for October 17th 2000
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46. Victoria simulates proper lady in distress. 72. Woman of mind as object for seduction. |
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conventional view of women as necessarily innocent in love |
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LEONARDO'S STORY
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MAIN NARRATIVE CONTINUES
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caricature of unprotected, Gothic heroine; and cf. her childlike appearance, border adolescent |
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dreams invariably anticipatory, suggesting interpretation of Victoria's desires |
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note how drugs mimic or perform the effect of passions, etc.: mechanical view of body |
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emotions cause illness: e.g., Falconer, William (1744-1824), A dissertation on the influence of the passions upon disorders of the body (1788) |
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"Diseases of the nerves are essentially disorders of sympathy; they presuppose a state of general vigilance in the nervous system which makes each organ susceptible of entering in to sympathy with any other." -- Foucault, Madness and Civilization (London, 1977), p. 153.
"The sensibility which is a privilege and the sensibility which might manifest itself in the disorder of internal organs are not to be separated." -- John Mullan, Sentiment and Sociability (Oxford, 1988), p. 231.
If any thing further were required, in support of what is here said to be the consequences which result from an indiscriminate perusal of such books, the opinions of an author of a medical treatise lately published, might be referred to. While attending to the influence which the affections and passions of the mind are found to have on our system, he does not hesitate to say, that among the mournful passions, must be included, an extravagant degree of love, and into which he says, young females particularly, are precipitated, merely, by reading improper novels. After detailing a melancholy catalogue of diseases, to which this passion gives rife, he adds, "That in the houses appropriated to the unhappy victims of insanity, he generally meets with three classes: the first consist of men deprived of their understandings by pride; the second of girls by love; and the third of women by jealousy." -- Scots Magazine 64 (June, 1802), 471-2.
Poor, indeed, are the services rendered to virtue by a writer, however he may boast that the object of his performance is to exhibit the vicious as infamous and unhappy, who, in tracing the progress of vice to infamy and unhappiness, introduces the readers to scenes and language adapted to wear away the quick feelings of modesty, which form at once the ornament and the safeguard of innocence; and like the bloom upon a plumb, if once effaced, commonly disappears for ever. -- Scots Magazine 59 (June, 1797), 374-5 (extracted from Gisborne)
We are sorry to remark, that the "Monk" seems to have been made the model, as well of the style, as of the story. There is a voluptuousness of language and allusion, pervading these volumes, which we should have hoped, that the delicacy of the female pen would have refused to trace; and there is an exhibition of wantonness and harlotry, which we should have hoped, that the delicacy of a female mind, would have been shocked to imagine. -- Annual Review and History of Literature 5 (1806), 542
One is naturally led to ask how the lady came to be so well acquainted with the devil as to be thus let into the secret of his transactions. But be that as it may, we have no doubt she herself, supposing her testimony false, has been imposed upon. Now it so happens, that in such cases, ladies of her description may be, and very often are, imposed upon. The reason is that unfortunately they have the seeds of nonsense, bad taste, and ridiculous fancies, early sown in their minds. These having come to maturity, render the mind putrid and corrupt, and the consequence is the formation of millions of the strangest maggots that one can conceive. -- Literary Journal, a Review of Domestic and Foreign Literature, 2nd Series 1 (June, 1806), 631-635.
Thus ends this mass of unqualified vice and unqualified mischief, began without plan, continued without preparation, and terminated by death in all its several parts, with little of contrast and still less of judicious arrangement. It must be confessed, however, that the author tells her tales of indiscriminate horror in many instances with great force, and if the plot had been more original, we doubt not that this Novel would have obtained an higher rank in the public estimation than it is now likely to acquire. -- General Review of British and Foreign Literature 1 (June, 1806), 590-593
Document prepared October 17, 2000