Manchester University Press
3 Diderot and Maturin
Abstract
This chapter argues the case for a partial overlap between Diderot and Charles Maturin who are conventionally labelled Enlightenment and Gothic. In Diderot's novel, the notion of the automaton is linked to the system of an anti-society of isolated Cartesian cells. And it becomes associated with horror and superstition, a phalanstery of mastery and slavery which anticipates the automatism of the Marquis de Sade. Diderot himself had been imprisoned in Vincennes and unnerved by the experience to the point of apparent capitulation to the authorities, so he had studied at first hand the condition he writes about. Automatism is indeed part of the theatre of terror and the relation between hypocrisy, acting and ritualized behaviour is part of Maturin's meditation. Maturin and Diderot independently share a self-conscious fictional heritage whose master trope is the theatre; this shapes the different questions they ask of the novel genre in a common manner.
Abstract
This chapter argues the case for a partial overlap between Diderot and Charles Maturin who are conventionally labelled Enlightenment and Gothic. In Diderot's novel, the notion of the automaton is linked to the system of an anti-society of isolated Cartesian cells. And it becomes associated with horror and superstition, a phalanstery of mastery and slavery which anticipates the automatism of the Marquis de Sade. Diderot himself had been imprisoned in Vincennes and unnerved by the experience to the point of apparent capitulation to the authorities, so he had studied at first hand the condition he writes about. Automatism is indeed part of the theatre of terror and the relation between hypocrisy, acting and ritualized behaviour is part of Maturin's meditation. Maturin and Diderot independently share a self-conscious fictional heritage whose master trope is the theatre; this shapes the different questions they ask of the novel genre in a common manner.
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Contents v
- List of illustrations vii
- Notes on contributors ix
- Acknowledgements xii
- Introduction 1
- 1 Translation in distress 17
- 2 European disruptions of the idealized woman 39
- 3 Diderot and Maturin 55
- 4 Verging on the Gothic 71
- 5 Europhobia 84
- 6 European Gothic and nineteenth-century Russian literature 104
- 7 The robbers and the police 128
- 8 Translating Mary Shelley’s Valperga into English 147
- 9 ‘Hallelujah to your dying screams of torture’ 161
- 10 Potocki’s Gothic Arabesque 183
- 11 The Gothic crosses the Channel 204
- 12 ‘A detour of filthiness’ 230
- Index 252
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Contents v
- List of illustrations vii
- Notes on contributors ix
- Acknowledgements xii
- Introduction 1
- 1 Translation in distress 17
- 2 European disruptions of the idealized woman 39
- 3 Diderot and Maturin 55
- 4 Verging on the Gothic 71
- 5 Europhobia 84
- 6 European Gothic and nineteenth-century Russian literature 104
- 7 The robbers and the police 128
- 8 Translating Mary Shelley’s Valperga into English 147
- 9 ‘Hallelujah to your dying screams of torture’ 161
- 10 Potocki’s Gothic Arabesque 183
- 11 The Gothic crosses the Channel 204
- 12 ‘A detour of filthiness’ 230
- Index 252
