Class Blog

For this project, I looked at Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s Gothic novella “Carmilla,” originally published in 1871-1872 as a serial in the literary magazine The Dark Blue. Shortly after, Le Fanu republished the piece in his collection of short stories, In a Glass Darkly. In 2014, “Carmilla” was adapted into a modern-day Canadian web series of the same name. As a result, the novella is steadily gaining recognition in popular culture.

The novella tells the story of an eighteen-year-old girl named Laura. As the narrator, she explains that she had been preparing to host a close family friend and his niece for a few weeks. One night, however, Laura’s father receives news from his friend explaining that his niece recently died under mysterious circumstances and he has decided to cancel the trip. Saddened and disappointed, Laura and her father walk out to the drawbridge. While enjoying the moonlight, they watch in horror as a passing carriage falls onto its side. The mother emerges from the carriage unscathed, but her daughter is found to be unconscious. The mother insists that she cannot delay her journey and asks where the nearest village is so that she may leave her daughter there to recover, but Laura implores her father to let the daughter stay with them. He agrees, and they take the young stranger into their home. Laura is instantly drawn to Carmilla, a beautiful and cryptic girl of the same age, and the two become extremely close.

I chose to upload two passages to the VQA. In both passages, Le Fanu expresses the sexual tension between the two girls. Laura develops a passionate love for Carmilla, and although an arguable statement (once Carmilla is revealed to be a vampire, we learn that she tends to seduce and manipulate all of the girls she preys upon), I believe Carmilla falls in love with Laura, too; their deep connection is both physical and mental, as seen in both of the passages I posted. However, regardless of whether their love is requited, the novella is “queer” in the sense that Le Fanu explicitly depicts both girls as lesbians. In the second passage, for instance, Carmilla kisses Laura and tells her that she loves her:

She kissed me silently. … ‘I have been in love with no one, and never shall,’ she whispered, ‘Unless it should be with you.’ … Her soft cheek was glowing against mine. ‘Darling, darling,’ she murmured, ‘I live in you; and you would die for me, I love you so.’

Unlike many other writers from the Victorian Era, Le Fanu doesn’t even code their love for each other; Camilla explicitly states “I love you” to Laura and kisses her, and considering how many Victorians were “prudish,” it’s extremely fascinating that Le Fanu decided to express their love so explicitly, especially in a relationship between two young women. The first passage I chose is even more sensual:

Sometimes after an hour of apathy, my strange and beautiful companion would take my hand and hold it with a fond pressure, renewed again and again; blushing softly, gazing in my face with languid and burning eyes, and breathing so fast that her dress rose and fell with the tumultuous respiration. It was like the ardour of a lover; it embarrassed me; it was hateful and yet overpowering; and with gloating eyes she drew me to her, and her hot lips travelled along my cheek in kisses; and she would whisper, almost in sobs, ‘You are mine, you shall be mine, you and I are one for ever.’ Then she has thrown herself back in her chair, with her small hands over her eyes, leaving me trembling.

Le Fanu’s use of the words “hot lips” sounds like something you might read in an erotic novel in the 21st century, not something from the 19th century! And, again, not only is his word choice unusual for the Victorian Era, but it’s also referring to a relationship between two women. As we discussed in class the other day, I suppose most Victorians couldn’t even imagine two women having anything remotely close to a sexual relationship, so passages like this flew right over their heads.

I would highly recommend reading “Carmilla”–I absolutely loved it! Le Fanu is a brilliant writer.

Link to VQA: http://vqa.dickinson.edu/novel/carmilla

cw: trauma, genetalia related-language

 

Hysteria, in an article from the New York Times in 1843, is defined by being, “a morbid state without fever, characterized principally by suspension, generally incomplete or sensorial, intellectual and moral power with convulsion; is almost peculiar to women, appears by paroxysms.”

This is a particularly confusing definition, especially because it is not a consistent one, a number of sources from the 19th century categorize hysteria as a catatonic state, like a severe depression, or as Freud or L. E Emerson would say psychosomatic illness brought on by a sexual trauma of some sort, while Charcot (another researcher of hysteria) deemed it hereditary and tried to treat it with hypnosis. The unifying idea of hysteria is that it is a woman’s disease, lying dormant in their bodies until it manifests in a nervous temperament, being overstimulated or feeling a sense of “ennui.”

It is also clear in these texts that “paroxysm” refers to a “female physical response” or orgasm, that is supposed to be the cure for hysteria. The idea that a “woman’s disease” can be cured by stimulation or therapeutic massage by a physician or midwife until orgasm definitely queers the idea of heteronormative sexuality. Hysteria is supposed to be cured through a consummate marriage, but because of the patriarchal notion of intercourse, most women would not reach “paroxysm” thus feeling unfulfilled. The cure for hysteria, a massage/stimulation of the vulva negates the idea that a fulfilling sexual experience revolves around the presence of a man with a penis.

Furthermore, the idea that the lack of orgasm is due to some sort of hereditary problem or psychosexual trauma is problematic, because it reinforces the idea that a woman must reach orgasm through vaginal penetration of a penis, leaving no room for any sex other than heterosexual sex.

For anyone interested, Loreena McKennitt (famous folk singer and musician) adapted The Lady of Shalott to music.  She’s also adapted and drawn inspiration from other famous literary works including The Highwayman (my personal favorite), Dante’s Inferno, and works by Yeats, Shakespeare, and Sir Walter Scott.

Link to the VQA

My contribution to the VQA is centered on the topic of “hysteria” and how Isaac Baker Brown, a Victorian doctor, dealt with patients’ “wandering wombs.” The concept of hysteria is inherently sexist and Brown’s cliterectomy treatment is inhumane; however, most typical Victorian remedies for hysteria consisted of assisted masturbation and (later on) the use of vibrators. In his book On the Curability of Certain Forms of Insanity, Epilepsy, Catalepsy, and Hysteria in Females from 1866, Brown discusses his “removal of the cause of excitement” and he mentions the fact that he cannot discuss “all the numerous varieties of insanity and other nervous disorders to which females are liable, but only those which [he] believes to be curable by surgical means ” (Brown, 2).

The section that I chose to analyze originates from Chapter One of his book where he compares other doctors’ assisted masturbation techniques to “superficial sore[s that] will not destroy deep-seated nerve irritation” (Brown, 10).  Isaac Baker Brown’s terrible treatments and his records of female genital mutilation belong in the Victorian Queer Archive because they represent the typical heterosexual male’s response to female pleasure and sexual enlightenment within the 19^th century. Brown’s fear of sexual liberation is thinly veiled under his “research” and his anxieties remind me of a William Rathbone Greg’s article called “Why are Women Redundant” that was written in 1862 and published in the National Review. In the article, Rathbone Greg is startled by the “abnormal extent of female celibacy” and he fears that women are “redundant” because they are choosing to remain unmarried, which is essentially code for independent (of men) and chaste (Rathbone Greg, 162).

Since female masturbation matches Holly Ferneaux’s idea of something that differs from a “life-script of opposite-sex marriage and reproduction,” I believe that these accounts are valuable and that they display the growing fear of female pleasure without the presence of men. This dramatic shift from the marriage-plot format to a narrowed focus on alternative sexual methods implies that men (and their genitals) are irrelevant and replaceable by the other women, by stimulation of the clitoris from vibrators, or by solo-stimulation. Furthermore, since Brown’s novel discusses the dangers of the “continual abnormal irritation of a nerve centre (the stimulation of the clitoris),” I suspect that he is nervous about female liberation and the potential “redundancy of men.”

Indeed, Brown’s choice to remove the clitoris in order to cure “hysteria” provides a concrete visual representation of Victorian anxieties spanning from the existence of lesbian relationships, the ability to achieve pleasure without a penis, and the evolution and potential eradication of the marriage-plot. Brown’s language of “superficial sore” articulates his disdain for the female sex organ and his negative word associations with the “source of evil” are the perfect display of the Victorian patriarchy in its frantic attempts to suppress women’s social and economic mobility through sexual control.

 

Favorite excerpt from page 11 of Brown’s book: “Experience seems to teach that in those patients whose brains have been so weakened by long continued peripheral excitement, [clitoral stimulation] causing frequent and increasing losses of nerve force, there is not sufficient mental power to enable them to control any less powerful irritation of smaller branches of the pudic nerve, than that removed by operation.”

Victorian men, most notably Isaac Baker Brown, do not seem to approve of the fact that women are taking matters into their own hands.  In fact, they despise it so much that the only alternative method is either to “cure” these “irritations” by operating upon them or by assisting their stimulation in doctor’s offices.  How queer!

 

Baker Brown, Isaac. “Chapter I: Introductory.” On the Curability of Certain Forms of Insanity, Epilepsy, Catalepsy, and Hysteria in Females. Hardwicke. 1866. Pp. 2 & 8-10.

Rathbone Greg, William. “Why are Women Redundant.” The National Review. 1862.: available through Columbia University Press. 1999. Pp. 157-163.

While I was in the National Art Gallery over Thanksgiving break, I noticed the following photograph of Oscar Wilde (see below):

The process, as described in the caption to the photo below, was the photographer took a picture of the Madame Tussauds wax figure of Oscar Wilde (which in itself was based off of a portrait that he sat for) and used light and scale to create the illusion of photographing Oscar Wilde, creating as realistic a photo as he could.

I thought this was a interesting way to think about art reflecting life, the many layers of visual representation and how they can be manipulated – thoughts Oscar Wilde would have approved of!

The newspaper article published by Reynolds’s Newspaper on December 1, 1889, titled “The Terrible Scandals in ‘High Life,’” discusses the treatment of the crime of sodomy by the police, specifically about the Cleveland Street scandal in which a male brothel frequented by several prominent men was discovered. The writers of the article criticize the police for attempting to hide the crime from the public, drawing on the belief that sodomy was a prevalent upper-class crime that corrupted youth like the telegraph boys recruited to work as prostitutes in the Cleveland Street house. The tension between those who attempted to hide the scandal from the public and those who worked to expose it is interesting because of their motivations: the police, according to this source, in part wanted to keep the public from knowing that so many high society men went to male brothels, which could seem to normalize the crime, while the newspapers wanted to promote prosecuting the crime more stringently and in the same way as they would any other crime, including publishing those accused in the papers.

In part because the events referred to would have already been written about in previous news stories, so that the public was aware of the nature of the crime, the language used in this article never explicitly refers to sex between men, but comes the closest when it explains the excuse Henry James Fitzroy, referred to as Lord Euston, gave for having been to the house, which was that he had mistakenly believed he would see “a display of naked women,” and that he left upon realizing that it was actually “one of the other sex”. The article itself actually acknowledges the coded nature of its own descriptions of the events, saying that the most extreme measures allowed by law should be used to “stamp out practices of an unnatural and revolting shape too hideous even to be mention[ed].” This article also subtly references the prostitutes murdered in the Jack the Ripper cases, saying that the police had worked harder to protect upper class criminals than lower class female victims, described as “unfortunate women.”  It is an excellent example of the type of under-the-surface discussion of taboo topics we read about in the excerpt from William Cohen’s book Sex, Scandal, and the Novel, while also showing the public points of view expressed towards homosexual acts, which included the belief that there existed a “Sodomite institution” amongst their apparently normative society.

 

Source: London and the Culture of Homosexuality, 1885-1914

Nothing beats a good, old fashioned, Victorian sex scandal.  This court case from the Old Bailey follows the testimony of Louisa Vincent, a woman on trial for attacking her former lover and father of her illegitimate child.  The proceedings include testimony from both the defendant and her alleged victim. 

I chose this text for my Victorian Queer Archive project because it includes so many details that would scandalize, yet intrigue, a Victorian audience.  The subject matter is taboo and serves to queer assumptions about Victorian society’s prudishness and aversion to sex, especially given the public nature of trials in the 19th century in London.  Furthermore, the “queer” nature of the subjects–poor, criminal, sexual, unmarried–highlights that the figures that inhabit the edges of Victorian society (and who receive public attention) are not always the pure, innocent, and gentlemanly ideal.

In his text “Sex, Scandal, and the Novel”, William A. Cohen suggests that sex scandals publicly reveal sexual information and knowledge that might otherwise be best kept secret.  The lewd sensationalism of crime and passion can be seen in this transcription.  For example, Louisa Vincent (Prisoner) and Thomas Soarston (Witness/victim) both argue over who initiated the fight.  Soarston accuses Louisa of attacking him first, while Louisa accused him of not providing for their child and of starving her (“I was without victuals four days”).  The “he said/she said” nature of the testimony is something that is seen in contemporary sex scandals as well. Curiously, Louisa is on trial despite evidence that Soarston also hit her.  I would suggest that this is because Louisa is obviously an outcast from Victorian society: the presence of an illegitimate child marks her as impure and tainted.  In addition, the implication that she is a prostitute (and Soarston her pimp) further alienates her from polite Victorian society.  On the other hand, illegitimate children and infidelity in general were tolerated more for men, therefor Soarston’s breaches of Victorian norms do not reflect as poorly upon him.

Cohen also mentions that the “unspeakability” of the sex scandal which actually serves to create discourses that reinforce the notion of sex as taboo.  Instead of the sex scandal quashing discussions of forbidden sex, it actually creates the opposite effect.  For instance, trials at the Old Bailey were a form of public entertainment.  These trials, however, still made use of heavily coded language in order to avoid transgressing too heavily.  This is evidenced in the italicized explanation of the testimony:

“The prisoner put in a written defence, stating that the prosecutor, after premissing her marriage, had induced her to live with him, telling her that his wife was transported; that after some time he wished her to obtain money by prostitution, which she refusing he deserted her, agreeing to allow her something for the child; that she went to him for the money, when he knocked her down and ill-used her, and all she did was in her own defence.”

In this excerpt alone, there is mention of forced prostitution, infidelity/polygamy, and even of rape (“he knocked her down and ill-used her”).  None of these transgressions are openly named, instead this excerpt employs language that Cohen calls the “richly ambiguous, subtly coded, prolix and polyvalent” that is inherent in the sex scandal.

Finally, while “scandal teaches punitive lessons”, indicating its moralizing nature, sex scandals still incite in a Victorian audience the possibility of transgressing and the potential for the queer to enthrall and thrill.

Works Cited

Cohen, William A. “Sex, Scandal, and the Novel.” Sex, Scandal, and the Novel. Victorian Web, n.d. Web. 10 Nov. 2016.

http://vqa.dickinson.edu/shortstory/louisa-vincent-breaking-peace-wounding-25th-october-1847

LOUISA VINCENT, Breaking Peace Wounding, 25th October 1847. London’s Central Criminal Court. 25 Oct. 1847. The Proceedings of the Old Bailey Online. Web. 10 Nov. 2016.

 

 

Save

For my VQA project I looked at the lengthy, dramatic monologue Jenny authored by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. I specifically looked at stanza’s 22-24 which can be found in my archive post linked: here. The narrator of the poem is a customer purchasing services from the prostitute, Jenny, in the poem. Throughout the poem the narrator romanticizes and sympathizes with the role of the prostitute. The poem touches on a myriad of subjects regarding Victorian prostitution including: it’s prominence, venereal diseases, and social ostracism.  Jenny was first published privately in 1870 in Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Poems but it is said that this version is vastly different from the original draft Rossetti wrote in 1847, that was heavily revised in 1858 and 1869.

A close reading of the section I chose: Rossetti simply equates the images of books to brains throughout the poem and makes a scathing insinuation that individuals, especially proper Victorian women, her prescribe to the Victorian mode of thinking (to hush sexuality of women in particular) cannot appreciate Jenny’s decency as a human being. Jenny’s heart becomes “a rose shut in a book/In which pure women may not look” (120) that cannot be understood or related to if one accepts the Victorian mode of thinking that prostitutes are merely fallen women, dehumanizing them entirely. Rossetti also comments that due to this harsh conceptual mistreatment of prostitutes, fellow women will be unable to sympathize with her on the level of womanhood “Only that this can never be:-/Even so unto her sex is she” (121).

Shortly after, the narrator also queers the gender binary when it comes to the occupation of a prostitute. While he just critiques the inability of others to see Jenny’s good heart and nature, he dehumanizes her as a woman by saying that she is “A cipher of a man’s changeless sum/Of lust past, present, and to come,” (121). When the narrator looks at Jenny the “woman fades from view” (121). What is interesting about this is that she is then just seen as a spiral of men’s lust, is seen as an object, but in Victorian times that concept is not very different for chaste, proper women, who are still the objects of their husband’s and subject to men’s lust. In this way Jenny almost has MORE freedom than the average Victorian woman which is what perhaps makes her truly more dangerous in the eyes of Victorian society.

Lust is also depicted as a “toad within a stone” (121) where the narrator is commenting once again that although lust and it’s discourse may be entombed in the stone of Victorian society, it is well and alive whether people wish to believe it or not. This relates to the fact that toads entombed in stone have often been found alive even when the stone is broken open. The narrator states that this lust “shall not be driven out/Till that which shuts him round about/Break at the Master’s stroke” (123) and “the seed of Man vanish as dust:-” (123). Without the help of God or someone of higher power like government officials, the Victorian societal tomb over lust will not be broken. The narrator also claims the “seed” or sperm of Man would also need to be eradicated to eradicate lust. In this way the poem almost speaks up for Jenny in that the narrator recognizes that the world of lust is not her fault but the fault of her society and the failure of the government or other high offices to regulate it’s sexual promiscuity. Insinuating that the “seed of Man” must “vanish as dust” also brings in some interesting pondering of eugenics. It is ironic, because the narrator himself is caught up in lust but equally recognizes the danger and social stigma lust has caused Jenny and her kind and insinuates that lust is a negative thing in general.

As stated in my close-reading above: I believe this text is a crucial addition to the Victorian Queer Archive for the push-backs it provides on the Victorian mirage and focus on hetero-normative relationships. The most prominent one being that the poem revolves around a prostitute, which strays from the traditional heterosexual marriage plot and brings in themes of polyamory as well as unrequited love. This text is particularly potent in this regard in that the narrator provides sympathy for the occupation as prostitute and a fundamental understanding of Jenny as a human not merely an object. This text also deserves to be put in the VQA due to its queering of the gender binary in that Jenny is merely seen as a novel of men’s lust and does not appear as a woman at all. In brings into question if not ALL women of the Victorian era are not truly seen as women but as a product of men’s lust. The fact that the narrator recognizes that lust exists and is unlikely to go away due to Victorian society’s “skirting around” it also helps the text stray from hetero-normative in that it accepts that heterosexual marriage is not just a morally and socially pure union but is more than often fueled by lust and most importantly, betrayed by lust.

Works Cited:

Rossetti, Dante Gabriel. Poems. London, Privately Published, 1870. British Library, www.bl.uk/collection-items/jenny-by-d-g-rossetti. Accessed 20 Nov. 2016.