Having read "A Vision of Lucifer" it brought a question to my mind: Was Smith Gnostic, or had interest in Gnostic myth?

Personally I find Gnostic myth to be one of the most interesting strains of JudeoChristian mythology, and find it both creatively stimulating and more easily agreeable than standard Catholic teachings. I note that Smith doesn't have a vast amount of material dealing with Lucifer and Christ but I thought I'd ask nonetheless.

Doominations,
Glen.

Was CAS gnostic?

No.

Was he interested in gnostic teachings (the use of the word "myth" is
too imprecise) - Clark had read everything available and his interests
were nearly universal - however, the notion that some folk take unto themselves the idea that they possess "secret knowledge" not accessible
or comprehensible to the common herd was considered absurd by Clark.

Your comment about Judaeo-christian mythology and a teaching that is
more "agreeable" than that of the Roman Catholic church suggests to me a need for caution - I find it highly dubious that any person who is not
a canon of the church would be qualified to state that they actually know the magisterium. Few are those who do -
I would also be curious as to how you understand the word "mythology" -
If in the high sense of scholarship such as that of Rudolph Bultmann,
Gerhard von Rad, or Robert Graves then the remark has some merit;
if, however, comprehended in the more pedestrian way, then it is merely
sophomoric.

It is gratifying to see a high level of interest in CAS' philosophy -
My memoir deals slightly with a discussion he and I had on dualism
on one occasion (found in "Sword) - Clark appreciated the concept of
"vicarious sacrifice" profoundly and, through the lives of his parents had experienced it personally. That there are indeed deep and arcane
secrets in the universe is manifestly obvious - that they are meant for
a select few to huddle about congratulating themselves on having the
"real" truth, and are therefore superior to others Clark found laughable.
drf

Hej!

Having studied Gnosticism to a small degree, in conjunction with my natural inclination and university researches into the history of Christian religions and heresies in the Roman Empire, and in conjunction with the recent reading of the non-fiction of CAs for the index I've just finished, I would also agree with Dr Farmer, and say no.

There is no trace in his nonfiction of adherence to, or belief in, any of the standard doctrines. One must also remember that Gnosticism itself, whilst holding certain basic concepts, was a diversified religious movement. So there is some overlap in CAS' world-view and temperament, but this, I feel, is more accidental than not, and therefore of no real importance when assigning causation.

Indeed, from Dr. Farmer's remarks, it is more probable that the similarities helped produce the interest that he did display.

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Your comment about Judaeo-christian mythology and a teaching that is more "agreeable" than that of the Roman Catholic church suggests to me a need for caution - I find it highly dubious that any person who is not a canon of the church would be qualified to state that they actually know the magisterium.

By "agreeable" I meant from a purely personal point of view, i.e. that I find the Gnostic stories of the Fall, Ialdabaoth, creation of Man, etc. to be a lot more sensible, interesting and fitting than the default Christian teachings. Of course, this is entirely within and of itself - there is no sensible way of advocating the Bible's "historical" accounts to be 100% fact.

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I would also be curious as to how you understand the word "mythology"

As I say above, I am refering to the Gnostic stories of gods and Man, in which case I guess I use it in the "sophomoric" sense :P. I call it myth because it is not fact - I could refer to them as "religious teachings" I suppose, but "myth" seems suitable enough.

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It is gratifying to see a high level of interest in CAS' philosophy - My memoir deals slightly with a discussion he and I had on dualism on one occasion (found in "Sword) - Clark appreciated the concept of "vicarious sacrifice" profoundly and, through the lives of his parents had experienced it personally.

I've seen that book ("Sword of Zagan") mentioned a lot (understandably :P) in the year or so I've been lurking around this site and it certainly sounds like something I need to read. Probably over this summer, when I plan to do a Lovecraft-and-related-authors binge because I'm ashamed at myself for the lack of knowledge I have about my favourite author :D.

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One must also remember that Gnosticism itself, whilst holding certain basic concepts, was a diversified religious movement. So there is some overlap in CAS' world-view and temperament, but this, I feel, is more accidental than not, and therefore of no real importance when assigning causation.

The main reason I ask is that CAS refers to Lucifer in the poem as both "the brother" and "the mind's ideal", whilst simultaneously saying "the darkness that is God". I interpreted this as depicting Lucifer as a paragon of knowledge, intelligence and wisdom which humanity could assail or strive to match; this is an idea which is fundamental to both Traditional Satanism and various factions of Gnosticism (especially Ophitic Gnosticism). The "darkness that is God" compounds this idea with the Gnostic and Satanic perception of God (i.w. YHWH, aka Ialdabaoth) as an arrogant, vain demiurge that is tyrannous over humanity.

If CAS did not at least take interest in this point of view I wouldn't see why he would write a poem about it? Unless it was like a Metaphysical poet writing about subject matter purely for the sakes of investigating it though they may never agree with it. With C G Jung bringing about a slight resurgence in interest toward Gnosticism around this time (i.e. the first half of the 20th century), I guess my assumption was that CAS at least took interest in it also. Of course, my knowledge of CAS is limited (as I originally took interest purely as a result of his association with Lovecraft) so I might be completely wrong - hence the topic! :P

Re a couple of your very interesting observations - look to
Zoroaster for more of CAS' interest - although he understood
that dualism, as a system, collapses under analysis -
Satan is not the opposite of Yahweh, but of Gabriel -
Lucifer, of course, means "light-bearer" and great wisdom and
knowledge reside in him - but it is equality he desires - a
dimension he is (or in Zoraster, Ahriman) given in dualistic
philosophies. Please recall that Clark, though largely
"sui generis" is forever a child of the end of the Victorian
Era - and its gentility and manners, even where pretense, nevertheless inform his attitudes - and, inevitably, that is
unavoidably, High-Church Anglican - While not a Christian
certainly, he nevertheless understood and admired the core
concept of vicarious sacrifice. It was the failure of those
he observed to live up to their words that drove this amazingly
insightful man away - In personal life, Clark valued nothing so
highly as a man keeping his word, speaking truth without deception of guile - he was himself utterly lacking in guile and was like a lamb led to the slaughter by deceitful publishers, neighbors, etc. ad infin., ad nauseam. I was glad for those few occasions when I could protect him.
Dr. F

I see here the difference between interest, and belief in a specific position. Thus CAS might, like myself, display an interest in Gnosticism, but not a reciprocal belief.

You might also need to consider the poem in question. How far is it akin in nature to a dramatic monologue, thereby articulating a position and attitude adopted by a speaker, or persona, rather then the poet in actuality. How far are the attitudes those of a character within the poem, or articulating an idea about that character? Also, how far are the lines based on standard equations of light=knowledge, darkness=ignorance, so that as the figure is ignorant of God's nature or mind, for that figure God is equated with darkness.

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so that as the figure is ignorant of God's nature or mind, for that figure God is equated with darkness.

My interpretation is that it is, at least in part, a statement of contempt, but, of course, the line is open to multiple readings.

calonlan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Was CAS gnostic?
>
> No.
>
> Was he interested in gnostic teachings (the use of
> the word "myth" is
> too imprecise) - Clark had read everything
> available and his interests
> were nearly universal - however, the notion that
> some folk take unto themselves the idea that they
> possess "secret knowledge" not accessible
> or comprehensible to the common herd was
> considered absurd by Clark.

Indeed, Herr Doktor. Clark could even observe the ludicrous nature of this idea at close hand through a group in Placer County that called itself the Esoteric Fraternity, who practiced a type of "solar biology". He used a couple of their ideas in poems such as "Nyctalops" and "Fellowship" and in the fragment "The House of Haon Dor," but never regarded them as anything more than fellow eccentrics. Of course California was and is "the land of fruits and nuts," and nearby San Jose was the home of the Rosicrucian movement, elements of which he probably encountered around San Francisco when he visited Sterling or Berkeley when he stayed with Mrs. Sully. CAS also read Eliphas Levi and Montague Summer' works on magic, and may well have picked up some ideas from them. More later.
>
Scott

Lychgate Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
[snippage]> If CAS did not at least take interest in this
> point of view I wouldn't see why he would write a
> poem about it? Unless it was like a Metaphysical
> poet writing about subject matter purely for the
> sakes of investigating it though they may never
> agree with it. With C G Jung bringing about a
> slight resurgence in interest toward Gnosticism
> around this time (i.e. the first half of the 20th
> century), I guess my assumption was that CAS at
> least took interest in it also. Of course, my
> knowledge of CAS is limited (as I originally took
> interest purely as a result of his association
> with Lovecraft) so I might be completely wrong -
> hence the topic! :P

Brian Stableford has an excellent article in the second issue of WORMWOOD (available from Tartarus Press; incidentally, the same issue contains my essay "Life, Love and the Clemency of Death: Clark Ashton Smith's 'The Isle of the Torturers' Re-examined") which traces the history of literary "satanism," or the use of the Devil as a heroic rebel against insurmountable odds, from Milton through Blake through the French Decadents and Symbolists, which would lead naturally to CAS. Look at the poets and authors who influenced him: Milton, Baudelaire, Anatole French: all of whom saw Lucifer not as a diabolic but as a Promethean figure, as opposed to the absolutist tyranny of Jehovah. Since Clark was by nature himself a rebel, it is not surprising that he would use this as a metaphor in his work. However, to assign him actual gnostic beliefs based upon this is akin to attributing to Lovecraft actual belief in Cthulhu &Co.

Scott

Quoth Scott Connors:

Quote:

"CAS also read Eliphas Levi and Montague Summer' works on magic, and may well have picked up some ideas from them."

And here, to modulate my earlier statement, he would have used what he picked up within a literary context, and not as a statement of belief.

It comes down to, to paraphrase Christopher brennan, the 'I' is not neccesarily CAS. As poets and other authors know, and as critics should, this 'I', this seemingly personal identification with the material in any given text may in fact be illusory when analysing it in search of a belief held by the author. Just because CAs wrote of Tsathogghua, it does not mean that he believed in Tsathogghua, any more than his writing of beliefs held by any of his characters reflects his own.

This is especially important when considering the 'I' of the poems, and where there is a strong, central figure, and the tone of the poem is constructed around that figure's worldview. His choice of Lucifer becomes, then, not a personal statement of belief in, or even in alliegence with, the views of Lucifer, nor do Gnostic elements signify a sympathy or like belief in Gnosticism, rather, they become literary expressions. It is the poem which determines what is said, not the poet.

The significance, then, of the confessional poets as distinct from other poets becomes obvious: their stress, their focus is upon the closeness of the poetic 'I', and the poets' 'I'.

Neither, however, can we assume that CAS did not necessarily identify with the "I" in at least certain of his poems. It's always prudent, of course, to assume that it is the "narrator" who is speaking, but one oughtn't to go overboard with this, either.

As to the subject of beliefs about religion, the occult and the like, my sense is that CAS retained an open mind, at least regarding the "open" nature of reality and its possibilities, but that he did not subscribe to any particular occult or religious belief system. Any comments, though, on the likelihood of Steve Behrends's claim (in his Starmont Guide, I believe, but I could be mistaken) that someone once spotted CAS performing a sort of ritual dance on his property? Scott? Dr. Farmer?

So, then, in order to distinguish between the 'I' that is not CAS, and that which is, we would need to focus upon external evidence, to texts and personal knowledge other than the text in question.

Here is where the letters of CAS, and the personal knowledge of Dr. Farmer become integral to a greater understanding of CAS, no?

Phillip

A quick observation occurs to me in the context of the "I" discussion, not necessarily true to the theme of Gnosticism, but relevant natheless(can't resist the Ashtonesque expression):
the era of the 40's and 50's saw a very significant increase in
the attention given to psychotherapy, and, to the horror of traditional academics, actual degrees in psychology were being proposed at the University level. Most of us then, and the die-hards among us now consider the most of it a great fraud (see
Dr. Tana Dineen's excellent "Manufacturing Victims"). The poetic world, and the ethos that led to the "beats" and the coffee house
phenomenon became self-absorbed to an alarming degree. The expression "contemplating one's navel" came into vogue. The "poet"
became consumed by the notion that his particular angst was the supremely interesting subject. Which is to say, boring being belief. Clark and I had many a good barb to throw in that direction. I am not sure I can adequately express the contempt Clark felt for "analysts" - He would have agreed with those Indian tribes in Cooper who thought of the Insane as especially touched by the divine, and should therefore be held in reverence. "Schizoid Creator" expresses his opinion well - and I should add if you haven't guessed already - when Clark parodies something it is not
satire but sarcasm - We discussed Ortega y gasset one evening and the point most relevant here is that satire is born of a love of the thing criticised and is driven by a desire to correct its faults -
Sarcasm is born of contempt, and driven by a desire to destroy or at least emasculate.
Finally, Clark held the Aristotelian philosophical view which dominated the 19th century regarding the muse: Absolute beauty exists in the minds of the God(s), and through the process of "mimesis" the artist, inspired by his muse, creates something which approaches that perfection. This gives rise to the "standards" by which art may be judged. Because the art is greater than the artist [having come by messenger(the muse)from the divine], we are able to respond spiritually and recognize this poem, that sculpture, this painting, or even that chair, as more beautiful than another because the divine within percieves a nearer approximation of the divine absolute poem, carving, painting, chair, etc. This philosophy came as a "given" at the time of Clark's birth; that he delivered the concept from Olympus and launched it into the cosmos as no one before had, is one of his great gifts to poetry, and one that is, as yet, little understood or appreciated.
Sorry for such a lengthy ramble - but much of real significance is going on in this discussion.- got to go for now, but much more is
generated by this and needs to continue.
dr.f

Smith was anti-Psychology? That surprises me greatly, as I thought he would have been interested in the concept of exploring "inner space" and the human mind. Or do you mean he was simply anti- the ways it was being carried out at the time?

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that he delivered the concept from Olympus and launched it into the cosmos as no one before had, is one of his great gifts to poetry, and one that is, as yet, little understood or appreciated.

That shall change :D.

voleboy:

Yes, I agree on both counts, although I suspect that certainty in such areas will remain forever elusive.

Dr. Farmer:

These are very interesting points. Although I would not presume to speak for those who claim to have benefited from these disciplines, I have always felt that the uncritically held presuppositions of psychology and psychoanalysis are very dubious, indeed. They are reductive, and, in many ways, a last redoubt against any sense of the numinous. For instance, they rationalize away notions of the mystic and the cosmic as a mere "regression" aimed at being re-united with one's mother, or similar such idiocy. The ideal that art ought to contain supra-personal aims and content seems sadly lost to us today. On the other hand, as I have often stated, the great merit and originality of CAS's work lies precisely in his forays "outside the human aquarium".

This last is a minor point, but I must quibble with the characterization of satire on offer here. Horatian satire, the lighter form of the beast, fits the strictures you suggest. The harsher Juvenalian satire, however, does not. Swift, fo instance, was a satirist, but a Juvenalian one; his work was animated by no love of humanity or belief in the possibility of correcting its foibles. That said, your remarks regarding CAS are quite interesting, and I agree with you regarding both his tone and his aims. I would cast him as a Juvenalian satirist, myself, but, in the end, such labels matter little, except as points of reference.

Lychgate:

Quote:

Smith was anti-Psychology? That surprises me greatly, as I thought he would have been interested in the concept of exploring "inner space" and the human mind.

CAS was against reductionism in any of its forms, and psychology is the Great Reducer. To his immense credit, CAS also had very little interest in humanity, including the "human mind", whatever that is. Regarding the exploration of "inner space" (a shibboleth of arch-Freudian J.G. Ballard's, as I recall), here is a representative comment:

"A sense of the superhuman is to be conveyed; therefore one does not want the human--at least, not to an extent that would impair and detract from the proper focus of interest. For this reason, I fear that the weird tale, if written mainly as psychological analysis, would tend to forfeit some of its highest and rarest values. Modern literature has become so thoroughly subjective, so introverted in its tendencies, so preoccupied with the anthropocentric, that it seems desirable for one genre, at least, to maintain what one might call a centrifugal impetus, to make 'a gesture toward the infinite' rather than toward the human intestines".

I can understand his view point I guess, I guess, and agree with it to a certain extent. And, certainly within the "weird fiction" or "cosmic terror" genres I agree that stories should be kept as purely objective and external rather than the internal, but to dismiss psychology is a bit brash in my opinion.

To return to Dr. Farmer's point of Smith's Aristotelian view of art - do you think perhaps, rather than attriubting it to "gods" as such, he rather would take the Jungian view best summed up by using his own words?:

Quote:

The artist is not a person endowed with free will who seeks his own ends, but one who allows art to realise its purposes through him. As a human being he may have moods and a will and personal aims, but as an artist he is "man" in a higher sense - he is "collective man," a vehicle and moulder of the unconscious psychic life of mankind.

FOrgive me if I sound like I am trying to retrospectively "force" anything upon Smith, I'm not. Just exploring him as a person :P.

I don't know that anyone would dismiss psychology per se, but merely its reductionsm and its pretensions to truth, despite its being on very scientifically shaky ground. It's all a matter of perspective, I suppose, but what seems brash to me is psychology's arrogant insistence that the mind is the origin of all things, and that psychology alone is the arbiter of "reality", "normality", "mental health", and a host of other dubious categories. The psychologico-scientistic-materialist/hedonist paradigm is so deeply ingrained in the majority during our decadent, transitional age, though, that it is almost useless to speak of, let alone debate, such matters. One may as well try to explain to a fish that it lives in water. (Note that these last are general comments, and not directed specifically at Lychgate or anyone else here).

Regarding Jung: There's nothing wrong with casting around for affinities. Where I strongly suspect that CAS would balk at the statement you cited (and where I know I do) is the assertion regarding "collective man" and the artist as a "vehicle" for this creature. CAS would, I think, retort that there is no such thing (just as there is no such thing as "the human mind"). The first part of Jung's statement is also too broad. Insert the word merely after the phrase "the artist is", and I think that the statement is more defensible. The Platonic/Aristotelian formulation, unlike the Jungian one, however, removes these matters from the realm of the human altogether, and I suspect that CAS would find such a perspective to be more congenial. I imagine, though, that Dr. Farmer has some interesting comments to interject on this subject, and may even have discussed Jung's work with CAS(?).

I only have a moment and will write more fully at another time,
however this point needs to be made at this juncture:
When I mention the Greek concept of "abolutes" and "Mimesis", I am referring to a philosphical attitude which was a "given" at the turn of the century - part of the mental furniture of the Western world following the immense upsurge of the Greek revival, the interest in antiquities after the Rosetta Stone etc. Even as today,
younger folk cannot imagine a world without psycholgists and their
pervasive (I would almost say 'cancerous') invasion of society at
every level - again I would refer you to Dr. Tana Dineen's,
"Manufacturing Victims" -- the typical therapist dialogue:"You were abused as a child." - "I don't remember" -- "that's because you are in denial" etc. etc. Clark would have been little concerned with what anyone thinks by the time I knew him -- what men do in any circumstance is far more to the point, even when their "doing" is ultimately pointless - (see CAS Weaver). One point occurs to me at this moment - with all Clark's writing of horror/fantasy and the
outre, he never himself lost the capacity to appreciate beauty.
His younger contemporaries, largely influenced by the new "science"
created a genre in which "real life" always means the vulgar, ugly,
and depraved - yet Clark's world (and his writing) has room for wonder and beauty -- "real life" he once said, "includes watrfalls."

Quote:

One point occurs to me at this moment - with all Clark's writing of horror/fantasy and the outre, he never himself lost the capacity to appreciate beauty. His younger contemporaries, largely influenced by the new "science"
created a genre in which "real life" always means the vulgar, ugly, and depraved - yet Clark's world (and his writing) has room for wonder and beauty -- "real life" he once said, "includes watrfalls."

Hah, I like that notion. It makes me appreciate him a lot more :).

But, like Romanticism, doesn't much weird fiction and poetry--not least CAS's--involve a redefinition of conventional notions of "beauty"?

I don't see it as primarily a redefinition of conventional standards of beauty, rather, a reapplication.

That is, the standards are kept, but applied to aspects of being that may not normally be considered beautiful, and it is then the artist which sees whether these are in fact beautiful or not. Thus, in addressing poems to witches, CAS sees in them beauty, whose standards remain the same, albeit standards applied to a traditional nexus of horror.

This freedom to apply the standards at will, and the freedom to accept or reject them, is in accord with the worldview as developed within the poem or body of poems. Thus CAS' corpus sees certain figures -- witches, lamiae, etc. -- as both beautiful and, as a result, also alluring, despite the traditional dangers. We see much the same in the portrayal of Dracula's brides in Dracula, btw.

Quite feasibly, though, a poet could easily reject such a figure, as I have in some of my poems, and yet retain the weird aspect.

I intended my statement to apply much more broadly than the application you're giving it. I'm thinking, in particular, of Pater's definition of Romanticism as "the addition of strangeness to beauty". I also mentioned "notions", not "standards". Few would find much conventional sexual allure in the creature at the end of "The Monster of he Prophecy", for instance. Although our difference of opinion here may be principally semantic, I stand by the notion that both weird writing and, in its darker forms, Romanticism share an interest in portraying as beautiful that which, by ordinary standards, would often be considered strange or even repellent. Just as Romanticism arose largely in opposition to neo-Classical ideas of beauty by rejecting the rigid distinction, so popular in 18th-Century aesthetic theorizing, between the Beautiful and the Sublime, so does weird writing lead us to question notions of beauty based upon conventional sentimental and aesthetic perceptions.

Perhaps, what we are looking at is less a widening of the notion of beauty, and more a widening of acceptable subject matter, to include the ugly, the malformed, the disgusting. Thus, whilst conventional tastes reacted away from the subject matter of, say, Baudelaire, he was able to apply the same regard for it that others would place on more convetionally aesthetic material, through this widening of subject, rather than of notions of beauty.

This distinction allows the possibility that these notions may or may not be applied, as warranted, and draws the reader away from fruitless considerations of the author towards the more fruitful, and relevant, focus upon the individual text. Thus, it allows a diversity, a range of approaches towards what is beautiful and what is not, and allows us to see that we should not always consider what is in terms of its beauty (or even utility).

The point is, to learn to approach and appreciate the thing for what it is, not what it means to us. Thus we learn to appreciate, say, "The hashish-eater" on its own standards, and not to some pre-defined, and ill-suited, modernist creed, the same way we learn to appreciate the modernists without rejecting their stance on form and rhyme.

Of course, I've just gone off on a tangent...:)

There's no question that both Romanticism and weird literature advocate an expansion of acceptable literary subject matter. I suppose that what interests me, though, is the apparent attraction, even if it is often ambivalent, to things previously considered "horrific", "in poor taste", and the like; the allure of the forbidden and the alien. In that respect, at least, one would have to re-define, or at least expand, the idea of "beauty" in order to accommodate such subject matter, as well as the psychological and emotional effects that it engenders.

Kyberean Wrote:
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> I suppose that what interests me, though, is the apparent
> attraction, even if it is often ambivalent, to
> things previously considered "horrific", "in poor
> taste", and the like; the allure of the forbidden
> and the alien.

Perhaps we may look at the parallel development of the anti-heroic, and the ironic, in early Modern literature for a parallel. What we are then looking at is not so much a consideration of what is heroic but a reaction to its bankruptcy, as we might consider the Romantic as a reaction to the bankruptcy of hitherto held standards of what is beautiful.

Thus the horrific elements in poetry, starting with the Graveyard school, could be read as a reaction to the failure of the beautiful as a creative force.

Thus we can also see, perhaps, in part, CAS' reaction to modernism -- he saw that the poetic milieu in which he was working was still capable of fine work, as opposed to the apparent bankruptcy implicit within the rise of the Modernist sensibility, that he was still capable of approaching beauty without recourse to the gutter-minded depths of psychoanalytically inspired modernism.

Phillip,

Yes, I agree with this analysis, although consideration of the limitations of a concept or aesthetic standard might lead to theorizing about its expansion or re-definition, as well. I'm thinking once again of the concept of the Sublime, for instance, which arose to fill a need in 18th-Century aesthetic theorizing to encompass emotional reactions for which standard definitions of the Beautiful could not account.

Small interjection into this interesting dialogue -

In discussing "waterfalls" with Clark (there is an excellent climb on the
canyon wall opposite Clark's land with ascends the cascade of Knickerbocker
creek) he observed, and I verified from my own experience, that the emotions
evoked standing at the base of a fall are quite different from those when
you edge cautiously to the edge at the top. The one is filled with the sound of a Bach fugue - the other has the element of vertigo, and approaches the
experience of the child carefully looking under the bed for monsters -- if you fall, or if what you fear comes to pass, is "self" lost? We both found no awe
or grandeur looking straight down, rather the "i did it!", or "I dared, and lived!" sensation - while it is self that admires from below, self is not the object of admiration. This phenomenon informs philosophy and literature from time immemorial - The two creation stories in the book of Genesis for example -
down to Martin Buber's "Ich und Du" (available in translation as "I and Thou".

The elements of vertigo and the sensation akin to that of the child seeking monsters beneath the bed would fall very much within the ambit of the Sublime, particularly Burke's notion of it.

Hej!

In regards to the Sublime, I have seen a similar argument in that the gothic arose as part of an aesthetic reaction to the wilderlands, to what is approached through the Sublime in nature. Thus the importance of the wild aspects of nature in gothic aesthetics such as art and the like.

The relevant work, which may interest you, is: Richard Davenport-Hines, Gothic: 400 years of excess, horror, evil and ruin.

Phillip


*Author of Strange Gardens [www.lulu.com]


*Editor of Calenture: a Journal of Studies in Speculative Verse [calenture.fcpages.com]

*Visit my homepage: [voleboy.freewebpages.org]

Philip:

I agree; there is very definitely a connection between Gothicism and Sublimity.

I've read Davenport-Hines' book, and I hated it like poison!