Hogg dates it at 1704,
but as John Carey points out, the session upon which it was
presumably modelled took place in 1703.‘29 Robert's narra-
tive involves a number of other confusions and discrepancies
in time, including those points at which he loses track Of
whole blocks of time and does things altogether inconsistent
with his puritanical precepts. There are further disson-
ances between Robert's version and that of the narrator as
we have seen in the case of the incident in which he is
attacked by the two women.

Hogg's alter ego, the Ettrick Shepherd, displays no
interest in the Editor's quest for "hundred year auld
banes," possibly because the mythic mode does not emphasize
the distinctions between past and present, but rather the
cyclical continuity of time. The Editor's analyses, on the
other hand, focus specifically upon the differences between
the disparate eras:

The breeches were a sort of striped
plaiding, which I never saw worn, but
which our guide assured us was very com-
mon in the country once, though, from
the Old clothes which he had seen re-
maining of it, he.judged that it could
not be less than 200 years since it was
in fashion. (p. 226)

The Editor clearly considers correct datingtxabe es-
sential as we see in his introduction, "I find that, in the

year 1687, George Colwan succeeded his uncle of the same

name, in the lands of Dalchastel and Balgrennan" (p. 3). On

222

the other hand, Hogg's persona in his letter to Blaokuooifls
which seems at first glance akin in spirit to the Editor,
allows a good deal more temporal ambiguity:

A nephew of that Mr. Anderson's . . .

says that . .. it is one hundred and

five years next month (that is Septem-

ber, 1823) . . . . But sundry other

people .. . pretend that it is six or

seven years more. (p. 220)
The hearsay evidence is adequate for Hogg's needs; he whim-
sically concludes, "Whichever way it may be, it was about
that period some way: of that there is no doubt" (p. 220).

Classification according to spatial criteria is equally

compelling for Hogg's Editor, who is forever pigeon-holing
his data:

It is neither a broad bonnet nor a Bor-

der bonnet; for there is an open behind,

for tying, which no genuine Border bon-

net I am told ever had. It seems to

have been a Highland bonnet, worn in a

flat way like a scone on the crown, such

as is sometimes seen in the West of

Scotland. (p. 226-7)
Spatial relations are just as ambiguous as temporal ones in
Hogg's constantly inverting worlds. Thus Mrs. Calvert sees
Drummond leaving in one direction and at the same time ap-
proaching from the other. The location of the grave is
variously explained, suggesting that there are two or three
different graves with different inhabitants. Hogg's letter
affirms that according to traditional sources the suicide

was buried at "'the top of Cowan's-Croft, at the very point

where the Duke of Buccleuch's land, the laird of

223

Drummelzier's and Lord Napier's meet”'(pp. 219-220).
Seeking the gravesite, however, the Editor asks in a shep-
herd's cot whether Hogg's description is correct and is
told:

there was hardly a bit oH:correct, for

the grave was not (H) the hill of

Cowan's—Croft nor yet on the point where

the three lairds' lands met, but on the

top of a hill called the Faw-Law, where

there was no land that was not the Duke

of Buccleuch's within a quarter of a

mile. (p. 224)
Spatially inconsistent, too, are the nature and size of
George's wounds which the surgeons claim were made by a
claymore like Drummond's while Bell Calvert and Robert say
that the weapon used in the murder was a rapier.3o

Causal mechanisms also rarely function in any straight-

forward way for this elusive author. The mob who riot in
Edinburgh blame each other for starting the fracas; Rabina
blames George and George Rabina for their incompatability;
Robert blames.George for indulging inai"heathenish" sport
while George blames Robert for interrupting his game; George
accuses Robert of following him, but Robert says it was Gil-
Martin who told him where to seek out his brother. More-
over, while in several cases Robert claims to be the perpet-
rator of various nefarious deeds including the dismissal of
Old Barnet, the expulsion and disgrace of 10611, the murder
of Rev. Blanchard and the execution of another person for

the deed, there is no confirmation that any of these deeds

was ever enacted. Even in the case of George's death, the

224
testimony is anything but conclusive and seems to have been
accomplished with a weapon Robert did not carry.

After a brief analysis of the syntax of Robert's open-
ing remarks in his narrative, Harries concludes that "Wring-
him's sense of causality . . . is askew."31 I would rather
argue that Hoggfls entire text refuses to understand caus-
ality in a consistent manner, a technique which signifi-
cantly undermines causal explanation oen se. Like time and
space, causality depends upon a human internal ordering sys-
tem which adjusts external events to accord with current
expectations. Hence, the particular patterns that are
selected depend largely upon the assumptions Of the Obser-
ver. We might say, then, that Robert committed murder
because of his moral turpitude, because he was mentally ill,
because the devil tempted him, because he had a faulty home
environment, or because he was predestined by God to do so.
Although all of these can be cited as possible causes for
Robert's behavior, they stem from several different world-
views so that while it might be feasible to accomodate more
than one of them as sources of his behavior, it is nearly
impossible to accept all at once. Causality, like charac-
terization, is effectively fractured into a multiplicity of
causes, forcing the reader either to choose one causal route
at the expense of major portions of the text or to question

the conclusiveness of causally-based explanation itself.

225

Family Portraits: Hogg's Reproduction of his Predecessors

Reproduction on the symbolic level Opens Hogg's novel
with the "Fac-Simile" of the Sinner's manuscript; reproduc-
tion on the physical level is immediately evoked in the
Editor's narrative by the representation of the scene of
George and Rabina's wedding-night. And in both these por-
tions of the text, the reader is also confronted with the
rhythm of apartheid and consummation which constitutes a
major locus of the doppelganger mystery. Robert's narra-
tive, too, opens with the elevated, quasi-Biblical rhetori-
cal style of the saint's confession, but quickly exalts its
central figure so far beyond the bounds Oflnodesty that at
times it reads like a megalomaniac parody of "a voice crying
in the wildernessJ' Parody is sometimes uppermost, as when
we gasp at Robert's absurd self-confidence and ridiculous
pastiche of logic or Reverend Wringhim's audacious account
of his struggle with God,

"I have indeed fought a hard fight, but

have been repulsed .. . although I

cited [The Almighty's] words against

him, and endeavored to hold him at his

promise, he hath so many turnings in the

supremacy of his power, that I have been

rejected. (p. 91)
At other times, though, Robert's fate seems to approach real
tragedy. Thus the reader is alternately distanced from and
collapsed into the informing intelligence Of the manuscript.

Ihm;Confessions was not the first work Hogg wrote about

a lecherous hypocritical religious person. In fact, a monk

226
who bears some strong resemblances to Lewis'.Mmbrosio is
borne aloft and dropped into the pit of hell by a lady witch
in "The Gude Greye Katt," Hogg's interesting parody of his

own work in his parody anthology, The Boeiio Minnonl on The
Lixins Bands of Bnilain. The genesis of this "anthology"
says much about Hogg's ability to identify with those on
whom his thoughts turned, for when several Of the most
famous poets of his day (including Scott, Byron, and Coler-
idge) refused to contribute to an anthology he would edit,
he simply wrote their poems himself, including his own poem
among them. Like much of Hogg's other work, this poem is
written in dialect and certainly does grotesquely reflect
the poet's own comic and rustic style, as well as his faith
in the fairie realm. Seated next to the witch at dinner,
the lecherous Bishop famous for his witch-hunting finds his

dinner-partner transformed into a diabolical "katt:"

The Byschope turnit him runde aboute
To se quhat he mocht se,

Scho strak ane clawe in ilken lug,
And throu the rOfe did flee.

The braide ful mone wase up the lyft,
The nychte was lyke ane daye,

As the greate Byschope tuke his jante
Up throu the milkye-waye;

The katt scho helde him
Atour the ausum hole,
And och the drede that he was in
Wase mayre than man could thole;

He cryit, O Pussie, hald your grip,
O hald and dinna spare;

O drap me in the yerd or 3e,

But dinna drap me there.

by the lugis

But scho was ane doure and deidlye katt,
And scho saide with lychtsum ayre,
You kno heuin is ane blissit plece,

227

And all the prestis gang there.

Och sweete, sweete Pussye, hald your gryp,

Spaire nouther cleke nor clawe.

Is euir that lyke heuin aboue,

In quhich am lyke to fa'?

And ay scho hang him by the lugis

Aboue the ausum den,

Till he fande the gryp rive slowly out,

Sore was he quakyng then!

Down went the Byschope, down lyke leide,

Into the hollow nychte,

His goune was flapyng in the Eyre,

Quhan he wase out of sychter3
This scene is unquestionably reminiscent of the ending of
Lewis' novel in which the licentious monk is airborne by a
demon who explains that Matilda was sent to secure his damn-
ation. It also reminds us forcibly of Robertfis description
of his torture by demons, a passage which is reproduced in
the fac-simile:

I was even hung by the looks over a

yawning chasm, to which I could perceive

no bottom, and then--not till then, did

I repeat the tremendous prayer! (p. 216)
Here the lovely lady whom the witch-hunting Bishop wants to
"try all alone," unexpectedly transforms herself into an
airborne cat, dropping him like the Monk into a deserved
hell. Somewhere between a benevolent demon and a guardian
angel, the cat-woman later restores her former master‘s lost
children to him. In this parody of his own work, Hogg evi-
dently has no patience with the rational witch-hunting world
and sympathizes completely with the imaginative efforts of

Fairie. But then, we have to remember that this is a

228
parody--at least on one level. As is usual with Hogg's
ambiguous work, we can never be quite certain whether his
authorial persona is that of the pious, moralizing shepherd
(which some critics see in his work) or the taunting, dupli-
cit double-talk of a deliberate devil like Gil-Martin, who
tempts his trusting but naive victims into forbidden terri-
tory then uncovers their shameful excesses for everyone to
see. Of course, The Boeiio Minnon, like any other mirror
can only allow the viewer to see the way he/she looks, so
the reverberating ambiguity of solemn sermonizer and
straightfaced liar underscores the prior assumptions of the
critic which determine his/her point-of-view: as in The
Confessions the ball is tossed relentlessly and frustrat-
ingly back into our court like some bad penny we had wanted
to pass off for the real thing.

Hogg was certainly acquainted with both Lewisfl and Hof-
fmann's essays into the mythic realm. He published The Con:
fessions in the same month (June, 1824) during which his
publisher Blackwood brought out an English translation of
Hoffmann's Elixins by Hogg's friend, R. P. Gillies33 and
there seems to be little doubt that he had Hoffmann's novel
at least partly in mind when he wrote The Confessions.3u
As we shall see, there are many points at which Hogg's
vision seems to merge with or re-envision those of Hoffmann
or Lewis. But certainly Hogg's evocation of the mentality
Of’a prior time was conditioned byaacloser psychic proxi-

mity to that time and paradoxically a greater urge to escape

229
from it than had motivated the more urbane visions of Lewis
and Hoffmann.

The two major portions of Hogg's novel seem to be re-
lated more or less in the manner that Hoffmann's novel is
related to Lewis' Monk. As Eggenschwiller explains, "in
the second part [of The Confessions] Robert, himself, con-
tains the basic conflicts represented previously by several
characters."35 Likewise, the several characters in Lewis'
drama suggest the compensatory mechanisms of psychic images
projected outward onto several different significant actors
while the single but diffracted central character in Hoff-
mann's text suggests an internalized version of a similar
phenomenon. We might say that the first is an extraverted,
the second an introverted, novel. Similarly, Hogg's extra-
verted narrative is followed by an introverted one.

Hogg resists the urge to duplicate his predecessors'
visions while quite specifically mirroring them in several
places. We have already considered Hogg'siearlier use of
the aberrant religious tempted by a demonic figure, a device
by this time commonplace in fiction. But significantly,
Hogg did not chose a monk for his central figure but rather
a type of religious character closer to his own time and
place and likewise more extravagantly representative of the
impulse toward fanaticism than any of his predecessors'
monks.

Haggis novel picks up an a slightly different slant the
theme Of Lewis'.and Hoffmann's: a young man dedicated prac-

tically from infancy to strict religious principles falls in

230

with an apparently diabolical force just at the moment when
he believes he has achieved the most important triumph of
his religious life. He is then tempted into a series of in-
creasingly heinous crimes--particularly murder--ending in
his death. Ambrosio, Count Viktor and Robert all sign
infernal pacts. For both Hoffmann and Hogg it is also
significant that the misguided man of religion writes out
his story before his death. Each author's protagonist is
especially noted for his St. Anthony-esque oratorical powers
and skill in intellectual pursuits. In fact, these very
skills seem to attract the attention of a diabolical force
with even greater powers of persuasion. Finally, each of
these orators has a "blind spot"ixlthat.he is unaware of
some very basic knowledge about human nature.

Like both Ambrosio and Medardus, Robert is technically
fatherless but while the fathers of these two die shortly
after the sons' births, Robert's father (whichever one he
may be) does not. The Editor leaves the issue of Robert's
paternity ambiguously open in considering the relationship
of Robert and George: "A brother he certainly was, in the
eye of the law, and it is more than probable that he was his
brother in reality" (p. 18). And like Agnes in The Monk,
all three boys are dedicated to religion by their relatives
almost from birth and raised in an exclusive environment
where the spiritual life is stressed; all are physically
sequestered from the segment of the world which they come to
regard as sinful. For Ambrosio and Medardus, the fallen

world is represented by the larger world outside the

231

monastery where people obey "natural" rather than God-given
laws; for Robert the sinning part of the world is repre-
sented by his father's portion of the house and embodied in
the person of his "natural" brother, George. Ironically, of
course, it is Robert who appears the "natural" in terms of
his gullibility at the hands Of Gil-Martin--a naivetg remi-
niscent of Ambrosio's credulity in Matilda's presence.

All three neophytes are also uncommonly well adapted to
success in the religious life since they have exceptional
intellectual and rhetorical powers, Evoking the Biblical
scene of Christ speaking with the elders in the temple,
Robert boasts of his superior powers of disputation:

I missed no Opportunity of perfecting

myself particularly in all the minute

points of theology in which my reverend

father and mother took great delight;

but at length I acquired so much skill

that I astonished my teachers, and made

them gaze at one another. (p. 90)
Here we are reminded of the vanity of both Ambrosia and
Medardus. But while the monks' mentors seem relatively
benevolent, Robert's teachers instill in the boy the neces-
sity of directing the power of religion against one's ene-
mies much as Lewis' Prioress hopes to use her religious
power for personal gain. Thus from the beginning we see
Robert utilizing all his native abilities to justify acts of
vengence leading to personal advancement. Robert, it seems,
is unable to see anything in terms of the broader relations

between human beings, such as those expressed in the Golden

Rule. .Again and again, Robert justifies his conduct with

232
highly amusing rationalizations:

Upon the whole, I think I had not then
broken, that is, absolutely broken,
above four out of the ten commandments;
but, for all that, I had more sense than
to regard either my good works, or my
evil deeds, as in the smallest degree
influencing the eternal decrees of God
concerning me, either with regard to my

acceptance <n~ reprobation. (pp. 103-
4).

In Hogg's novel Robert's fiendish friend, Gil-Martin, is
unquestionably the supreme master of rhetorical persuasion,
invariably overwhelming Robert with his mastery of the dis-
sective logical tools Robert himself has been taught to
value most. Like Matilda, he appeals to his victim's self-
love and confidence in his ability to recognize deceit if
confronted with it in order to effect his downfall. Caught
neatly in the net of his own presumptions about the absolute

nature of truth, Robert explains his consequent inability to
defend himself against Gil-Martin's logical subtleties:

my adherent, with all the suavity imagi-
nable, was sure to carry his point. I
sometimes fumed, and sometimes shed
tears at being obliged to yield to pro-
posals against which I had at first felt
every reasoning power of my soul rise in
Opposition; but for all that he never
failed in carrying conviction along with
him in effect, for he either forced me
to acquiesce in his measures, and assent
to the truth of his propositions, or he
put me so completely down that I had not
a word left to advance against them. (p.
116

The distinctions of language are not mere conveniences of

speech for Robert. Instead the delineations stated in

233

logical terms are so absolute that he can literally "out
people off" (or rationalize doing so) on their authority.
For Robert the word becomes the Word--not an approximation
to ideological content but a Ding=an=sioh. Thus he counters
the tennis game by adopting literally one of the players'
own epithets:

"That's a d----d fine blow, George!" On

which the intruder took up the word, as

characteristic of the competitors, and

repeated it every stroke that was given.

(p. 22)
As we have seen, though, the person who insists upon the
supremacy of one point-of-view necessarily encourages the
reader to see the absurdity of his/her inflexibility. Thus
Bessy Gillies reminds us of Hoffmann's maid in the "Oblate"
incident as she relates her conversation with her mistress
upon discovering that the house had been broken into:

"'Bessy, my woman,' qua she 'we are

baith ruined and undone creatures. 'The

deil a bit,' qua I; 'that I deny positi-

vely. H'mh! To speak a' a lass o' my

age being ruined and undone! I never

had muckle except what was within a good

jerkin, an' let the thief ruin me there

wha can."'(p. 61)
Albeit unconsciously, Bessy, like her namesake R. P. Gillies
who translated The Elixins, deftly effects a metamorphosis
of meaning in equating one set of words with another very
different in connotation but similar in appearance.

If the rigid interpretation of words destroys Robert,

it is also instrumental in George's demise for, as the

234

Editor tells us, his argument with Drummond stems from a
disagreement over the precise meaning of words:

[The altercation] was perfectly casual,

and no one.... could ever tell what it

was about, if not about the misunder-

standing of some word or term that the

one had uttered. (p. 48)

Circumlocutians and relative truths seem in Hogg's
scheme much more significant than facts that appear to be
indisputable. Hogg places a great deal of emphasis indeed
upon the unreliability of witnesses not only in the contra-
dictory versions of stories given, but also in particular
instances. For example, the value of personal testimony is
severely undermined when Bell Calvert and Arabella, spotting
from the window of their lodgings Robert Wringham accom-
panied by a young man bearing George Colwan's features, fall
into a stunned silence. The landlady happens to enter at
this moment, and "seeing the state of her lodgers, she
caught the infection, and fell into the same rigid and
statue-like appearance" (p.76). Miss Logan and Mrs. Cal-
vert then begin to exclaim "'It is he!'" The landlady,
still "infected," chimes in with "'Yes, yes, it is he!'" (p.
77), even though she has not the least idea of whom the
women are speaking. Indeed there seems to be something
diabolical in the ability to be certain about anything or
anyone. Gil-Martin, as Robert describes him, seems to know
every individual's personality even more thoroughly than the

person himself does. Bell Calvert's male accomplice also is

known for his abilities at positive identification: ""it is

235
well known that this same man--this wretch Of whom I speak,
never mistook one man for another in his life"'(p. 73).
Later the authorities agree to rely on this same
"wretch”fl'testimony as to whether the new Laird of Dal-
castle is in fact the murderer of George Colwan, "his dis-
crimination being so well known as to be proverbial all over
the land, they determined secretly to be ruled by his re-
port" (p. 84). If we can believe Bell Calvert's assertions,
however, this wretch is almost devoid of human qualities.
If so, can we regard his ability to identify people so
accurately--an ability presumably basedcnihis prowess at
distinguishing--as a diabolical trait? It seems that skill
in identifying faces accurately or in determining the char-
acteristic attributes of broad bonnets as opposed to border
bonnets does not endow the possessor with any innate
humaness. Along these lines we see Rev. Wringhim's demand
for an analytical explanation countered by old Barnet's
wholistic, intuitive summation:
"Now I should like to know, even from
the mouth of a misbeliever, what part of
my conduct warrants such a conclusionJ'
"Nae particular pairt, sir; I draw a'
my conclusions frae the haill o' a manfls
character, an' I'm no that aften far
wrangfl'(p. 95)
If we are to consider Barnet's formula in relation to
any of the novels we have examined, it will be evident that
analysis of any particular part of the novel as paradigmatic

of the whole is inadequate. But ironically in the Hermetic

mode we cannot accept John's estimation as formulaic either

236
in this case for it is, after all, only a small part of the
whole novel.

Hogg reproduces some of his predecessorsfl ambiguous
treatments of physical reproduction. Ambrosio, Medardus and
Robert have all shunned women for a large portion of their
lives. lklfact, they pride themselves on their virginity
nearly as unufll as their oratorical skills. As Robert
boasts:

the mention of such a thing as amonns

with any woman exisitng, to me, is

really so absurd, so far from my princi-

ples, so from the purity of nature and

frame to which I was born and conse-

crated, that I hold it as an insult, and

regard it with contempt. (p. 161)
However, despite their touted purity, each of these men of
religion attempts the violation of a beautiful, innocent
woman and is later associated with her murder--a murder
which he desires to accomplish: Ambrosio rapes and murders
Antonia; Medardus attempts to rape or seduce Aurelia and his
double murders her at the very moment he believes he has
overcome his own desire to do so and Robert seduces and
murders Mrs. Keeler's daughter. The conjunction of sexual-
ity and religion is not merely ironic or circumstantial, for
in each novel there are specific links between sexual pene-
tration and communion, whether in the more innocent manner
of George or Lorenzo's visits to church to spy on pretty
girls or in the diabolical use of religion to attempt seduc-
tion as.it is«employed by Ambrosio, Matilda, Medardus and

Reverend Wringhim. Of course, Gil-Martin's relationship

237
with Robert is not demonstrably sexual, but it could cer-
tainly be designated as seduction.

Moreover, in each of these novels sexual reproduction
is specifically linked with heredity--a link that reminds us
of the sexual nature of Adam and Eve's:fall and its conse-
quent curse on reproductive processes: Ambrosio is capti-
vated by his sister who evidently reminds him of his mother;
Raymondflsxlong-dead relative, the Bleeding Nun, takes the
place of his bride when he attempts to elope with Agnes;
Medardus lusts after his sister who is, like him, the pro-
duct of intense inbreeding and Robert suddenly exhibits
sexual behavior after he inherits Dalcastle. Both Ambrosio
and Robert also murder their mothers in close association
with their sexual lusts, In fact, Ambrosio, Medardus and
Robert are all instrumental in doing away with their entire
families.

It is notable, too, that although each of these sexual
acts may stem from the instinctual drive to reproduce, in
almost no instance in these novels does reproduction on the
physiological plane succeed. Obviously Antonia and Mrs.
Keeler's daughter produce no Offspring; Agnes, who is se-
duced in the convent, loses her infant quickly after its
birth. Even Rabina's two sons apparently do not live long
enough to reproduce themselves. It is worth noting in this
context that one of the primary functions of the church--
whether Catholic or Protestant--is to preside over the
rituals of human reproduction by sanctifying and circum-

scribing the conditions under which it may take place and

238

securing the infant's appropriate position in society. We
have seen that the notion of consummation is symbolically
linked with that of murder at the altar since the pure
virgin must in marriage give way to the violated potential
mother. Self-sufficiency, it would seem, neither needs to
nor can reproduce. This point has an interesting relation-
ship with the theological problem of God's need to produce
human beings, who are, after all, not perfect like the
deity. This problem is explored to some extent in both the
Biblical Cook of ion and Percy Shelley's fnomeihens Cnhonno.
It is also closely related to the question of how evil
(particularly Satan cn~ the Protestant depraved sinner) can
be derived from God, the greatest good, a problem certainly
close to the central concerns of our present texts. I will
take up these considerations further in my conclusion in
relation to the Hermetic mode, but for the present it may be
useful to consider briefly the manner in which each of our
protagonists cements self-sufficiency in a manner generally
equated with the diabolical.

A sense of powerlessness and impotency deriving from
the metaphysical impossibility of ever moving outside the
self seems to inform characters like Robert and Medardus.
We see this particularly in Robert's horror over the number
of sins he must necessarily commit daily. However, when he
learns that he can do no wrong since he is predestined to
salvation, he becomes, in a real sense, God, i.e., whatever
he does is right by virtue of the fact that he has done it.

But if everything he does is right (or wrong for that

239

matter) then there can never be any choice in any sit-
uation--he can only do what he in fact does. This regres-
sive problem of divine circularity suggests that the divine
needs a more or less imperfect mirror in order to recognize
its various aspects which it cannot see so long as it is
complete and self-sufficient. Only by means of the repro-
ductions in the mirror will it be able to see its own con-
flicts and choices. One of the mirrors of God would be
Satan, his comic parody; another would be man, his tragic
inversion.

In identifying completely with the divine, then, our
protagonists are caught between the desire to prove their
ability to change things--to make a real impact on the
warld--and their desire to retain their masturbatory self—
sufficiency. Hence, the dialectic between rape/murder and
isolation. They affirm their self-sufficiency, too, by cut-
ting themselves off from their heredity literally--cutting
their own umbilical cords to affirm the eternal NOW in con-
trast to the infinite succession of hereditary generations.
And certainly suicide becomes the ultimate divine parody,
for the suicide usurps power over his own being from God.
The most absolute affirmation of reproductive self-suffi-
ciency is self-creation, followed by self-destruction. But
on another plane it is merely childish hubris to believe
that one is doing;by choice what was predestined all along
by one's nature.

Each time a character in any of these novels displays

undue certainty about his/her situation, that confidence is

240

immediately shaken by an intrusion from another realm which
suggests the possibility that the present categorization
only functions on one level and omits the broader repercus-
sions of the statement at other levels. Thus when Lewis'
Agnes poked fun at the Bleeding Nun tale and presumed to
parody it as a means to personal gain, she (and Raymond)
quickly discovered that the apparently old-fashioned, super-
stitious mode of perception was still a significant force in
their lives. In like manner, George Colwan, "king" of
the game, is concentrating all his effort on his mock compe-
tition at tennis when he is suddenly confronted by a darker
sort of Opponent representing the wider implications of the
"game," who challenges him to a completely different under-
standing Of competition:

[Robert] seemed determined to maintain

his right to his place as an onlooker,

as well as any of those engaged in the

game, and, if they had tried him at an

argument, he would have carried his

point; or perhaps he wished to quarrel

with this spark of his jealousy and

aversion, and draw the attention of the

gay crowd to himself by these means;

for, like his guardian, he knew no other

pleasure but what consisted in appo-

sition. (p. 21)
George's mock combat, like Agnes' personation of the Bleed-
ing Nun summons up a formidable double of the more innocent
original. These doubles, it would seem, predictably appear
when the protagonist feels most confident in his/her own

sphere. Thus George, seated at the pinnacle of Arthur's

Seat early in the morning succumbs to over-confidence:

241
'”Here,' thought he, 'I can converse with nature without
disturbance, and without being intruded on by any appalling
or obnoxious visitor'" (p. 39) Of course, this thought is
no sooner expressed than George is confronted by the most
frightening double of his experience: the apparition of his
brother. Does George feel safe from being intruded on
because he is up high—-metapharically closer to heaven? If
so, we have already seen in Hogg's "Gude Greye Katt" how
easily heaven and hell can be interchanged. It is certainly
worth noting that every mountain height also suggests a very
steep descent nearby. As we have already seen, a similar
imagery of juxtaposed contraries informs the ending of
Lewis' novel. George's uncomfortable confrontation with
"nature" is also reminiscent of the critical scene in Hoff-
mann's novel in which Medardus accidently precipitates Count
Viktor's fall from the cliff of Devil's Gorge. In each
instance a darker aspect of the protagonist's heritage mat-
erializes at a moment when he seems supremely self-confident
and secure. Nor do Ambrosio, Raymond, Medardus, George or
Robert recognize their own intrinsic affiliation with their
terrifying and unpleasant counterparts. George explicitly
(and publicly) denies his relationship with Robert, "'My
mother's son you may be--but noi a Colnanl .. .. Mercy be
about us, Sir! Is this the crazy minister's son from Glas-
gow?"'(p. 23). It would seem that whenever actors in these
fictions believe they have succeeded in isolating the
sources of evil from those of good so that the ostensible

evil may be eliminated, they realize too late that the

242
desirable elements are necessarily destroyed along with the
undesirable. In fact, any attempt to harness empirical and
analytical delineations to moral judgements is likely to
lead either to disaster or absurdity; in this novel it

generates both at the once.

Reproducing Scenes

Like Hogg'SInajor characters, the scenes of his novel
tend to reproduce themselves by interbreeding with their
parent scenes, leaving the reader in sore difficulty re-
garding the relationships between the various events and
their time sequence, much as we are hard put in Hoffmann's
novel to untangle the myriad of hereditary entanglements
constituting Medardus' ancestry. One example of a prolif-
erating scene involves repetitive events from both Editor's
and Robert's narrative reverberating with a play between
guilt and innocence. We have already glanced briefly at the
scene in which Mrs. Calvert and Miss Logan attack Robert
from behind the brushwood after he discovers them. In
Robert's narrative this scene is evoked in several different
episodes. In the first echo, Robert and Gil-Martin crouch
behind a similar thicket to murder Rev. Blanchard. When
Gil-Martin's initial shot does not take effect, the Reverend
discovers that assasins are lurking in the brush. As in the
scene with the two women, Gil-Martin is responsible for the
discovery of the hidden assailant. As Robert watches the

Reverend approaching, he reminds us of Hoffmann's Medardus

243

approaching the sleeping Count Viktor and likewise of Gil-
Martin's easy ascendency over his victim:

Never was there such a picture of human

inadvertancy! a man approaching step by

step to the one that was to hurl him out

of one existence into another with as

much ease and indifference as the ox

goeth to the stall.(p. 127).

In Robert's portrait of his unaware victim and in his
sympathy with the "horrid" fate of the innocent journeyman
preacher who was condemned for the murder of Rev. Blanchard,
we are reminded of Robert himself. Robert firmly believes
in the absolute and decisive supremacy of logic. Hence he
is completely at the mercy of Gil-Martin's superior argumen-
tative skills. Despite his often intense awareness of his
duplicity ("my heart was greatly cheered by this remark; and
I sighed very deeply" [p. 94]), Robert is so naive about his
"friend," whom he believes to be Czar Peter of Russia, that
in this respect he really is as innocent as the sacrificial
beast, "[Gil-Martin] dragged me away with as much ease as I
had been a lamb" (p. 125). At once paralleling and in-
verting the original scene, Gil-Martin smoothly induces Ro-
bert to confess his extensive guilt before the women and
then sets his "innocent" victim upon Miss Logan in order to
sacrifice him to the women's torments.

And Robert's innocence is also reminiscent of George's
innocence, particularly as we see it in the scene at Ar-

tflnnfls Seat where Robert--once more crouching down in am-

bush--is literally about1u>"hurl him out of one existence

244
into another." Evidently George is innocent inasmuch as he
believes implicitly in the goodness of human nature. Inter-
estingly enough (and certainly in character) Robert's chief
concern in hesitating to murder his brother is the fear that
he himself will be thrown over the edge. (M‘course, he is
literally "overthrown" by George when the latter flees from
the apparent monster in the mist over the cliff. Similarly,
Robert is brought "backover" by the "two harpies" who tackle
him among the brushwood, pulling his hair, throttling him
and finally binding him with their garters. IEach scene of
ambush, then, would seem to effect a Hermetic inter-pene-
tration of guilt and innocence.

In a final evocation of the "brushwood" episode, toward
the end of his narrative Robert is accosted by demonic
forces while sleeping in a barn loft:

I was both stunned and lamed on the

knee; but terror prevailing, I got up

and tried to escape. It was out of my

power; for there were divisions and

cross divisions in the house, and mad

horses smashing everything before them,

so that I knew not so much as on what

side of the house the door‘was.. .. At

length, I was seized by the throat and

hair of the head, and dragged away, I

wist not whither. (pp. 204-5)
An alternate exploration of the dialectic between attracting
and repulsing entities is provided by the narrative of the
relationship between Arabella Calvert and Arabella Logan.
We notice that Bell Calvert apparently first comes to Ara-

bella Logan's attention when her name is mentioned as an

eyewitness in the investigation of George's death. However,

245

Arabella is unable to locate her until Bell breaks into her
house and steals some of her clothing and silver plate.
Several characteristics of Bell Calvert are strongly sugges-
tive of Robert. Not only is she a criminal who "'has been
made a tool, or the dupe, of an infernal set”'(p. 63), but
she also has some antipathy for the elder George Colwan.
When Arabella asks her "'Did you know my late master?'",
Bell replies, "'Ay, that I did, and never for any good,'"
(In 56). Finally, there~is a curious and highly ambiguous
sympathy between her and the inhabitant of the suicide's
grave: Bell was supposed to have stolen silver from Ara-
bella's house and the suicide was said to have robbed his
master of "a silver knife and forks" The identification of
clothing which forms such an important part Of.Bessy Gil-
lies' denial of knowledge that any of the items she sees
belongtn>her mistress also seems intimately related with
the Editor's careful descriptions of clothing in the sui-
cide's grave. The suicide, however, goes to his grave
retaining the stolen items (the Editor says a silver knife
was found in his possession) while Bell returns Arabella's
possessions.

This patterning of reproduced incidents and images
demonstrates some of the complexities of Hogg's tightly
woven text which extend even to fairly minute detail. We
note, for example, that Arabella Logan insists that Robert's
mother is responsible for the murder of George, though the
text gives us no other reason to think so; similarly, in

Robert's narrative, M'Gill's mother is specifically blamed

246
for the ladfls.academic and physical superiority to Robert:
"I was . . . well aware that the devilish powers of his
mother would finally prevail" (p. 102). The rivalry between
Robert and lvGill parallels Robert's struggle with the sup-
erior intellect of Gil-Martin. It also is closely related
tn>the competition between George and Robert with George
being designated "king" in the game of tennis and Robert
describing himself as "king" in the school after PUGill's
dismissal. Robert says that in his fight with.PPGill "[the
latter] at length went so far as first to kick me, and then
strike me on the face" (p. 102). The Editor says in the
tennis episode that Robert, after being overthrown by
George, "made a spurn at him with his foot" and that George
in retaliation "struck the assailant with his racket, . . .
so that his mouth and nose gushed out blood" (p. 23). In
another instance, when George grabs Robert's face at Ar-
thur's Seat, "he seized him by the mouth and nose so stren-
uously with his left hand that he sank his fingers into his
cheeks" (p. 41). Later, in Hogg's letter to Blaoknoonis we
hear that "one of the lads gripped the face of the corpse
with his finger and thumb, and the cheeks felt quite soft
and fleshy, but the dimples remained and did not spring out
again" (p. 221). The force of this impression, like the
impact of the printing press, leaves its mark reproduced on
the face of the protagonist as it does on every page of

Hogg's text.

247

Mediating Mirrors

Boundary violations are a constant preoccupation for
Hogg as they were for Lewis and Hoffmann. Like those of his
predecessors, Hogg's inter-penetrating modes are also marked
by intoxication (literally poisoning, equating it with Am-
brosio's centipede-bite and Medardus' poisoning incidents),
clothing changes and wounds--all typical metaphors utilized
in niies he passage which effect movement from one realm to
another, whether among primitives or moderns. The riot in
Edinburgh is precipitated by a bout of drinking as is
George's decision to remove to the brothel which results in
his death. Ordinary wine seems to have much the Same effect
on Robert that Medardus achieved from imbibing the myster-
ious elixirs. The "double vision" of the drunkard which
Pietro evoked suggests what modern psychologists have ob-
served about intoxication: the drug does not alter the
intrinsic attributes of the personality, but simply allows
those aspects which have been eclipsed by others or repres-
sed to surface. Hence drinking becomes a technique for
achieving communion with one's self and the wider impli-
cations of one's species affiliation.

Clothing has played a similar role both in drama (like
that of Shakespeare) and rituals where participants dress in
the characteristic garb of the opposite sex or of gods,
goddesses, or totem animals, presumably in order to invoke
the divergent aspects of themselves which these beings rep-

resent. Hence a man who dresses in the costume of a woman

248
learns to deal with his own feminine nature. Adam and Eve
gave the first outward sign of their change of state by
dressing in fig leaves. We have also seen that clothing
served as a metaphor for the justification of the sinner in
Protestant theology--a kind of symbolic inversion of the
primary transgression. In these novels we see clothing per-
forming the analogous function of facilitating movement from
one sphere to another and through such movement the reader
(if not the character? is able to glimpse the wider reper-
cussions of such imitative reproductions. Agnes is able to
pass through the closed gates of her house by virtue of her
imitation of the Bleeding Nun's dress; Medardus' monastic
robe gets him admitted to Baron Ffls house because it is
both a disguise and his real costume; later his adoption of
gentleman's attire admits him to royal circles and allows
him to escape from authorities and when Robert wakes from
his forgotten revels,tu2finds himself uncomfortably cos-
tumed in "gaudy and glaring" garb such as George might have
worn instead of his usual Puritanical suit of black. All
these suggest that a change of clothes does indeed effect
much more significant metamorphoses. The power inherent in
garments is further underlined when Gil-Martin exchanges
clothing with Robert so that the latter can escape, affirm-
ing, "'There is a virtue in this garb, and, instead of
offering to detain you, they shall pay you obeisance"'(p.
188). Though the Editor is likewise convinced of the impor-
tance of clothing (as we see by his careful delineations),

he does not seem aware of its metamorphic function, but

249

instead meticulously describes its particular attributes.
Yet the three different descriptions of the suicide's«clo-
thing he includes give the reader much the same opportunity
for movement between modes as do other instances of garment-
switching. Like Ambrosio's silver branch, the inversion of
garb allows safe movement through dangerous straits, but at
the same time imposes a burden of fractured identity which
makes re-collection (both literally and metaphorically)
difficult.

Hogg's penetrations, like those of his predecessors,
are likewise characterized by symbolic wounds to the pro-
tagonists which do not kill. Ambrosio was bitten by the
centipedero; Medardus was wounded by the abbess' crucifix
and later stabbed himself and lost the use of his arm to a
corrosive poison. Robert, too, is wounded by his confronta-
tions with his double, bleeding copiously from the nose on
two occasions and claiming, at least, that his brother's
intentions were murderous. Significantly, though, the
wounds these characters impose or wish to impose upon
others--sexual violation and murder--effect physical meta-
morphoses from one realm to another in their victims. The
presence of these protagonists' stigmata, then, suggests
immunity £11m) the transformations they themselves effect.
Thus Gil-Martin grants Robert immunity from murder and pro-
tects him from the demons as well as securing his escape
from Dalcastel by means of an exchange of clothing. The
Wandering Jew was supposed to have borne a mark upon his

forehead indicating him as the sole exception to the

250

cyclical metamorphoses of natural law; the bloody Cain-marks
of Ambrosio, Medardus and Robert likewise affirm that they
are in some sense exempted from the hereditary rites of
passage of their species. In this context the prolonged
Tantalus-like death scene of Ambrosio and the year of pen-
ance during which Medardus writes out his tale after Aure-
lia's death seem symbolically akin to Robert's suicide by
hanging. All three relate to the mythic motif of "in-be-
tweenness" or limbo characterized by suspension between hea-
ven and earth. We are reminded of a number of other suspen-
ded mythic figures--notably Christ, who hung wounded between
heaven and earth, or Odin, who hung on the World-Ash, and,
of course, the arch-Romantic figure of the suffering Pro-
metheus whose ritual function was brilliantly explored by
Shelley in fnomeihens Cnpoonn. The wounded, then, are
beings set apart and like Hermes they mediate between op—
posing realms.

Interestingly enough, each of the texts that we have
considered is specifically compared to the "undead"--those
like Agnes who have been buried while still alive or those
ghosts from the past who continue to walk long after they
should have gone to another state of existence. In both
cases these are figures caught in limbo between one world
and another, belonging strictly to neither. Texts, too, are
half-buried or half-unearthed. We have already looked at
Lewis' prediction of the "Gothic" fate of his novel,
untimely burial. His work also includes a number of disin-

terred literary fragments from the past which seem relevant

251
to present events. In Hoffmann's novel Medardus' text is
exhumed from the monastery library at B. where both it and
its composer (as well as the catalytic elixirs) were inter-
red apart from the world of the living. The Old Painter's
narrative lies similarly dormant in another monastery, only
becoming intelligible when Medardus appears. Robert's
enigmatic still-born manuscript is unearthed from the grave
of a curiously vital-looking hundred-year-old corpse. All
these instances of textual zombies suggest the equation of
written medium with spiritual medium: the text serves as a
mirror and spirit-guide to the other world as much as the
Bleeding Nun, the Wandering Jew, the Scots Mummy or any
other restless spirit suspended in time itself, but able to

facilitate Hermetic translation.

CHAPTER FIVE

TELESCOPING PATTERNS OF THE PSYCHE

The best test of authenticity concerning
our disciplines of exploring the imagi-
nal~is that the habitual ego senses
itself at a loss and is unable to iden-
tify with the images. They must be
alien even while familiar, strangers
even if lovers, uncanny although we rely
on them.

Introduction

In these three novels we have examined distinctive pat-
terns of character, narrative technique, plot, reader in-
volvement, language paradigms and experiential structuring
mechanisms. We have also explored the inter-relations among
individual texts and their literary farebears. Each of
these novels of mirror-images seems particularly preoccupied
with the Hermetic milieu of ironic proximity. This concept
is variously expressed by the Monk's unquenchable thirst
alongside the stream; Lorenzo's attempts to reach his nearby
but "buried" sister; Raymond's unintentional courtship of
the Bleeding Nun; Medardus! and Robert's intermittent alter-
nations between collapsing and splitting identity with other
figures; and each text's Self-conscious wooings and rejec-
tions of audiences. The texts, too, proximate events as if

252

253
we were present at them, encouraging the reader to partici-
pate in this proximation by anticipating the course of the
narrative, much as a scientist would make predictions about
the outcome of an experiment based upon his/her familiarity
with previous--and presumably analogous--events. Initially
presenting their visions under the auspices of narrators who
appear fully self-confident of their ability to orchestrate
the materials at hand, our Hermetic authors induce their
readerstx>assume a similarly confident posture, trusting
their authorial maestros to conduct a pleasantly diverting
concert, evoking the quaint simplicity of a time and place
firmly distanced from the superior understanding of the pre-
sent. But if we had expected to sit back securely detached
in the audience, politely responding at the appropriate
junctures, we soon find ourselves unaccountably moved on-
stage with neither script nor score to assist us. Meanwhile
we realize that our erstwhile guides have desserted us when
we are most in need of directions, sometimes abandoning us
to flounder like Robert in the weaver's web and at other
times teasingtuswith seemingly critical information that
thwarts our strongest efforts to use it or, again, patiently
and minutely explaining the most tangential information as
if it were our most crucial concern. The reader is refused
what he/she most desiresauuigiven--in abundance--what is

least desired.

254
Cleaving: A Paradigm

As readers we may come to suspect that our narrative
guides speak with forked tongues, though the elusive nature
of the text's guiding principles make it exceedingly diffi-
cult to point to a particular instance of ambiguity as posi-
tive proof of diabolical behavior on the author's part. As
John Barnet counsels, we need to draw our conclusions from
the "haill" of a man's (or text's) character, but this is
very difficult indeed. ‘We see Robert, too, struggling to
distinguish a precise indicator of Gil-Martin's devilish-
ness:

I was even so weak as, the next time I

met with him, to look steadfastly at his

foot, to see if it was not cloven into

two hoofs. It was the foot of a gentle-

man is every respect, so far as appear-

ances went, but the form of his counsels

was somewhat equivocal, and, if not

double, they were amazingly crooked.

(Confessions. p. 185)
Though literature frequently presents the devil as a gentle-
man, Robert does not seem ablerto conceive how a gentleman
can also be the devil. Like Ewson, he confuses what he
means with absolute meaning. Though the concepts of "devil"
and "gentleman" may not be literally equivalent, on the
metaphorical level these two "opposites" are linked together
as one: like the devil's hoof, they cleave. The word
oleaye itself, in fact, embodies a relevant paradox: it can
signify either to olins togethen (as in a nuptial embrace)

or to split apart (as with the stroke of a sacrificial axe).

255

Although this modern word derives its antithetical denota-
tions from two different root words (the Old English olifian
and eleofen), this information by no means negates the
circumstance that these contradictory meanings cling to-
gether in sound and appearance while they spring apart into
two separate definitions in the empirical delineations of
the dictionary. The word itself oleayes.2 The devil's
cloven hoofs beneath his preacher's garb, the chasm of
Devil's Gorge, even Antonia's captivating "cleavage" all
suggest the mystery of unity-in-multiplicity expressed by
the proximate images of these novels. We need, then, to
consider how it is that these authors move us (or refuse to
move us when we desire it) between different levels of
understanding and what the purpose of these moves might be.

If we have read Gothic and Romantic novels before, we
have little difficulty recognizing that a character who ex-
presses certainty about what he/she wants, 11%, makes a
conscious choice, is often confronted with its opposite.
Robertfisunwished-for meeting with Gil-Martin summons up
George's encounter with Robert in similar straits as Robert
asserts "just at the narrowest part of the glen, whom should
I meet full in the face but the very being in all the uni-
verse of God I would the most gladly have shunned," (p.
206)..Arabella Logan searches in vain for Arabella Calvert
whom she earnestly wishes to find. But it is only when Miss
Logan is asked to identify several items stolen by the
latter from her house, that she is able to meet her double

exclaiming (in inflated language that seems pointedly to

256

compare the desire for knowledge with erotic desire)'"Well,
of all the world you are the woman whom I have longed and
travailed the most to see. But you were invisible; a being
to be heard of, not seen,"'(ph 57). These inversions of
desire are in turn reminiscent of similar effects on the
erotic level as, for example, when Ambrosio feels disgust
for Antonia after he has raped her or when Medardus flees
from the choirmaster's sister with whom he is in love.
Desire--the movement toward something in order to merge with
it--is countered by disgust--the movement away from some-
thing in order to impede any possible merger. This dance of
paired images summons up the critical juncture of the mirror
which turns to cold, hard glass when we try to become one
with an attractive image of ourselves but at other times
reflects back an image so appallingly out-of-tune with our
expectations that we want to avoid mirrors altogether in the
future.

Inversions of desire like these are evidently inherent
to the structure we have noticed in this type of fiction.
However, when the reader has to undergo frustrations and
disappointments similar to those of the characters instead
of observing from a safe vantage point, he/she may feel
unfairly used by the author. Indeed many critics, both
modern and contemporary, have seemed to feel they were
maltreated as readers, particularly by Lewis and Hogg. We
desire explanation and understanding; instead we are forced
into frustration byways and disappointing cul-de-sacs much

like the characters in the tales who express specific

257

desires. As Robert interferes in George's game, so the text
interferes with the game in which the reader expects to take
part. Like the Elder George's mistress, we are robbed of
our inheritance (which in the case of the reader suggests
past experience as the basis for predicting the future
course of the novel's events). But such a robbery turns out
to be benign for Arabella Logan, who remains symbolically
"in-between" by refusing to swear to her belongings. Signi-
ficantly, these are later returned to her, with the addition
of'a valuable ally in the form of the thief herselffl After
Hermes stole Apollo's cattle he gave Apollo the tortoise-
shell lyre. Perhaps readers, too, should not be overly-
covetous about their "rights" until they have seen what the
thief has to offer.

Another related manifestation of proximity occurs when
the conscious designs of characters suddenly invoke larger-
scale manifestations of the original which they are imita-
ting. This is most obvious when the Bleeding Nun takes the
place of Agnes; the real monk, Medardus, replaces Count
Viktor who intends to imitate one, and Robert's over confi-
dence in his absolute salvation conjures up the original
over-confident challenger of God, the devil. Ambrosio's
thirst, at first denied, is then met with a torrent of water
that destroys him. Scenes can also have this effect so that
the secure and orderly garden of the monastery with its
delicate fountain and beautiful temptress seems a feeble
imitation of the closing scene of The Monk with its encom-

passing mountains and rushing waters presided over by a

258
vengeful demon. We are reminded that the "little wee ghost
of the rainbow" is, after all, the reflection of some gigan-
tic spectrum arcing between heaven and earth. But, like
George and Euphemia, we tend to fancy ourselves outside this
"fairie web" of connectedness and somehow exempt from those
devastating effects on characters which arise, evidently,
from a false sense of security. Yet our own presumption
about what the text "should" do is mocked and mirrored
endlessly by the intricacies of the text itself, implying
that the novel, too, is a larger and more threatening ampli-
fication of our assumptions about the comfortable and

rational relationship between fiction and its audience.

Affirmations and Denials of Distance

An empirical perspective which firmly separates spec-
tator from spectacle does not seem to accord with a mythic
perspective is which seer and sight are of a piece. In
effect, ironic self-awareness as we see it, for example, in
Gil-Martin and Lewis' narrator cannot be possible without
the premise of empiricism--the premise, that is, that there
oan be a real separation between experiencer and experience.
The locus of this separation in literature is the text,
which both invites total participation by the reader on the
imaginative level (like the reader's involvement in Anto-
nia's vision of her mother's ghost after both reader and
character have been reading suitable material to set the

stage for such an appearance) and forbids meaningful

259
interaction beyond the effort involved in turning the pages
by reflecting our assumptions back upon us (as in our frus-
trated perusal of the Old Painter's involved genealogy).
When we are truly pulled into the story like Robert in the
web, we are concerned only with our physical and emotional
reactions to the situation at hand and have no leisure to
contemplate how ludicrous we may look from another angle.
On the other hand, polarization between perceiver and per-
ception, as provided, for example, by our authors' conscien-
tious historicizing, forces us back into self-awareness by
allowing us sufficient distance from the phenomenon (or
text) to see some (M? the possible inter-relationships
between the different portions of the "fairie web" in a more
panoramic vision. Our presumed aloofness, moreover, per-
suades us that, acting as impartial judges, we can accu-
rately discern the nature of these relations and reproduce
them artificially by imitation as indeed authors of fiction
try to do. Hence Lorenzo, like Robert, intrudes in a ritual
of which he does not approve and re-aligns the roles of
spectator and playemu He introduces his own "production"3
of Mother St. Ursula's tale into the midnight procession in
honor of St. Clare for the populace of Madrid, re-casting
the apparently-devout prioress in the role of wicked witch
and inducing the other spectators likewise to violate the
framing "stageJ' Later he transforms the sacred statue of
St. Clare into a mechanical device for concealing mis—
behaving nuns out of sight and through this means leads

soldiers into the forbidden precincts of the convent. While

260
we cannot say that Lorenzo "caused" the destruction of the
convent and the murder of Antonia, his proximity to these
events certainly suggests more than a casual co-incidence.

A similar set of bifurcations seems to inform Medardus'
tale: when he Opts for one polarized style of existence,
something else is destroyed-~most obviously Aurelia.
Matilda at first reconstructed Ambrosio from.aicompletely
closed being entombed in the monastery to one capable of
interaction with the world. The demon at the end of the
novel who bears Ambrosio out of the Inquistition cell also
re-constructs the monk's story, completing the circle by
closing it again, when he informs the Monk that he has not
affirmed his heroic uniqueness at all but has only been
killing and inbreeding like a common brute.

Medardus, coming upon Count Viktor asleep at the edge
of Devil's Gorge, assumes that the latter will fall if he
does not awaken him. But when he shouts "Awake," and
touches his double, the latter disappears over the edge,
only to reappear as a mad monk. Medardus' previous desire
to "expose" the saintly Aurelia as the polluted, destined
bride of an aberrant monk seems even more intimately connec-
ted with her murder by his double at the alter, though,
again, assigning causality can be tricky here. And the
reader (if not the perpetrator) has little doubt that Robert
himself is responsible for the murder of his mistress.
Significantly, though, neither Lorenzo, Medardus nor Robert
has any sense that he himself committed the murder. Each is

aware only of a loss.

261

Characters in these novels often tend to function on a
literal level that effectively eclipses ea significant seg-
ment of meaning, believing that the categories they them-
selves impose upon the world are absolute definitions of the
phenomona's essence rather than simply convenient ordering
mechanisms for human perceptions. Because demonic language,
words and outward appearance seem like those of the mundane
world, they take it for granted that the rules of their own
world are likewise applicable in the demonic relm. Thus
Robert succumbs to Gil-Martin, George is perplexed beyond
measure by Robert's failure to obey the rules of his games,
Ambrosio is stunned by the demonfls literal keeping of his
promise and Medardus cannot understand why his heavenly
thoughts precipitate a demonic reflection. Each does not
recognize the limited scope of his own assumptions about the
finite qualities of language, logic and other empirical
categories such as time, space and causality as determinants
of the perceived world. Nor can any of our protagonists see
that while poles seem irreconciliably separate, there is an
over-arching relatedness in all polarity whether that of the
earth or the language we speak.

We notice, then, that self-awareness seems to hide
something or even apparently to destroy it: that which
enables us to see also blinds us. In effect, the moment a
person becomes aware, part of what was previously the self
is lost. It would appear impossible to actually be aware
cfi‘all the aspects usually associated with the self at the

same time since awareness requires an intensity of focus

262

which necessarily eclipses certain aspects of identity while
it spotlights others. Thus Euphemia's ability to get out-
side herself in awareness is ironically undercut by her
naiveté in response to Medardusfls superior knowledge. Once
set in motion any series of empirical removals is infinite,
since self awareness cannot be aware of itself and satnust
each time take another step backward in order to re-define
its multiplicity to include the perceiver as part of the
data of perception. Empiricism at its furthest extreme
postulates a world without perceptions--only objects of
perception themselves unaware while relativism (akin to the
mythic mode) postulates a world of maya--illusion--in which
there are no objects of perception, only awarenesses of
perceptions. Ultimately les.eninfimesflse.honoheni, for it
hardly matters whether everything is awareness or object of
awareness if in fact there is only one thing. Is there then
any way out after all? Or does Hermes merely demonstrate to
humankind that we are hopelessly trapped in a web of our own
weaving with no hope for escape?

When Hermes stole Apollo's cattle, he evaded discovery
by leaving backward footprints implying that he went in the
opposite direction. In like manner inversion tricks us into
seeing the limitations of the ways in which we see. Inver-
sion also suggests that the constellations below the horizon
will periodically re-appear, replacing the ascendant stars.
These novels show us both mythic and empirical foolishness
and both mythic and empirical insights, demonstrating that

the mythic view is not superior to the empirical or vice

263
versa, but each is contingent upon--and complementary to--
the other. However, since the construction of hierarchies
itself seems endemic to the empirical point of view, these
hierarchies need to be inverted in order to demonstrate
their relativity. We still have a hierarchy, of course,
because we cannot escape our mode of perception. But in a
world turned upside down or backwards like a mirror-reflec-
tion we are able to see the extent to which we insist upon
the "rightness" of particular forms even when they are
unsuited to our needs. In effect, inversion demonstrates
that empiricism, too, is mythic and instinctual and by no
means aloof from the kind of absurdity into which Jacintha
launches. Hence Matilda and Gil-Martin appear in the guise
of everyday people rather than monsters like Jacintha's
ghost or the demons who flock round Robert toward the end of
his narrative because such appearances are consistent with
the mythic assumptions of the empirical mode and not because
that is their absolute and inalterable form. In themselves
our demons seem equally at home in the shape of polite
ladies and gentlemen or fire-breathing monsters. They ap-
pear cooperatively in the shape accorded them by the as-

sumptions of their victims.

Hermetic Initiation

I have described the Hermetic experience as iniiia:

pony. We often think of initiation as the acquisition of

truth by a hitherto unenlightened neophyte. Although sudden

264
enlightenment may certainly occur, within the context of
these three novels this is not the most critical content of
the initiatory mystery. While the notion of truth-acquisi-
tion would suggest regular, orderly procession from a
"lower" to a "higher" level of knowledge, with some lofty
final goal (perhaps much along the lines of popular concep-
tions of Darwinian evolution theory), none of these authors
is content with.such a Linear concept. Indeed, the belief
that he has attained superior knowledge leading to mastery
over the evidently-baser instincts precipitates every one of
our protagonists into tragedy. To mantain our perspective,
we need to keep in mind another of the denotations of init-
iation: to begin. Becoming initiated does not just mean
arriving at a long-sought-after goal; it also means grad-
ually beginning to see in an entirely unaccustomed way, like
a helpless infant who knows nothing of the world. Hence,
the baptised person is said to be "reborn" and initiates are
frequently taught they have a new, spiritual "god" father
who replaces the old, biological father, th, the mortal
twin with an earthly father is, on another plane, the immor-
tal twin with a spiritual father. In shifting the perspec-
tive 180°, the old "truths" become symbolic of new "truthsJ‘
Forsaking the conventional to merge with the alien, a person
re-produces him/herself in a new but familiar form. Later
on, these recent revelations, too, will give way to other
formulations. The Janus-faced ritual demands at once vola-
tility and stability, rejecting the neophyte who cannot rec-

ognize the inadequacy of a one: attitude in a sehexl Yet

265
mandating that the old learn to retrieve the childlike per-

spective.

Snakes

When Hermes Psychopomps leads the initiate out of one
realm of existence into another, he bears the caduceus in
his hand, a wand entwined with a pair of serpents supposed
to be Rhea and Zeus, mother and son divinities who trans-
formed themselves into snakes to mate. A bite from a centi-
pede (which Ambrosio calls a serpent) in the monastery
garden sets iJTInotion Ambrosio's initiation into sexuality
and his eventual fall; we are reminded that the devil ap-
peared in Eden as a serpent. We have already noticed the
facility with which diabolical figures like Gil-Martin and
Matilda shift their shapes to suit the occasion. We have
also seen the ways in which characters' clothing changes (or
even the Editor's shifts from one account of the suicide's
garments to another, dissimilar one) open previously-sealed
doors of perception, though these Hermetic transmutations
also seem to simultaneously impose closure of another order.
The metamorphoses accompanying the changes of garb remind us
of the manner in which snakes shed their outgrown skins,
dividing themselves into two snakes--the old, hollow snake
(whose empty skin remains behind, looking deceptively like a
still-living snake) and the new, reborn snake. The mystery
of the emergence of the new snake from inside the old snake

is, in fact, a common metaphor for re-birth and renewal

266
associated with initiatory rites throughout the worldf‘

The serpent's dual re-production of itself stands in
contrast to ordinary physical reproduction in which the
smaller and more innocent child is born out of the older and
more experienced parent. In this instance, the younger (or
previous) snake is cast off to reveal the larger and older
snake who is also, paradoxically, young. And unlike the
child who is physically born only once, the snake is born
again and again, with each new skin being in its turn shed.
This mystery (H? the old-born-out-of-the young (reminiscent
of Wordsworthws"the child is father to the man") inverts
ordinary concepts of both time and causality and parallels
the spatial ambiguity of the boxed-narrative so common in
Gothic and Romantic novels where successive layers are shed
to reveal the recent-yet-ancient figures beneath. But while
the old form may be shed as no longer fitting the new snake,
the essence of the old snake is absorbed into the new one:
only its outward garment is cast off. Along these lines we
might say that when this old farm persists, glittering
deceptively in the sunlight like the shiny scales of the
living snake it may decoy us into the false assumption that
we know where the snake really is and can easily avoid its
bite. But the skin is, after all, only a place where some-
thing has once been--like Hermes' hollowed-out turtle shell.
In this image we can see all the zombies hitherto invoked:
the suicide's mummy with its life-like appearance, the spec-
tral Bleeding Nun, the ghostly Painter, Gil-Martin's array

of assumed identities, the architecture and costume of

267

outdated religion, as well as dusty and moldy old manus-
cripts and paintings which seem as if they ought to be
meaningful, but whose contents remain curiously inac-
cessible. Indeed, our texts repeatedly assert that whenever
a person thinks he/she has securely snared this elusive
energy, it immediately malts into another shape, leaving one
more empty skin. As Otto suggests, "it is Hermes' nature
not to belong to any locality nor to possess any permanent
abode; always he is on the road between here and yonder."5

It was said in antiquity that a person could not die
until Hermes severed the cord that joined soul to body. In
the capacity of midwife to the soul, Hermes would officiate
over the transition into the spirit world, teaching the
infant soul to let go of its bodily womb. Until Hermes
performed this task, however, the labor would be incomplete,
with the old way of seeing still restricting the new. Where
it was once a perfect fit, the snake's skin would now
tighten like a strait jacket, perventing further growth and
suffocating what it once protected. Hermes' Cesearean oper-
ation, though dangerous, would amend this unfruitful preg-
nancy.

I have mentioned the belief that souls could become
trapped in mirrors when they were crossing over, remaining
there as ghosts when they ought to have permanently changed
their state ofiexistence. .Indeed much of the work of con-
jurers and magicians (like the Wandering Jew) in every soc-
iety has been to assist these "in-between" souls to shed

their material identity in order to assume a shape

268

consistent with their proper sphere. Are we to see in these
half-dead, half-living forms the continued attachment to an
outgrown and useles skin like Agnes' mad clinging to the
corpse of her convent-conceived infant? Perhaps we need to
give up claim to our goods like Arabella or destroy our
presumed beloved like Lorenzo in order to move into a newer,
more appropriate shape.

Indeed there is in the Hermetic mode a certain cal-
lousness--a sadistic, destructive impulse which demands the
severing of the umbilicus that connects us with the old
forms, the past, the world of mother and childhood and the
sentimental longing for Eden or Medieval England, even if
the inexperienced infant dies in the process. We are re-
minded of Hermes' laughter when he discovered the tortoise
in which he saw (with his over-arching divine vision) a
potential lyre.6 If we refuse to re-envision our alliance
with the past, we, too, will be the object of divine scorn
and laughter, tumbled mercilessly along at the behest of
some cosmic force that cares nothing for our petty heroics,
much as we imagine our ancestors to have been subject to the
forces of nature. In Hermetic vision the dearest and most
precious substances are relentlessly destroyed while we are
forced to embrace the most common and foul. Hence Lewis
destroys Ambrosio and Antonia to reveal Virgina by means of
the unrecognizably corrupted Agnes. Medardus, too, em-
braces the mad array of his alter-egos in their fictional
re-creation. And Hogg destroys the sunny, good-natured

George to force his readers into an identity with his

269
appalling religious fanatic.

Since innocence is in effect the "blank page" upon
which the initiatory experience is imprinted, Hermes (for
whom everyone is in some sense a Canola nasal encourages
closure in order to violate it. For it is the closed,
sterile sanctum of the womb which must be opened in order
for reproduction to occur. Thus we, the readers, are in-
duced to accept at face value an Editor's or narrator's smug
superiority, feeling, no doubt, that we, too, are sophis-
ticated and worldly-wise, Overlooking the limitations of
our position, we are induced to believe that our discernment
is thoroughly reliable. As Robin Ruthven's Hermetic "corby
craws" confide,'"we must catch them, and catch them with
their own bait, too”'(p. 181k. Too late we discover that
we have been taken witilonn,own bait: our petty sophisti-
cation is only a pitiful imitation of a greater awareness.
Hermes may be a shepherd, but he also takes his trusting
sheep to market; at the end of his novel, Hogg, the shep-
herd, has already sold his "paulies." Like Ambrosio in the
final pages of The Monkl then, we have become the butt of
some titanic joke we scarcely understand. We, too, are
gullible virgins in the hands of a cosmic con-man who has
tricked us into corruption. In this way, the author demon-
strates that what appears to be absolute and carefully-
distanced empirical objectivity from one perspective is no
more than childish naivete from another.

Like Gil-Martin, the writer is able to slip from one

guise to another to re-produce mode after mode, version

270

after version, of the same material in successive re-envis-
ionings, each of which moves from one point of view to ano-
ther, slightly different, one. These shadings remind us of
the mystery embodied in the spectrum as opposed to the
polarization of black and white. Hermes whom Jung calls a
"many-hued and wily God" 7 has a mythic counterpart in Iris,
the female messenger of the divinities, who is the rainbow,
an arc between two different realms which subtly moves from
one color to a different one in indefinably small steps, yet
does not get caught up in a Zeno's paradox of infinite re-
gression which would never allow any change to take place.
Literally as well as metaphysically, it is Iris who allows
vision by opening and Shutting the lens of the eye to admit
light or to prevent the admission of too much light. The
subtle adjustment mechanism suggests the writer who can
never write exactly the same thing twice, but in larger
terms is always saying the same things over and over again.
The frustrations of the mirror image throw the viewer back
upon him/her self, but revision allows us to begin to see
the limitations of each viewpoint by means of their juxta-
positions.

Each of the novels we have considered takes a different
course, but above all each nses empinioal insighis to inan:
seeno empinioisml All three juxtapose accurate observation
of dream and fantasy images.(much.as modern psychologists
carefully record every detail of a dream or myth) with
observations of everyday social behavior. Lewis' Monk con-

stantly juxtaposes evident polarities like poetry and prose,

271

ordinary and exotic characters, the urgent immediacy of
dream and detached, empirical observation or fulfilled
reader expectation and disappointed reader expectation. By
presenting these apparently-conflicting world-views we have
termed mythic and empirical, he demonstrates that both views
do, indeed exist side-by-side in his world and both are
equally observable by the scientist, The reader may, how-
ever, by these juxtapositions consider the possible related-
ness of mutally exclusive linguistic categories or points-
of-view which we assume are likewise inherently antithet-
ical. Even his novel's ending is polarized into two dif-
ferent conclusions that we might term mimetic and mythic.
The ending describing Lorenzo's movement from attachment to
the dead (like Agnes' attachment to her child's corpse)
toward a union with Virginia is optimistic, suggesting that,
though gradual and painful, it is possible to reconstruct
the mythic aspect of human relationships in modern terms.
The ending involving the Monk's fate, however, is darker and
far more pessimistic. The sources of imaginative nourish-
ment for the monk are either inaccessible or overwhelming.
Helpless as an infant at his mother's breast (and reminding
us of the little bird at Antonia's breast in Matilda's
mirror) Ambrosio lies among the mountains just out of reach
of the water he craves until he is swept away by a torrent.

Unlike Lewis, Hoffmann does not emphasize polarization,
but rather constantly allows figures with different--but not
necessarily antithetical characteristics--to malt and melt

into each other, also implying the relativity of definition

272
to definer and undercutting any notion of an absolute,
external polarization. Medardus, however, continues to
believe in the absolute existence of good and evil as exter-
nal realities, constantly embracing one or another of the
identities around him as his "true" one. Yet Hoffmann's
more or less fixed array of characters, together with the
closed, circular structure of his novel in which the second
volume reverses the motion of the first, evokes the Oriental
notion that change and choice are but diabolical illusions
to be overcome. The major temptation, it would seem, is the
belief that the apparent separation between spectator and
spectacle exempts.the spectator from involuntary partici-
pation. But the isolated St. Anthony, by his belief in the
absolute security of his position, effectively switches
places with the devil, imprisoning himself apart from the
world to which he actually belongs. Perhaps the devil can
produce a more convincing image of God than God Himself.
Medardus grasps at the shed-off form of a dualistic world as
he grasps at the cast-off glove of the choirmaster's sister;
and the knowing figures around him are as derisive about his
behavior (though perhaps just as fond of him) as his mis-
tress. It would seem that he finds his salvation in the
acceptance of the procession of alternate identities by
fictionally re-enacting them (and recording them just as
they appeared almost as a scientist would record data) after
the death of Aurelia. Hoffmann's translations are never
absolute: proximity means that each new image is always

pregnant with a further one.

273

Hogg presents both polarized and blended images,
echoing the techniques employed by both his predecessors.
He begins by giving us something of a black-and-white con-
trast between George and Robert in the Editor's account.
This effect, however, is muted by the tale of the "good" and
"bad" Arabellas whose initial differences become increas-
ingly accomodated. Robertfls own account of his adventures
also serves to undercut the Editor's polarities, for whether
or not we feel his behavior is justified by the circum-
stances of his upbringing, we do feel a certain amount of
sympathy for his naivete in the hands of Gil-Martin and his
horror when pursued by demons after he flees Dalcastel.
And, finally, all semblance of polarity breaks down (though
the transitions are never as smooth as those of Hoffmann) in
the unfathomable sequence of antithetical and overlapping
material in the Editor's account of the suicide's grave.

These authors suggest that it is primarily through the
discernment of polarities--and the hierarchical, often
morally-based, arrangement of these polarities--that we are
able to envision ourselves as observers capable of init-
iating changes in our circumstances by choosing one alter-
native over another. Without the belief in this ability to
act in what appears to be our own best interests, we must
resign ourselves to being no more capable of meaningful and
intelligent influence on our environment than an eyeless
worm--or Hogg's Editor's mole. Obviously, the opposites we
discern may be arbitrary in terms of universal truth, but

our empirical attitude requires the supportive but shaky

274

stilts of dualism to maintain its ostensibly superior posi-
tion. If, however, we insist upon clinging to our stilts
when we are being tumbled upside-down, we may fall much
farther and find it considerably more difficult to re-orient
ourselves to the unaccustomed earth then it would have been
had we remained with both feet on the ground. For all that,
we need not refuse to rise above the world as spectator, but
we must be prepared for a great deal more discomfort if we
insist upon doing 30.

Our authors affirm that it is characteristically human
to believe that through self-awareness we can move outside
the constraints of our heredity and environment to exert a
degree of control over our circumstances. This ability
seems to separate us from the animal and physical world of
blind chance and pre-destined fate. We would not be fully
human if we did not believe in it. On the other hand, if
the control we were able to exert was absolute, we would be
gods, not human beings. We are indeed in-between beings.

Like Medardus, the empirical mindset fears the loss of
individuality and freedom of choice implied by the con-
verging of two disparate beings as mirror images. In ef-
fect, the existence of an absolutely identical Other would
imply that individuality was impossible. Perhaps this is
why actual twins differentiate themselves greatly in dress,
hairstyle and behavior if they have been raised together.
As scientists we want very much to have our theories fit so
closely with the data that our results seem absolutely con-

clusive for all time. But while we search for a more or

275
less perfect fit between theory and data we are very intimi-
dated by fit that seems to be imposed upon us forcing us
into pre-ordained patterns, for example, by instinctual
behavior (especially that related to sexuality), by jokes
that make us appear gullible or naive or even by the dis-
covery that our theories are by no means original and were
written in similar terms two years or two thousand years
before we were born. These latter fits are the type Medar-
dus flees when he Opts for the monastic life or fears when
he finds his random shot has brought down two fowl. They
suggest that individual will is completely beside the point
and that things happen only because of what a person is and
not because of what he/she does. Hence closure is both the
absolute assertion of our will upon the data of the outside
world.and the final proof that we cannot affect that world

by our actions but only insofar as we are one with it.

AFTERNORD

Often psychology and literature mix no better than oil
and water. The dedicated psychologist may impose the out-
lines of psychological theory upon the work of literature,
praising the material when the likenesses are congruent,
deprecating the material if there are obvious discrepancies
between the two images; conversely, the critic who wishes to
retain the pristine vision of the author may hunt about for
a psychology that will accomodate it perfectly. But we have
seen that especially within these novels, like is indeed an
111 mark and perfect fit cannot be relied upon to predicate
the expected results.

I began this study intending to justify the novels I
examined with psychological percepts with which I was fami-
liar. I thought that I had discovered in these works trends
comparable to the formulations of modern psychology and that
by simply illustrating their convergence I could, in effect,
iluminate the novels by means of an interpretive overlay.
As I worked with the material in the novels, however, I dis-
covered (much to my frequent frustration), that the authors'
techniques forced me back upon my critical assumptions time
after time, urging me to re-imagine and re-discover my
thesis by means of approximation of the materials with which
I was working. My own work has been a mirror and re-writing

276

277
of the authors' works, like but unlike theirs in that it
reflected some portions of the novels, ignored others, over-
emphasized some and under-emphasized still others. In es-
sence, like the authors, I, too, became enmeshed in process
rather than product. In its own way, then, this text is a
diabolical double of the three others it considers, for I
have tried to evoke that process of reaction and involvement
that happens somewhere between reader and novel, author and
text, as well as to outline its various manifestations.
This paradigm is neither a key to reading the text nor a
solution to numerous textual riddles; it simply uses empiri-
cal observations and metaphorical amplificatons to suggest
some of the limitations inherent in our assumptions.about
what the critical faculty essential to empirical insight can
do and what it cannot. Like Robert, we cannot get free from
the weaver's web "without doing [the weaver] a great injury"
and injuring ourselves as well, but perhaps if we direct our
energies toward re-tracing the process which got us tangled
in the web in the first place through reflection we can see
that we have been in league with the Spider all along in

precipitating our own entrapment.

NOTES
Chapter One

1E. T. A. Hoffman, The Ceyills Elixins, trans. Ronald
Taylor (London: John Calder, 1963), p. 2. All English
quotations from this edition.

2J. E. Cirlot, A Cieiionany of Symbols, trans. by Jack
Sage (New York: Philosophical Library, 1962), p. 290, men-
tions several relatonships between spiders and the moon.

3Matthew G. Lewis, The Monk: A Romance. ed. Howard
Anderson (London: Oxford University Press, 1973). All quo-
tations from this edition.

”J ames HOSE. The Enixate Memoins and Confessions of a
instified Sinnen, ed. and intro. by John Carey (London:
Oxford University Press, 1969L. Hereafter referred to as
Confessions. All quotations from this edition.

5Michael York Mason, "The Three Burials in Haggis Jus-

sgified Sinnen. " Studies in Scottish Litenetune. 13 (1976 .

6E. T. A. Hoffmann, pie Elixiene des Teufel. Vol. II.
E. L A. Hoffmann Rocks in Eflnf Bfinden. ed. Gisela Spieker-
kOtter (Frankfurt: Stauffacher Verlag, 1965),;L 55. .All
quotations in German from this edition.

7Ra1ph Tymms. Couples in Litenani tsicholosi (Cam-
bridge, England: Bowes & Bowes, 1949), p. 34n. refers to
this incident.

8Donald Ward. The Dixine Tuins: An Indo-iEuLooeen Mitth
in Cemenic Tnadition. V01. XIX. Eolklone Studies: (Berke-
ley: University of California Press, 1968), p. 3.

9Karoly Kérenyi, Zens and Mena, trans. Cristopher Holme
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975), p. 53ff dis-
cusses the Significance of incestuous relationships as im-
portant mythic aspect of deities.

1oOtto Rank, "The Double as Immortal Self“ in Seyono
Rsycholcgy (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1958), pp.
62-101 best expresses this psychoanalyst's point of view.

278

279

“Robert Rogers, A Esxchoenelxtic Study of the Couple
in Litenetune (Detroit: Wayne State University Press,
1970) .

”This. p.33.
13:12:51.

1“CQF. Keppler, The Litenatune of Lhe Seoonn Self (Tuc-
son, Arizona: University of Arizona Press, 1972).

15Ibid. p. x.
16lnid. pp. 192-3.
”This. p. 192.

18Albert J. Guerard, "Concepts of the Double," Sionies
.21 the Double (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company,
1967), ppo 1-20

19Keppler, p. 2.
zolhld. p. 3.

21James Hillman, Reyisienlng Esycholosy (New York:
Harper & Row, 1975),;L x.

22Hillman, "Pothos," Loose Ends: Enimenx Recess in

Ancgetlsel Esxchology (Zurich: Spring Publications, 1975),
p. 0.

23William G. Doty, "Hermes Heteronymous Appellations,"
Facing the Cops, ed. James Hillman (University of Dallas:
Spring Publications, 1980), p. 128, lists some interesting
appellations of Hermes from antiquity including: pnophEtEs
(prophet, herald, interpreter), kCnyx (messenger, herald),
Henmeneus (interpreter) and logos (word). Also see Walter
01:130. TheHomenicCodsl TheSoinitualSignlficehoeofCLeek
Religion, trans. Moses Hadas (New York: Pantheon Books,
1954), p. 114ff.

zuflillman. The Cneem and the Cndenwonld (New York:
Harper & Row, 1979),;L 180.

25Momenio Hymn to Henmes, quo. in Mark P.CL Morford
and Robert J. Lenardon, Classical Mythology (New York:
David McKay Company, Inc., 1971), pp. 169-181.

26K5r01y Kerényi, Henmes... Guide of Souls: The Myths:
losem of the Masculine Sounce of Life. trans. Murray Stein
(Zurich: Spring Publications, 1976), p. 24.

27C. G. Jung, "The Spiritus Mercurius," in Alohemioal
Rocks. Vol XIII. The Collected Rocks of CT CT Jung.

280

Bollingen Series XX, trans. R. F. C. Hull (Princeton Univer-
sity Press, 1969), pp. 193—250.

28Mythographers tend to favor one Hermes over another,
arguing, for example, that the crude, phallic Hermes is the
product of an early (and presumably inferior) religious dev-
elopment, while the elegant anthropomorphic forms of the God
represent a more highly developed Hermes. In fact, both
types of images existed side by side in the same times and
places and it would be grossly unfair to this many-named
deity to accord him only one identity. As Otto suggests,
p. 12”,

there can be no purpose in differen-
tiating between earlier and later quali-
ties [of Hermes] and in seeking for some
lines of development to connect one with
the other.. .. if a single trait actu-
ally did come to the fore later than
others, it still remains the same basic
meaning which has found new expression.

29Barbara Royle Bloedé, "James Hogg}s foileoe Memoine
ehdjauukfieiohs.o£.a3hhfluileo.§ihhenfl'Euhoee Ansleiees. 26
(1973), 185, explains that Greek Iheoe, Latin $131.15, German
Ienfel, Latin duo, and English two are similarly rooted in a
primeval D V from which the Sanskrit oil: and $1111 derive.

30La Iaole oi Emenenoe, "an ancient Hermetic text,"

QUO- in Grillot De Givry. Hitoheheftl Basie and Alohemxl
trans. J. Courtenay Locke (New York: Bonanza Books), pp.

240.

31C. A. Burland, Mitho of Llfio and Booth (London:
Macmillan London Ltd., 1974), p. 74.

32h”) p0 75.
Chapter Two

1It should be noted that several of the motifs dev-
eloped in the following section are further amplified in
later chapters. Since these motifs are central concerns of
more than one novel and can best be considered by compari-
son,]Zhave postponed them for later examination. 131the
present chapter and the two that follow, my aim istx>look
closely at the actual material in each work to see what
critical problems it generates and what internal solutions
the text itself offers to these problems. Hence, I will
not, at this point, stray too far from the textual arena.

281

2T°bias Mathias, The Buneoits of Litehetone quo. in

Montague Summers, The Gothie oueetl A Hietozx of the Gothio
Noxel, 1938, rpt. (New York: Russell & Russell, Inc.,
1964), p. 217.

3Montague Summers discusses the prevalence of similarly
abbreviated Bibles in Lewis' day, p. 218.

1‘George Daniel, quo in Summers, p. 220.

5Robert Kiely. The Bomentio Noxel in England (Cam-
bridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1972), pp.

1-2.
6.112151, p- 26.
7Summers, p. 221.

8Peter Grudin, "The Monk: Matilda and the Rhetoric of
Deceit,".iounnal of Nethetixe Teohniohe, 5 (1975), 142.

9Mathias, quo. Summers, p. 218.

1OHorace Walpole, The tattle oi Qtnentol a Gothio
Stony, ed. and intro. w. S. Lewis (New York: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 1982).

11Kiely, p.5.

1‘2l1alpole, Epilogue to The Mistehiohs Mother. quoo in
Alice S. Brandenberg, "The Theme of The Myetenioos Mothen,"
hooehh Language Quartehlx, 10 (1949). 469.

13Summers, p. 209.
1“Kiely, p.108.
15.112151, Do 1070

16william Blake. The Mezzieze.o£.fleexeh.aho Hell 1825-
1327, fac.eHL (London: Oxford University Press, 1975), p.
7 .

17Grudin's article persuasively points out that Ma-
tilda's rhetoric and behavior stem from a long literary
tradition of succubus-temptations.

18De Givry, pp. 180-182.

19Sir Walter Scott in his Minietneley of; the Seouieh
Bondel: (1810) includes Tomlin, a ballad which outlines an
elaborate ritual for freeing sexual passion from its mythic
dangers. In this ballad, Janet, a young noblewoman who is
in the habit of riding out alone to old, sacred spots, meets
a "wee, wee man / A bit aboon her knee," by whom she becomes

282

pregnant. When her parents demand that she produce a father
for her child, she returns to this nether world "little man"
and learns that he is actually her childhood playmate, a
squire stolen by the fairies as a child. Tamlin rather
likes the fairy life, but since he is afraid that he may be
paid as "the tithe to hell," he gives Janet specific ins-
tructions as to how she can free him from his other-worldly
state. First, she must go to Miles Cross on Halloween Night
"when Fairie folk do ride" and "Betwixt the hours of twelve
and one." Presumably, this is the only time and place when
the upper and nether realms are properly aligned to allow
the sort of "crossover" Hermes facilitates. Since the
fairy-folk are shape-shifters, she must recognize Tamllin by
a token: he will not be wearing one glove, suggesting his
"in-between" state. When she sees him, she should snatch
him from his horse, dip him into "a stand of milk and then a
stand ofldaterfl' She must hold fast, for the fairies will
change him into the likeness of an asp, an adder, a "red-hot
goad of iron" and other unpleasant things to try to get her
to let go. Her trial-by-ordeal will be over, though, when
they turn him into "a mother-naked man," i.e., the forms of
the Other World will momentarily exactly reproduce the forms
of this world. At once, she must throw her mantle over him
and so claim for her world the "bairnie's father." The
instructions related in this ballad (which are repeated as
Janet follows them) seem to correspond in mythic terms with
the more mimetic version of winning one's love away from the
Other World expressed in Lewis' tale.

Chapter Three

1Harvey W. Hewett-Thayer. Hoffman; Author oi the Tales
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1948), p. 261, says
"The division of the novel into two volumes may be ignored
as quite without significance; it was an accidental result
of composition and publicationJ‘

2James Hillman. The firth of Ahelxsisl Three Essexs in
Arohetxoal Esxoholosx (New York: Harper & ROW, 1972) P-
176ff discusses this aspect of mystery religions.

3Hewett-Thayer, p. 259-60.

“Sigmund Freud, "The Uncanny" in Vol. XVII of The

Standard Edition of the Complete Bsxohologioal Works of
§igmund Freud, trans. James Strachey (London: Hogarth

Press, 1955), p. 234.
5Hewett-Thayer, p. 262, explains,

The novel was, to be sure, written at a
time when the so-called fate-drama was
signally flourishing. 1k: the early

283

years of the Romantic Period the idea of
fate had been explored by Tieck in heel
son Borneo]; and then had been given the
authority of Schiller's great reputation
in Die Breut son Messinal The immense
popularity of Zacharias Werner's Den

Eehrher . . . did much
to establish the contemporary concept of
the fate-tragedy as a specific and im-
portant. genre. The» then prevailing
popularity of the type and Hoffmann's
personal acquaintance with Werner have
led some critics to under-score heavily
the fate element in Die Elixiene and
interpret it as in essence a novel of
fate correspondingtn>the contemporary
drama of fate.

6See n23 Chapter 1.

7Martin Luther, golloonie "Prussia is full of demons,"
quo. in Harry E. Wedeck, Treasury of Witoheneft (New York:
Philosophical Library, 1971), p. 108.

8Kali's necklace of hands and its implications for
psychological development are discussed in Erich Neumann,
The Great flothor (Princeton University Press, 1955), p.
152ff.

9An empty glove was often used inlwedding bouquets to
indicate the virginity of the bride.

‘Osutler'e Lites of the saints, 1779-80. Vol. II. ed.
and revised Herbert Thurston and Donald Attwater (New York:
PML Kennedy and Sons, 1956),;L 535.

11Ihid

12the Saints; A Qonoise Biosreuhioel Dietioherx. ed.
John Coulson (New York: Hawthorn Books, Inc., 1958), p. 53.

13St. Athanasius, The Life of_§t.,Anthonyl trans. and
annotated by Robert T. Meyer (Westminister, Maryland: n. p.,
1950), p. 23.

“'Butlerls Lilies, I, p. 106.

15142151., p. 1ou.

16112151, II, p. 502.

”islet

18mm

284

19Hoffmann, who was married to a Roman Catholic, wrote

much of the first portion of The Elixirs while living in the
Catholic city of Bamberg.

20Keppler's chapter "The Second Self in Time" is useful
in this context; however, he does not discuss Hoffmann's
novel as an example of this phenomenon nor does he go much
beyond considerations of different selves representing dif-
ferent times in the primary self"s life.

21Hewett-Thayer mentions the conflict between the date
of Medardus' death and the date of the publication of the
first German translation of The honk; he also discusses the
apparent inaccuracy of the geneological material in terms of
time between the death of Leonardo da Vinci and the death of
Medardus, p. 261n. He considers both to be flaws in Hof-
fmann's narrative.

22Horst Daemmerich, The §hettered selr; LLLHof:
{mehhis Tresio Iision (Detroit: Wayne State University
Press, 1973),;n 104.

25Daemmerich, p. 107.
26Doty, p.128.

Chapter Four

1John Carey, Introduction, James Hogg, The Brixate

Memoirs and Confessions of. e Tustiiied oinner (Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 1981), p. xii-xiii.

2Carey, p. xiii, for example, says, "The best antidote
to Saintsbury's theory is Lockhart's own novelsJ'

3James Hose. The Domestio Manners and £ri1ete Life of
.Sir Walter §oott (Stirling: E. Mackay, 1909), p. 40.

”The lengthy title of James Hogg's work on sheep di-
seases iSThe§heoherdLseuidez Beinsefireotioellreatise
on the Diseases of Sheep... Their tenses. and the Best Means
of Ementing Them uith ohservetions on the most suitahle
fermestooking tor the serious olimetes of this oountrx
(Edinburgh: J. Ballantyne and Co., 1807).

5A brief excerpt from The Eoetio Minnon will suggest
the style of Hogg's parody "Isabelle:"

If thou knew'st all, poor tail-less whelp,
Well might'st thou tremble, growl, and yelp;
But thou know'st nothing hast no part,
(Simple and stupid as thou art)

Save gratitude and truth of heart.

285

But they are coming by this way

That have been dead for a year and a day;
Without challenge, without change,

They shall have their full revenge!

There are two from the grave

That I fain would save;

Full hard is the weird

For the young and the brave!

Perchance they are rapt in vision sweet,
While the passing breezes kiss their feet;
and they are dreaming of joy and love!--
Well, let them go--there's room above. (p. 145)

6In a letter to Kunz (Berlin, March 18, 1818) Hoffmann
says "Es ist mir damit so ergangen wie mit dem ersten Bande
der Elixiere des Teufels, den ich nicht h§tte drucken lassen
sollen." Another friend of Hoffmann's, Hitzig, wrote in
1823, just after Hoffmann's death, "the whole work was one
upon which Hoffmann himself placed no valueJ'(quo. Hewett-
Thayer, p. 273). Hogg, who often bragged about his literary
exploits scarcely mentions the Qonfiessions in his autobio-
graphy, giving it little more than a page in which he la-
ments that he received no real payment for it, but makes no
relevant comment on the novel itself.

7Horst Daemmerich, p. 24.

8Robert M. Adams, Introduction, Hogg, The Erixete hem;
oirs end oonfessions of e Justified _S.inner (London: W. W.
Norton & Company, 1970), p. ix.

9QuotedinKiely p.209.

10Edith c. Batho. The Ettriok shepherd. 1927, rpt. (New
York: Greenwood Press, 1969) lists these dates.

”Hogg, The spy, 1, No. l (1810), quoted in Bloede, p.
1760

12Mason, 15-23, does a fine job of demonstrating the
discrepancies in the descriptions of the locale and contents
of the suicide's grave.

131-av: 18 Simpson, demos dogs; .A. Qritioel etudre (New
York: St. Martin's Press, 1962),;L 173.

1uKiely, p.217.
1532151, p. 213.
16David Eggenschwiler, "James Hogg's gonfiessions and

the Fall Into Division." fitudies in .Seottish Literature. 9
(1971), 26, for example, contends that Hogg's novel "ex-

plores better than any other novel of its time one of the

286

central problems of English Romanticism, the disharmony in
the self that causes disharmony in society and in the whole
of natural creation."

17Taylor, Maurice "The Conflicting Doctrines of the
Scottish Reformation." in Essaxs on the §oottish Reformation
1513:1625, ed. David McRoberts, (Glasgow: Burns, 1962), p.
245.

18Joseph Pohle, "Justification," Vol. VIII, The gain:
olie.flneyeloneoie_(New York: The Gilmary Society, 1913),
p. 575.

19Martin Luther "Commentary on Peter and Jude" in A
oomoend of Lutherls.Theolo£1. ed. Hugh T. Kerr (Philadel-
phia: The Westminister Press, 1966), p. 114.

20Kiely, p.225.

21Adams, p.xiii.

22Blake.

23Bloedé, 174.

2“Kiely, p.214

25Elizabeth W. Harries, Duplication and Duplicity:
James Hogg'S.£ri1ate hemoirs and tonfessions of a Justified
§inner," Wordsuorth tirele, 10 (1980). 194.

26Carey, p. 257, Quotes this review in its entirety
from the Westminister Rexieul October, 1824"

27Kiely,p. 218.

28Adams,;r xiii.

29Carey, p.xiv.

3olhld, p. xiv-xv.

31Harries, 190.

32m Mirror.

33Carey, p. xxii, mentions this relationship.

3”Carey, xxiff, discusses some additional parallels

between Elixirs and tonfessions.
35Eggenschwiler, 33.

 

287
Chapter Five

1James Hillmann, Beoieionins Esuohologx (New York:
Harper & Row, 1975),;L 41.

2Freud discusses the ambiguity of words like "cleave"
in "The Antithetical Meaning of Primal Words," vol. XI,
Standard Edition. p. 155ff.

3Robin Lyndenberg, "Ghostly Rhetoric: Ambivalence in

M. G. Lewis' The Monk." Ariell- A fission of International
English Literature, 10 (1979), 75 ff. refers to the narra-
tive "productions" of Lorenzo and other characters in The

Monk.

"See, for example, Erich Neumann, The origins sno His:
tory of Qonseionsness (Princeton University Press, 1954)
Chapter 1.

5Otto, p. 117.

6Kerényi, Hermes, p. 26, notes that the infant Hermes
laughed when he saw the tortoise that would become his
musical instrument, quoting the proverb, "Best it is to bide
at home, since danger is abroad." Evidently, when one
"leaves home," one becomes fair game for Hermes who is
always on the road.

7Jung, "Spiritus Mercurius," p. 193.

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