Horror: The 100 Best Books Read Online Free
Author: Kim Newman, Stephen Jones
Tags: Literary Criticism, Reference, Non-Fiction, Collection.Anthology, Essays & Letters
social expose. His daughter was Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein .
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There is a sort of domestic tactics, the object of which is to elude curiosity, and keep up the tenor of the conversation, without the disclosure of our feelings or opinions. The friends of justice will have no object more deeply at heart, than the annihilation of this duplicity. . . . It follows, that the promoting the best interests of mankind, eminently depends upon the freedom of social communication . . . An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice William Godwin
During the year he finished writing Things As They Are; or: The Adventures of Caleb Williams , many of William Godwin's radical friends and associates were either in jail or awaiting trial for treason. While these radicals advocated democratic equality, aristocratic government deployed its privileged machinery of coercion and law. Radicals believed men found the Truth inside their own classless human heart, but aristocratic government preferred its exterior distinctions of family name, property and station. Radicals sought to unveil the common "nature" of democratic Man, while government sought to veil that nature, if not immure it. For Godwin, as for Caleb, truth does not belong to the world of appearances, but to the world's repressed heart; in order to achieve justice, one must penetrate the corrupt duplicity of government and gaze into the hearts of the men who run it. As Godwin wrote in his Enquiry only a few years before completing Things As They Are :
One of the most essential ingredients in a virtuous character, is undaunted firmness; and nothing can more powerfully tend to destroy this principle than the spirit of monarchical government. The first lesson of virtue is, Fear no man; the first lesson of such a constitution is, Fear the King.
In Godwin's universe, terror belongs to the surface world of politics, not to the dark primitive world of Man's unconscious. Prisons, disguise, and aristocratic reputation pursue Caleb across a landscape made horrible by the very absence of man's super-natural Reason. Political corruption for Godwin is not, as our modern age might try to argue, a thing of the human heart, but rather of the human heart's confinement; Caleb is never pursued by evil men so much as he conspires with the scheme of his own persecution. By refusing to disclose his knowledge of Falkland's crimes, Caleb commits himself to a prison of silence. By adopting disguise, Caleb makes himself subject to criminals disguised as police and government officials. Like the prison reformer Jeremy Bentham, Godwin believes even prisons should be made accessible to public inspection, just as the secrets of Falkland's padlocked trunk implicitly demand Caleb's compulsive investigation. Godwin's great novel does not designate heroes and villains, but rather widespread political conditions. Repressed by political injustice, individual selves diminish and collapse; in a corrupt world, all men suffer, regardless of class or distinction. "I began these memoirs with the idea of vindicating my character," Caleb concludes. "I have now no character that I wish to vindicate." Caleb cannot "win" his final confrontation with Falkland while the political world which created Falkland endures. Without the freedom of open democratic discourse, individual "character" lacks meaning or definition. When for two hundred years critics reduced Things As They Are to a "psychological romance" entitled Caleb Williams , they disregarded Godwin's most fundamental belief: that terror is not a product of the human mind, but of political men. -- SCOTT BRADFIELD
5: [1796] MATTHEW GREGORY LEWIS - The Monk: A Romance
Madrid, c. 1600. Ambrosia, the impossibly saintly abbot of the Capuchin order, is visited by a demon in the form of Matilda, a young and lovely woman who enters the monastery disguised as a novice. She seduces Ambrosia, and encourages him to plumb the depths of degradation. He is led unknowingly to rape his
***
There is a sort of domestic tactics, the object of which is to elude curiosity, and keep up the tenor of the conversation, without the disclosure of our feelings or opinions. The friends of justice will have no object more deeply at heart, than the annihilation of this duplicity. . . . It follows, that the promoting the best interests of mankind, eminently depends upon the freedom of social communication . . . An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice William Godwin
During the year he finished writing Things As They Are; or: The Adventures of Caleb Williams , many of William Godwin's radical friends and associates were either in jail or awaiting trial for treason. While these radicals advocated democratic equality, aristocratic government deployed its privileged machinery of coercion and law. Radicals believed men found the Truth inside their own classless human heart, but aristocratic government preferred its exterior distinctions of family name, property and station. Radicals sought to unveil the common "nature" of democratic Man, while government sought to veil that nature, if not immure it. For Godwin, as for Caleb, truth does not belong to the world of appearances, but to the world's repressed heart; in order to achieve justice, one must penetrate the corrupt duplicity of government and gaze into the hearts of the men who run it. As Godwin wrote in his Enquiry only a few years before completing Things As They Are :
One of the most essential ingredients in a virtuous character, is undaunted firmness; and nothing can more powerfully tend to destroy this principle than the spirit of monarchical government. The first lesson of virtue is, Fear no man; the first lesson of such a constitution is, Fear the King.
In Godwin's universe, terror belongs to the surface world of politics, not to the dark primitive world of Man's unconscious. Prisons, disguise, and aristocratic reputation pursue Caleb across a landscape made horrible by the very absence of man's super-natural Reason. Political corruption for Godwin is not, as our modern age might try to argue, a thing of the human heart, but rather of the human heart's confinement; Caleb is never pursued by evil men so much as he conspires with the scheme of his own persecution. By refusing to disclose his knowledge of Falkland's crimes, Caleb commits himself to a prison of silence. By adopting disguise, Caleb makes himself subject to criminals disguised as police and government officials. Like the prison reformer Jeremy Bentham, Godwin believes even prisons should be made accessible to public inspection, just as the secrets of Falkland's padlocked trunk implicitly demand Caleb's compulsive investigation. Godwin's great novel does not designate heroes and villains, but rather widespread political conditions. Repressed by political injustice, individual selves diminish and collapse; in a corrupt world, all men suffer, regardless of class or distinction. "I began these memoirs with the idea of vindicating my character," Caleb concludes. "I have now no character that I wish to vindicate." Caleb cannot "win" his final confrontation with Falkland while the political world which created Falkland endures. Without the freedom of open democratic discourse, individual "character" lacks meaning or definition. When for two hundred years critics reduced Things As They Are to a "psychological romance" entitled Caleb Williams , they disregarded Godwin's most fundamental belief: that terror is not a product of the human mind, but of political men. -- SCOTT BRADFIELD
5: [1796] MATTHEW GREGORY LEWIS - The Monk: A Romance
Madrid, c. 1600. Ambrosia, the impossibly saintly abbot of the Capuchin order, is visited by a demon in the form of Matilda, a young and lovely woman who enters the monastery disguised as a novice. She seduces Ambrosia, and encourages him to plumb the depths of degradation. He is led unknowingly to rape his
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