3.3. Louis Montrose: the Key Pillar of New
Historicism:
Layouni 18
Like the other new historicist scholars, Louis Montrose
emphasizes the dialogic relationship between text and history. Montrose
summarizes the essence of new historicism in a widely known phrase "the
historicity of the text and textuality of history". He provides in his essay
"Professing the Renaissance: The Poetics and Politics of Culture", a clear
definition of this phrase, focusing on the obligatory presence of the two
elements (text and history) in the successful process of interpretation. He
states that
By the historicity of texts, I mean to suggest the
cultural specificity, the social embedment, of all modes of writing--not only
the texts that critics study but also the texts in which we study them. By
the textuality of history, I mean to suggest, firstly, that we can
have no access to a full and authentic past, a lived material existence,
unmediated by the surviving textual traces of the society in question--traces
whose survival we cannot assume to be merely contingent but must rather presume
to be at least partially consequent upon complex and subtle social processes of
preservation and effacement; and secondly that those textual traces are
themselves subject to subsequent textual mediations when they are construed as
the "documents" upon which historians ground their own texts, called
"histories".(20)
By this definition, Montrose foregrounds the new historicist
method based upon an equal treatment of textuality and historicity. He states
that the understanding of a particular text should not be in total isolation
from its context but it is rather a cultural process par excellence since the
literary text is a cultural artefact. Montrose's phrase confirms the idea that
the history is by definition a discourse that shares the same characteristics
of the narration. History is structured like any literary text upon
subjectivity and that is why Louis Montrose defines history as textual.
Accordingly, Poe's six tales can be considered as historical documents that
record a medical and a social phenomenon that occurred during the
19th C America. The
Layouni 19
itemized description of the cases of catalepsy or apparent death
can be recorded in other nonliterary, medical documents of the same era. Hence,
understanding the use of taphephobia as a common motif cannot be achieved
without a deep understanding of the social and historical context of America in
19th Century, characterized by the prevalence of epidemics like the
yellow fever and cholera that caused near death trances leading to premature
interment. In the process of interpreting Poe's tales, the use of historical
documents and medical books and news paper articles is a must to reconstruct
the general image of the past, unveiling the social, political and religious
pieces of the puzzle of America during 19th century.
4. New Historicism : Concluding Notes:
The quintessence of new historicism is its context-based
approach, based on the interdisciplinarity between literary text and history.
The text presents a product of cultural negotiations. The reference to
non-literary, historical documents is a necessity to be able to grasp the full
meaning of the text. New historicism presents a method of close analysis,
taking the text as a starting point referring to the culture. New historicism
builds its theory upon the assumption that the literary negotiation occurs at
two levels: First, there is no author outside his culture since he produces a
text from a standpoint in his social, cultural and historical context. Thus,
the author presents a cultural agent and the text is a cultural product.
Second, the reader or the critic reads the text from his cultural perspective,
revitalizing the text. New historicism, flourished in 1980s, presents a
revolutionary theory that reacts against different text based approaches,
believing that text and history are two inseparable entities, necessary for the
process of interpretation. Relying on this theory, the study of taphephobia in
Edgar Allan Poe's gothic tales will be based upon the examination of both tales
and historical, religious and medical sources in addition to the use of media
(newspapers) in order to analyze the recurrent and excessive use of the
taphephobia as a theme referring to different contexts that helped this phobia
to arise as one of the permanent obsession of the 19th C America.
Layouni 20
Chapter 2: Historicity of Edgar Allan Poe's
Tales
New historicists' basic feature is that they liberate literary
works from the confinements of their aestheticism to reach a wider, global
context of culture and history. They believe in the openness of literature to
other fields since the author is himself a cultural artifact who reflects his
life, beliefs and era in his writings. Aestheticism and history present two
inseparable entities, necessary for the understanding of literature, since
literary works mirror the author's historical, social and cultural contexts in
addition to the different sources that influenced him. Accordingly, the motif
of taphephobia will be studied inextricably from Edgar Allan Poe's era, life
and interests.
Throughout the six tales under study, Poe presents taphephobia at
both the medical and psychological levels. He describes the accidents of
premature internments as a necessary step to highlight the morbid fear that
overwhelmed the Americans during the 19th C. He reflects the phenomenon of
taphephobia through the use of its basic cause, which is premature burial,
providing a clear image of his era and further internalizing the horror. The
accidents of premature burial were not always exercised mistakenly as in the
case of the protagonist in "Morella". They occur in a variety of forms in every
tale, creating different stories and events but sharing the same horror and
panic. However, the short story "Ligeia" presents a dilemma since it is
characterized by an ambiguous description that drives some critics to consider
Ligeia as a victim of premature burial who survived the grave to take her
revenge from both her husband and his new bride while other critics believe
that the appearance of Ligeia is causally the husband's hallucinations due to
his consumption of opium and his deep sadness and grief.
Poe's choice of taphephobia is inspired first from his cultural
and social milieus. Yet, the representation of the major cause of the
phenomenon, which is premature burial, has a
Layouni 21
striking resemblance to ancient mythologies. Taphephobia was
fueled by media and notably newspapers that wrote about the terrors of real
accidents of premature internment, and the fear is once again on the surface.
Several iconic newspapers and notably The New York Times record the
psychological torments of people suffering from morbid taphephobia and who
experienced their nightmares by being prematurely buried alive. One of the
writers who use taphephobia as a pillar of his gothic, blood-chilling tales is
Poe. He deals with premature burial, the fuel of that phobia, as a result of a
mistaken medical diagnosis. But he also deals with other types of premature
burial that date back to antiquity.
In his tale "The Fall of the House of Usher", taphephobia is
internalized through the presentation of premature burial, which is its primary
cause, in a form of foundation sacrifice done by Roderick Usher, the victim's
brother. This idea is conveyed through Poe's analytic description of the
different circumstances of Madeleine's premature internment. The place of the
vault and the mysterious circumstances of Madeline's death and burial despite
the fact that she showed signs of life, show that her death and burial was a
form of ritual sacrifice. In this particular tale, Poe transcends the
clichéd images of the classical gothic setting, characterized by dark
catacombs and secret vaults to personify the setting and to associate it with
the character. The house is depicted from the outset of the tale in parallel
with the description of Roderick's physical and mental decline, leaving the
reader to see that the house and the character are spiritually related and in
the instance of the decay of one of them, the other will have the same fate.
With the development of the description, Poe highlights the fact that Roderick
Usher is interested in different writings characterized by its strange
doctrines that led the narrator to express his fear and anxiety saying "I could
not help thinking of the wild ritual of this work, and of its probable
influence upon the hypochondriac [...]" (The Collected Tales and Poems of
Edgar Allan Poe3 179). This detailed description of both the
setting and
3 Hereafter referred to as CTP
Layouni 22
the protagonist Roderick Usher paves the way to the nature of the
premature burial that would occur. Roderick's act of insisting to bury his
sister alive in a vault under the "upper portion of the house" (180) indicates
his particular intention to save the house, and thus himself, from decay by
sacrificing his twin sister.
This event echoes the old practices in which premature burial was
a form of human sacrifice or what is called foundation sacrifice. In his book
Human Sacrifice: In History and Today , the British historian Nigel
Davies gives an example of premature entombment as a sacrifice to keep
buildings strong , stating that "in the sanctuary in Gezer were found two burnt
skeletons of six-year-old children and the skulls of two adolescents that had
been sawn in two. At Meggido a girl of fifteen had been killed and buried in
the foundations of a large structure. Excavations show that the practice of
interring children under new buildings was widespread and some were evidently
buried alive" (61). The presentation of the premature burial presents one
strategy developed by Poe to fuel the mass horror that overwhelms the American
people. The choice of an ancient practice as a basis for his tale may further
intensify the panic of the mass since it reflects in life like, detailed
depiction, their worst nightmares.
Furthermore, in "The Cask of Amontillado", Poe chooses to show
another form of horror presenting the cause of 19th C Americans' morbid phobia
differently. The immurement presents a form of harsh punishment between two
rivals: the religious Catholic side and the Masonic non religious side, a
sacrifice to protect God's power and church. Poe's tale echoes the Biblical
story of Jesus' journey to Golgotha where the skulls and bones were scattered
like in the catacombs, the death road for Fortunato. Poe's inspiration by the
Bible and notably the Douay-Rheims Bible is clear from his excessive use of the
Latin phrases like the Catholic phrase 'rest in peace' translated to Latin
"in pace requiescat" (189) and Montressor's motto "nemo me impune
lacessit" (187). This particular form of punishment is common in the
Layouni 23
Christian religion despite the fact that there are few documents
that recorded it. One famous example is recorded in Evening Post
(October 7th, 1869 ) in which a nun, named Barbara Abryk, survived a
horrible experience of being immured alive in a convent in Cracow. This
practice presents a traditional form of punishment for nuns who break their
vows. It is claimed in Evening Post that "the father confessor of the
cloister ventured to say that the immuring of the nun had been known by the
church authorities". There are some literary works that record the immurement
of nuns as the dark, evil side of the religious institution and which
intensifies the fear of premature burial. Sir Walter Scott's Marmion
(1808), which is one of the most influential works for Poe,
provides an example of immurement in Coldingham Abbey where a skeleton of a
female is found. He insists on the validity of immurement in the history of
Christianity, affirming that "the religious, who broke their vows of chastity"
were punished by being immured in the convent's wall with a small portion of
food and water (288).
In "Berenice", "Morella" and "Ligeia", Poe continues the same
strategy of describing female victims of premature burial, enhancing the horror
of the public. As it would be further discussed in this chapter, this recurrent
image is generally referred to, by many critics, in relation to the biography
of Poe as a tormented author and to some gender issues of the American society
during that era. However, the same idea can be also related to the myth of the
buried infant in Pre-Islamic Arab nations since Poe is identified by his
biographers as one of few authors who were interested in the Arabic
civilization and particularly, as Betsy Erkkila mentions in her essay "The
Poetics of Whiteness: Poe and the Racial Imaginary", " in "the Arabians" as
figures of romantic apartness and otherworldliness" (48). The
fear of premature burial presented a widely known phenomenon that invaded the
mind of every pregnant wife since there was a tradition of burying unwanted
newborn females alive, considering them as a source of shame and disgrace. This
practice was indicated in the Quran
4 It is translated according to Maulana Muhammed
Ali in his book English Translation of the Holy Quran: With Explanatory
Notes as " And when the girl [who was] buried alive is asked, For what sin
she was killed" (757).
Layouni 24
in Sura At Takwir (The Overthrowing Chapter) " 9
?ÊóáöÊõÞ
òÈ??äóÐ
øöíóÇöÈ 8
?ÊóáöÆõÓ õ?óÏ?
Á?æóã?áÇ
ÇóÐöÇ óæ" (81:8 - 81:9)4.
Hence, Poe succeeds to show a multiple dimension of the terror of premature
burial, intensifying further the public horror, by documenting in details all
possible forms of their constant threat.
Despite the multifaceted presentation of taphephobia, all Poe's
tales share the historical presentation of the phenomenon. He used historically
valid stories about premature burial, particularly in his "The Premature
Burial", to add credibility as well as to spread horror among readers. The
examples provided by Poe include well respected aristocratic families (The
Congressman's case), stories that override the boundaries of United States to
reach France and England ( the case of Edward Stapleton) and other examples
taken from sources "of high authority and merit" (CTP 254). Poe's
tales can be considered as historical documents in the form of literature that
record the obsessive fear of the 19th C Americans who were overwhelmed by
stories of real accidents of premature burials that escalate their horror. The
headlines of the famous, ubiquitous newspapers present the fuel of people's
taphephobia. They all share stories of corpses found with "face[s] contorted
into an agonized expression, the arms were drawn up as far as the coffin would
admit, and the head was twisted round to the shoulders [...]" (New York
Times, 5 January 1874).
Thus, Poe's tales are no longer only gothic stories about
taphephobia, but also historical documents that record a wide spread phenomenon
with social, medical and religious details. Poe's tales constitute a
multifaceted study that includes different literary and non literary fields to
satisfy readers' different tastes. Hence, taphephobia, as a motif under study,
could not be easily interpreted and analyzed without finding and following the
traces of other
Layouni 25
literary and non-literary works used by the author to validate
the horrific dimension of the phobia and how it was a common, widespread fear
in America during the 19th C.
Poe builds his works, utilizing basic elements from the classical
works of the iconic gothic writers like Horace Walpole, Matthew Gregory Lewis
and Ann Radcliffe. However, he transcended these elements by choosing to relate
a particular social and medical phenomenon like taphephobia to non literary
contexts; notably the philosophical, historical, medical and religious
disciplines. This unorthodox choice constitutes what is called Poe's aesthetic
theory.
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