HORROR'S HEYDAY
GOTHIC FLAME, by Devendra P. Varma; Arthur Barker, English price 30/-. "HE Gothic novel has never received enough deference from critics is the contention of this Indian scholar, who here publishes a detailed study of its origins, its grisly heyday and its decline into such modern derivations as Dracula, Rider Haggard and the greenback Penguin. Dr Varma shows that the impulse which produced the Gothic novel existed before Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto appeared in 1764; the beginnings of this literary form, which flourished for about 70 years, were coincident with the revived interest in Elizabethan dramatists (Webster, Middleton, Tourneur) who loved violent themes. Perhaps the most important thing about The Castle of Otranto (a dull work to yours truly) is that it threw aside the main 18th century tradition and "substituted invention for observation.’ But Walpole’s book was a symptom, rather than the prime cause, of the release of energy which marked the Great Thaw of the romantics. Dr Varma has a wide-ranging mind and suggests (but does not follow up) the psychological implications of the grotesque procession of ghosts, ghouls, mad monks, persecuted maidens, ogreous barons, and natural or supernatural monsters which populate the pages of the Gothic novel. He himself is a monster of erudition, at times too benevolent a one when he quotes with reverence from obscure contributors to Modern Language Notes and similar journals. Very occasionally his use of English is slightly off the beam: ".. . the diffluent waters were channelled into Gothic serials, tales, fragments, and shockers, but the first great distributary was the Gothic drama whose current," etc. But his lively mind makes up for minor faults, and he is particularly skilful and effective in his choice of quotations. This is a valuable piece of literary history, but it is a critical work only in so far as it chronicles the judg-
ments of others.
David
Hall
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 948, 11 October 1957, Page 14
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316HORROR'S HEYDAY New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 948, 11 October 1957, Page 14
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