The "Sensational" Writing and Life of Wilkie Collins: Paper Proposal

Transcription

1 Ludwig 1 Stacy L. Ludwig Dr. Michelle Beissel Heath ENG 884-Colloquium in British Literature 25 March 2012 The "Sensational" Writing and Life of Wilkie Collins: Paper Proposal Sensation fiction flourished in the 1860 s and 1870 s, and its invention is credited to novelist Wilkie Collins, who Allingham calls the King of Sensation. Several mid-century circumstances such as new weekly and monthly magazines available to the public, tabloid journalism, and an increase in the numbers of mid-victorian British readers led to its explosion in popularity, as did the public s continued interest in the Gothic novel. And although the genre is often thought to have lasted only two decades, its influences can be seen in the later works of Thomas Hardy, Robert Louis Stevenson, and George Du Maurier, whose Svengali character in Trilby shares many characteristics of a Wilkie Collins s villain. In Collins's early Sensation Novels, readers will recognize a pattern of "criminality and passion beneath respectable surfaces (Allingham). In addition, his sensation fiction often features a beautiful, clever young woman who is adept at disguise and deception, making her dangerous and capable of generating social instability because of the threat she poses. Brantlinger suggests that the best sensation novels were those that involved a secret or several secrets that tantalized readers by "withholding information rather than divulging it (1). Collins s works met this criteria and also included crime, violent and thrilling action, amazing coincidences, heroes and heroines whose virtue is rewarded, villains whose vice is punished in the end, adultery, and/or bigamy in seemingly proper middle-class, domestic settings.

2 Ludwig 2 For all of its public success, Sensation writing had severe critics as well. In 1863, H. L. Mansel castigated the new subgenre as "preaching to the nerves instead of the judgment, while others viewed it as "brash, vulgar, and subversive (Allingham). Hellar reveals that sensation novels "reproduce ideological tensions inherent in the period," which contributed to their agitation of and rejection by "high" class Victorians. They also elicited "class fear" and the fear that women would forget their proper place in society and become insubordinate (88). In addition, some critics felt these works contained radical moral, social, and gender content that contrasted with "stable and unambiguous ideological definitions. Some literary scholars have attributed Collins s initial success as a Sensation novelist to his "expert plotting with carefully described settings, which he clearly demonstrated in The Woman in White (1860), the first novel to ignite the public's interest in the genre (Allingham). Allen assigns his longevity and modern appeal to primarily three factors. One of these was the gift of invention, and his development of the modern detective novel shows proof of this. The second was his belief that "writing for the masses did not imply writing down to them (33). Contrary to what many critics believed, Collins felt that popular literature could be quality literature. Finally, Collins accompanied sensational plots with realistic psychological truth. His characters were not simply types; they were much like living people. This paper will explore the success of Wilkie Collins as a Sensation writer, most notably in The Woman in White and The Moonstone, who used his novels to voice unconventional views on several Victorian social and political issues including marriage, the position of women in society, the treatment of illegitimate Victorian children, and British imperialism. It will also examine the way his atypical lifestyle is reflected in his work. Through his sensation novels that dealt with crime, illegitimacy, and sex, Collins challenged his readers' expectations by changing

3 Ludwig 3 the rules of the literary game. In his own life, Wilkie Collins rebelled against social conventions, so it is logical that his writing would rebel against literary conventions as well. Works Cited Allen, Brooke. "More Than Sensational: The Life & Art Of Wilkie Collins." New Criterion 12.4 (1993): 31. OmniFile Full Text Select (H.W. Wilson). Web. 20 Mar Allingham, Philip V. "The Victorian Sensation Novel, "preaching to the nerves instead of the judgment"." 4 May The Victorian Web: literature, history, & culture in the age of Victoria. Web. 17 Mar Brantlinger, Patrick. "What is "Sensational" About the Sensation Novel"?" Nineteenth-Century Fiction 37.1 (1982): Print. Heller, Tamar. Dead Secrets: Wilkie Collins and the Female Gothic. New Haven: Yale University Press, Print.

4 Ludwig 4 The "Sensational" Writing and Life of Wilkie Collins: Annotated Bibliography Allen, Brooke. "More Than Sensational: The Life & Art Of Wilkie Collins." New Criterion 12.4 (1993): 31. OmniFile Full Text Select (H.W. Wilson). Web. 20 Mar Allen begins this article by claiming that Wilkie Collins found the secret to a happy life: Do as you please and be damned (31). The remainder of the selection explains how he did just that and how this way of life inspired his writing. Because Collins was a staunch enemy of social convention, he "did exactly as he liked, shocking a number of people in the process" (31). However, the public's disapproval for the way he lived did not bother him, and he was actually pleased to be excluded from the "Society" that he hated. Throughout the article, Allen also discusses how Collins used print to voice his objection to the institution of marriage and his displeasure with laws that deprived illegitimate children and their parents their rights. In addition, she provides three reasons for Collins's longevity and modern appeal. One of these was the gift of invention, and his development of the modern detective novel shows proof of this. The second was his belief that "writing for the masses did not imply writing down to them" (33). Contrary to what many critics believed, Collins felt that popular literature could be quality literature. Finally, Collins accompanied sensational plots with realistic psychological truth. His characters were not simply types; they were much like living people. Through his sensation novels that dealt with crime, illegitimacy, sex, murder, adultery, bigamy, and sex, Collins challenged his readers' expectations by changing the rules of the literary game. Allen ends the article by asserting that Collins is a "strangely modern character" whose eccentricities are likely to appeal to today's readers and that his

5 Ludwig 5 contempt for social norms and hypocrisy are as merciless "as anything that came out of his own century, or has come out of ours" (40). His atypical lifestyle is no doubt reflected in his literature. Allingham, Philip V. "The Victorian Sensation Novel, "preaching to the nerves instead of the judgment"." 4 May The Victorian Web: literature, history, & culture in the age of Victoria. Web. 17 Mar Allingham explains the phenomenon of the Sensation novel and explores the ingredients of Sensation fiction in the 1860's and 1870's, which included romantic triangles, drugs, potions, and/or poisons, and heightened suspense detailism. According to Allingham, the popularity of these ingredients may have been a mid-victorian reaction to middle-class stodginess and prudery." He also discusses characteristics of Collins's writing and how the author became known as the "King of Sensation." By using the work of Collins as locus classicus, he explains that Sensation fiction is built upon opposites such as the possible and the improbable, sordid yet respectable, and solidly English yet exotic. Even though Sensation writing created a public mania for literature that delighted and horrified rather than instructed and informed, it did have harsh critics that viewed it as "brash, vulgar, and subversive." In his own life, Wilkie Collins rebelled against social conventions, so it is logical that his writing would rebel against literary conventions as well. Bolus-Rechert, Christine. "The Foreshadowed Life In Wilkie Collins's No Name." Studies In The Novel 41.1 (2009): OmniFile Full Text Select (H.W. Wilson). Web. 21 Mar

6 Ludwig 6 Bolus-Rechert examines the connection between social reform writing and sensation fiction, most notably in Wilkie Collins's No Name. She explains that Collins's literary success and reputation depended upon his ability to hide secrets within elaborate plots and assigns him the title of leader of the Sensational School. Similarities between the journalist George Godwin and Collins and their sensational treatment of fallenness, bankruptcy, and illegitimacy are also discussed. According to Bolus-Rechert, Godwin and Collins both hoped to shed light upon the problems of poverty and homelessness in London, the former through his journalism and the latter through his fiction. They hoped the public will be shocked because "what is usual and expected [in a home] is gradually undermined" by their writing (24). Through his writing, Collins demonstrated that when "home fails to shelter its inhabitants from danger, temptation and error and brings them into contact with the outer world, the family structure itself destabilizes" (34). This is true of not only a middle-class home but of a city that one calls home as well. It may not have been a popular opinion among Victorians, but both Collins and Godwin asserted that the splendor of London was only a facade that hid secrets of public disgrace. Brantlinger, Patrick. "What is "Sensational" About the Sensation Novel"?" Nineteenth-Century Fiction 37.1 (1982): Print. In this article, Brantlinger defines the "sensation novel" and identifies its characteristics as well. As he explains, "sensation novels" flourished in the 1860's as a minor subgenre of British fiction and most dealt with crime, adultery, and/or bigamy in seemingly proper middle-class, domestic settings. The best sensation novels were those that involved a secret or several secrets that tantalized readers by "withholding information rather than

7 Ludwig 7 divulging it" (1). They also included violent and thrilling action, amazing coincidences, heroes and heroines whose virtue is rewarded, and villains whose vice is punished in the end. On page 9, Brantlinger asserts that "In the sensation novel, the Gothic is brought up to date and so mixed with the conventions of realism as to make its events seem possible if not exactly probable. He also discusses, at length, the negative response that sensation novels elicited. Critics of the sensation novel were disturbed by its use of sex and violence, and they felt it threatened not only the literary community but English society as well. Many "good Victorians" felt the subjects addressed in sensation novels were inappropriate, and many reviewers felt the sensation novel was disreputable because of the way it exploited public interest in sexual irregularities, forced marriages, or marriages entered into under false pretenses. In addition, the plots of sensation novels often led to the "unmasking of evil behind fair appearances," which was viewed as a threat to bourgeois domestic life (11). These kinds of story lines challenged their readers' assumptions about women, marriage, and basic Victorian ideals. Sensation novels were unsettling because they addressed issues that existed in life but were often ignored or concealed: "peace masks violence; innocent appearances cloak evil intentions; reality itself functions as a mystery until the sudden revelation of guilt, which is always lurking in the shadows" (14). Brantlinger concludes the article by reiterating his belief in the subversiveness of sensation novels and how they marked a crisis in the history of literary realism by stripping away the veils of Victorian respectability and prudery. In addition, "the sensationalists were breaking down the conventions of realistic fiction," with Wilkie

8 Ludwig 8 Collins making "brilliant use of the conventions of the best Victorian novels while undercutting their most serious implications" (26). Cox, Jessica. "Representations Of Illegitimacy In Wilkie Collins's Early Novels." Philological Quarterly 83.2 (2004): OmniFile Full Text Select (H.W. Wilson). Web. 21 Mar Cox begins her article by describing Wilkie Collins's success as an author of sensation fiction and explaining how he used writing to voice his unconventional views on marriage, the position of women in society, and the treatment of illegitimate Victorian children. She also informs readers that illegitimacy was a prominent social, political, and literary issue throughout the 19th century and was a recurring theme of several of Wilkie Collins's works that helped him incorporate several other hallmarks, such as hidden identities, secret pasts, suffering women, and a plot somewhat reliant on coincidence, into his writing. She then provides readers with a brief history of legislation affecting illegitimate children and their parents and goes on to explain how Collins used his writing as a platform to criticize the disregard and neglect of illegitimate children and the position of "fallen" women in society. Because of his unconventional lifestyle, the topic of illegitimacy held personal interest for Collins: with his lover Martha Rudd, he had three illegitimate children. According to Cox, his 1863 novel, No Name, presented his strongest attack on "the Victorian legal and social system that condemned illegitimacy," but it was only one of several works to address this issue. Heller, Tamar. Dead Secrets: Wilkie Collins and the Female Gothic. New Haven: Yale University Press, Print.

9 Ludwig 9 In this book, Heller offers a comprehensive look at the works of Wilkie Collins and explains that even though one of his mottoes was "Make 'em cry, make 'em laugh, make 'em wait," he still considered himself a serious author with a well-established position in the literary world. She also discusses his recurring themes of secrecy, transgression and illegitimacy. Chapter Four, "Writing After Dark: Collins and Victorian Literary Culture," examines the development of Collins's career, his rise in the literary marketplace, and the growing divide between "popular" literature and "serious" fiction. Apparently the difference was defined in class terms of "high" and "low" and also by gender terms, with serious literature regarded as masculine and sensation fiction, for which Collins is best known, as feminine. Heller also suggests that even though many critics viewed Collins as a member of the literary working class rather than a member of the literary elite, he grew in public popularity with the rise of the sensation novel. In addition, she reveals that sensation novels "reproduce ideological tensions inherent in the period," which contributed to their agitation of and rejection by "high" class Victorians (87). Sensation novels elicited "class fear" and the fear that women would forget their proper place in society and become insubordinate. They also contained radical moral, social, and gender content that contrasted with "stable and unambiguous ideological definitions" (88). Liggins, Emma. "Her Resolution to Die: Wayward Women and Constructions of Suicide in Wilkie Collins s Crime Fiction." The Wilkie Collins Journal. Web. 16 March According to Liggins, Wilkie Collins used the genres of sensation fiction and detective fiction to examine the connections between crime, gender, and class, while focusing on

10 Ludwig 10 the sexuality of the suicidal woman. This interest in suicide and inclusion of it in his writing extended the limits of what was acceptable in fiction. In addition, Collins used his writing to condemn the common practice of labeling suicidal women as simply mad or sexually indiscreet. He suggested that female suicides might instead be linked to their "dissatisfaction with middle-class marriage as well as their unacknowledged sexual desires" In this way, a woman's violence against herself could be viewed as an act of female defiance. Or, as Liggins suggests, "female suicide could be valorized as an important act of self-assertion, a sign of female dissatisfaction." Through his representation of suicidal females in his fiction, Collins demonstrates a departure from traditional depictions of wayward women and self-violence. By suggesting that some women killed themselves because they were unhappy in their marriages or because they were sexually frustrated, Collins most certainly challenged and undermined prevalent assumptions about femininity. As Liggins mentions in her conclusion, "perhaps his focus on the suicidal impulses of respectable women which was most radical." This provides yet another example of Collins's subversive nature in his writing which reflected the way he lived his life. Munjai, Savi. "Collins's representation of the 'cursed Indian jewel': Orientalism in the sensation novel." 19 July The Victorian Web: literature, history, & culture in the age of Victoria. Web. 17 March According to Munjai, Wilkie Collin's The Moonstone represents a distinct challenge to the colonial mindset of Victorian England. He further explains that the novel presents a version of imperial history that closes the gap between both public and private spaces and Britain itself and her foreign territories. In effect, it "represents the spread of social

11 Ludwig 11 and moral chaos to the inner sanctum of the country-house, infecting that emblem of British upper-class domesticity." In addition, Munjai links the male theft of the Moonstone from an unlocked Indian cabinet in Rachel Verinder's bedroom to the violation of a woman's chastity and ultimately imperial theft and "the colonial rape of a feminized India." He also discusses how critics attacked Collins and the sensation novel for their destabilization of the Victorian domestic ideal and undercutting the British imperial ethic. Collins may have created stereotypical characters in the three Brahmin guardians of the Yellow Diamond, but he otherwise subverts reader expectations by focusing the novel on the "underlying disorder and hypocrisies of English society." As Munjai explains, Collins went to great lengths to undermine Victorian notions that tried to validate the necessity of imperialism and used The Moonstone to "to interrogate rather than empower colonialist ventures." Wagner, Tamara S. "Clinical Gothic: Sensationalising Substance Abuse In The Victorian Home." Gothic Studies 11.2 (2009): OmniFile Full Text Select (H.W. Wilson). Web. 23 Mar Wagner examines the assertion that reading the mid-victorian sensation novel was a type of addiction. In their novels, sensation writers often included "substance abuse at home as part of the genre's rupture of ideologies of domesticity," and by offering a description or sensation of the addictive experience, they were providing their readers a substance to be abused as well (30). Those most at risk for sensation novel addiction were "the young, the leisured or bored, bourgeois women in general, and the undiscriminating young female consumer in particular" (31).

12 Ludwig 12 The parallels between drug addiction and fiction addiction that Wagner explores are interesting. Apparently, there are those that felt that certain types of literature could poison a Victorian home much like certain substances could poison a Victorian body. Sensation fiction could be addictive, allowing its readers to vicariously experience accidental and deliberate drug use, suicide, and attempted suicide. In addition, some critics believed that as an addictive stimulant, sensation novels held great potential for personal and societal damage as their popularity spread among their readers. However, sensation novelists like Wilkie Collins were not troubled by these accusations. Instead, they were quick to capitalize on them and transform the allegations into new plotlines. Because of his medical understanding of certain drugs and his own experience with opium, Collins was just one sensation novelist that included drug consumption or dependency in his writing. He seemed to have no problem producing novels that could excite readers without being understood on an intellectual or even imaginative level. As he wrote in The Law and the Lady, "You don't understand a word of my stories, do you? And yet I can make the flesh creep on your great clumsy body-and yet I can stir your stagnant mind, and make you like it!" (32). Weliver, Phyllis. "Music and Female Power in Sensation Fiction." The Wilkie Collins Journal. Web. 16 March Sensation fiction provided readers with the best-selling thrillers of the 1860's. According to Weliver, this was due to the way it revealed masquerade in the home where it was least expected and depicted crisis as a series of unexpected changes and shocks. When characters or situations were revealed to be other than they seemed, this provided the

13 Ludwig 13 "sensation" that challenged "the premises of judgement" and startled "early-victorian sensibilities." She goes on to explain that gender issues were particularly important in sensation novels and that "social fears were unveiled as the potential dark side of angelic traits was explored." And in what I think is one the most interesting lines I've read in some time, "Sensation fiction frequently explores the problems that ensued when husbands discovered that their wives were not as angelic as they seemed during courtship, couching this sense of betrayal in terms that raised readers' hackles as everyday homes were destroyed by bigamy, adultery, and murder." So, essentially men were surprised and unsettled when their wives turned out to be real people rather than one-dimensional caricatures of femininity. By writing of this threat of hidden female power, Collins contests the "Victorian ideals of passive womanhood." In addition, she examines the role of music in forming and polishing the ideal Victorian woman and how Wilkie Collins uses music in The Woman in White to give his heroine power, to circumvent social hierarchy, and to violate class norms. Music, which was initially used by unmarried young Victorian women to attract husbands, is subversively used by Collins as a symbol of an alternate reality where women satisfy themselves. This provides readers with yet another example of Collin's rebellious nature revealed through his writing.

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