Conventions are nothing new to literary genres. Love stories have used flowers and chocolates, Superhero movies have used tights and capes, and Action movies have used martial arts and guns. So why is that the conventions of the gothic are addressed as if they are somehow extraordinary and exceptional? As Sedgwick argues:
Once you know that a novel is of the Gothic kind (and you can tell that from the title), you can predicts its contents with an unnerving certainty. You know the important features of its mise en scene: an oppressive ruin, a wild landscape, a Catholic or feudal society. You know about the trembling sensibility of the heroine and the impetuosity of her lover. You know about the tyrannical older man with the piercing glance who is going to imprison and try to rape or murder them. You know something about the novel's form: it is likely to be discontinuous and involuted, perhaps incorporating tales within tales, changes of narrators, and such framing devices as found manuscripts or interpolated histories. You also know that whether with more or less relevance to the main plot, certain characteristic preoccupations will be aired. These include the priesthood and monastic institutions; sleeplike and deathlike states; subterranean spaces and live burial; doubles; the discovery of obscured family ties; affinities between narrative and pictorial art; possibilities of incest; unnatural echoes or silences, unintelligble writings, and the unspeakable; garrulous retainers; the poisonous effects of guilt and shame; nocturnal landscapes and dreams; apparitions from the past; Faust- and the Wandering Jew-Like figures; civil insurrections and fires; the charnel house and the madhouse. The chief incidents of a Gothic novel never go far beyond illustrating these few themes, and even the most unified novel includes most of them (Sedgwick 9-10).
The gothic is thus the most conventional, and perhaps the most predictable of all genre forms. While it is true that other genres have tropes, none have more than the gothic, which makes it unique. As Sedgwick argues, it is the conventions that make a book gothic, and make its plot and characters predictable, in much the same way that most scary movies are so troped, that when Scary Movie 1 first came out, a movie satirizing the genre for its tropes, they were able to include a list of things not to do in order to stay alive in the trailer.
While Scary Movie is by no means a gothic novel, nor are the movies it makes fun of, they do have in common the repetition of conventions, which is not a bad thing. The same critic who hoped that the gothic genre would some to an end even wrote out his own list of the gothic conventions:
Take - An old castle, half of it ruinous,
A long gallery, with a great many doors, some secret ones.
Three murdered bodies, quite fresh.
As many skeletons, in chests and presses.
An old woman hanging by the neck; with her throat cut.
Assassins and desperadoes, quant suff.
Noises, whispers, and groans, threescore at least (Terrorist Novel Writing 602).
It is clear, the conventions of the gothic are nothing new, and conversations regarding them have been occurring since the genre's inception. However what has changed, is critics of these conventions, seem to offer the genre more praise for its range of possibility. Sedgwick in particular argues that the second most remarkable thing about the gothic conventions, is that despite the narrowness of tropes it uses, the gothic maintains an immense range of possibilities (Sedgwick 10). Sedgwick's remarks are only contained to the gothic novel, she doesn't even begin to touch upon the possibilities of gothic poems, or other pieces of literature that could be considered gothic. Furthermore, even if Sedgwick had included gothic poets, the variability between Dickinson and other gothic poems is so staggering it's doubtful Sedgwick would have mentioned her. Part of the reason for this is gothic poems such as "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" tend to be much longer than most Dickinson poems, therefore it's easier for them to include more of the conventions Sedgwick listed.
Thus the challenge in using Sedgwick's analysis to read Dickinson, is that Dickinson's poems often only have one or two of the conventions that she lists above. This does not mean that Sedgwick's text cannot be used to analyzed Dickinson poems. The conventions that Sedgwick mentions are still indicators of a gothic poem, just in the case of Dickinson, one should expect to find one or two conventions as opposed to five or six of them. In using Sedgwick's very own conventions that she identifies, the true range of the gothic genre is visible, something that Sedgwick herself observes in her own work.
In order to best detail how Dickinson's work differs from others who are often grouped within the gothic, on my pages you'll find Dickinson poems paired with other gothic works of her time. These works are a gothic poem, and a gothic painting. However, before moving on to examine some of Dickinson's shorter poems and how they compare to other gothic works, I want to do a brief reading of F425, "Twas like a Maelstrom, with a notch" in relation to Sedgwick.
F425
'Twas like a Maelstrom, with a notch,
That nearer, every Day,
Kept narrowing its boiling Wheel
Until the Agony
Toyed coolly with the final inch
Of your delirious Hem --
And you dropt, lost,
When something broke --
And let you from a Dream --
As if a Goblin with a Gauge --
Kept measuring the Hours --
Until you felt your Second
Weigh, helpless, in his Paws --
And not a Sinew — stirred — could help,
And sense was setting numb --
When God — remembered — and the Fiend
Let go, then, Overcome --
As if your Sentence stood — pronounced --
And you were frozen led
From Dungeon's luxury of Doubt
To Gibbets, and the Dead --
And when the Film had stitched your eyes
A Creature gasped "Reprieve"!
Which Anguish was the utterest — then --
To perish, or to live?
Now, if one starts by listing the conventions present in the poem that Sedgwick lists as gothic, one could list several. In the poem there is a dungeon (F425 20), or a subterranean space, God (F425 16), or monastic institutions, dreams (F425 9), the Dead (F425 21), which inevitably implies death or a deathlike state, and depending one how one views the fiend and the creature (F425 16 & 23), perhaps the unspeakable. At the very least, at least four conventions that Sedgwick mentions can be found in this poem, perhaps 5.
But it is not just the mere checking off of conventions that makes this poem gothic. If one examines the content of the poem itself, it is equally gothic. The poem starts off by saying that something is like a maelstrom in the speakers head (F425 1), or something is like a destructive whirlpool in their head (maelstrom). This whirlpool is not only destructive, it is something of a sadist, actually toying with you to increase your pain (F425 5). By some random chance though, the you in the poem is released from this whirlpool, which appears to be nothing more than a dream, or may aptly a nightmare (F425 9).
But this nightmare does not appear to have an end, for next comes a goblin, counting each hour of your pain, as you stand there helplessly (F425 10-13). There is nothing for the subject of the poem to do, only let numbness come in (F425 15). Finally, God remembers the you in the poem, and gets the fiend to free them (F425 16-17). The inclusion of God here reads much like the trials and tribulations of job, something God allowed the devil to do. Either that or perhaps the God mentioned here merely forgot the you was being tortured by a fiend, which is equally alarming.
Upon being freed from a demon, the you is then sentenced to the gallows (gibbets), where he will soon meet the dead (F425 18-21). However, again the subject of the poem is saved, this time by a creature calling "Reprieve" (F425 23). Altogether, the subject of the poem went from almost drowning, to being tormented by a demon while God either allowed it or didn't know about it, to finally being almost hanged. The subject of this poem hovers between life and death and then at the end is asked whether they want to perish or live (F425 25). If one reads the events of the poem as indicative of life, it would appear Dickinson's final line is whether or not life filled with trauma after trauma is worth it, allowing for suicide as an alternative to living. Though other possible readings of this poem are possible, it would be impossible for any of them to disregard how incredibly gothic this poem is. In reading this poem, I hope it is a bit more clear what the gothic is, both by identifying its conventions, as well as the dark themes its subject matter often contains. This understanding of the gothic is necessary, especially when one moves onto poems of Dickinson's that aren't nearly as overtly gothic as this one.
Thus the challenge in using Sedgwick's analysis to read Dickinson, is that Dickinson's poems often only have one or two of the conventions that she lists above. This does not mean that Sedgwick's text cannot be used to analyzed Dickinson poems. The conventions that Sedgwick mentions are still indicators of a gothic poem, just in the case of Dickinson, one should expect to find one or two conventions as opposed to five or six of them. In using Sedgwick's very own conventions that she identifies, the true range of the gothic genre is visible, something that Sedgwick herself observes in her own work.
In order to best detail how Dickinson's work differs from others who are often grouped within the gothic, on my pages you'll find Dickinson poems paired with other gothic works of her time. These works are a gothic poem, and a gothic painting. However, before moving on to examine some of Dickinson's shorter poems and how they compare to other gothic works, I want to do a brief reading of F425, "Twas like a Maelstrom, with a notch" in relation to Sedgwick.
F425
'Twas like a Maelstrom, with a notch,
That nearer, every Day,
Kept narrowing its boiling Wheel
Until the Agony
Toyed coolly with the final inch
Of your delirious Hem --
And you dropt, lost,
When something broke --
And let you from a Dream --
As if a Goblin with a Gauge --
Kept measuring the Hours --
Until you felt your Second
Weigh, helpless, in his Paws --
And not a Sinew — stirred — could help,
And sense was setting numb --
When God — remembered — and the Fiend
Let go, then, Overcome --
As if your Sentence stood — pronounced --
And you were frozen led
From Dungeon's luxury of Doubt
To Gibbets, and the Dead --
And when the Film had stitched your eyes
A Creature gasped "Reprieve"!
Which Anguish was the utterest — then --
To perish, or to live?
Now, if one starts by listing the conventions present in the poem that Sedgwick lists as gothic, one could list several. In the poem there is a dungeon (F425 20), or a subterranean space, God (F425 16), or monastic institutions, dreams (F425 9), the Dead (F425 21), which inevitably implies death or a deathlike state, and depending one how one views the fiend and the creature (F425 16 & 23), perhaps the unspeakable. At the very least, at least four conventions that Sedgwick mentions can be found in this poem, perhaps 5.
But it is not just the mere checking off of conventions that makes this poem gothic. If one examines the content of the poem itself, it is equally gothic. The poem starts off by saying that something is like a maelstrom in the speakers head (F425 1), or something is like a destructive whirlpool in their head (maelstrom). This whirlpool is not only destructive, it is something of a sadist, actually toying with you to increase your pain (F425 5). By some random chance though, the you in the poem is released from this whirlpool, which appears to be nothing more than a dream, or may aptly a nightmare (F425 9).
But this nightmare does not appear to have an end, for next comes a goblin, counting each hour of your pain, as you stand there helplessly (F425 10-13). There is nothing for the subject of the poem to do, only let numbness come in (F425 15). Finally, God remembers the you in the poem, and gets the fiend to free them (F425 16-17). The inclusion of God here reads much like the trials and tribulations of job, something God allowed the devil to do. Either that or perhaps the God mentioned here merely forgot the you was being tortured by a fiend, which is equally alarming.
Upon being freed from a demon, the you is then sentenced to the gallows (gibbets), where he will soon meet the dead (F425 18-21). However, again the subject of the poem is saved, this time by a creature calling "Reprieve" (F425 23). Altogether, the subject of the poem went from almost drowning, to being tormented by a demon while God either allowed it or didn't know about it, to finally being almost hanged. The subject of this poem hovers between life and death and then at the end is asked whether they want to perish or live (F425 25). If one reads the events of the poem as indicative of life, it would appear Dickinson's final line is whether or not life filled with trauma after trauma is worth it, allowing for suicide as an alternative to living. Though other possible readings of this poem are possible, it would be impossible for any of them to disregard how incredibly gothic this poem is. In reading this poem, I hope it is a bit more clear what the gothic is, both by identifying its conventions, as well as the dark themes its subject matter often contains. This understanding of the gothic is necessary, especially when one moves onto poems of Dickinson's that aren't nearly as overtly gothic as this one.