Writing the past, writing the future: Time and narrative in Gothic and sensation fiction (Ann Radcliffe, Charles Robert Maturin, Mary Shelley)

Writing the Past, Writing the Future: Time and Narrative in Gothic and Sensation Fiction links popular British fiction from the 1790s through the 1860s to anxieties about time. The cataclysm of the French Revolution, discoveries in geology, biology and astronomy that greatly expanded the age and size of the universe, and technological developments such as the railway and the telegraph combined to transform the experience of time and dramatize its aporetic nature—time as inarticulable contradiction. These developments gave new resonance to the ancient meditations of Aristotle, who wrestled with the being and non-being of time, as well as Augustine, who struggled to reconcile his vision of time and eternity.; Themes of usurpation, bigamy and stolen identity that characterize popular fiction during this period reflect anxieties about inheritance. Secret transgressions in the past that threaten the orderly transmission of property must be narrated and resolved, so that coherence is achieved in the present and can in turn be transmitted to the next generation. Generational succession is one way that we situate our own temporality in the stream of time. I argue that many popular novels of this period encode discourses on temporality in which time's aporias are imaginatively reconciled through a variety of narrative strategies. Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho, written during the Terror of the French Revolution, uses a past setting, descriptions of sublime and picturesque landscapes, and the heroine's prolonged suspension between memory and expectation to create a dreamy temporality that offers an antidote to revolutionary fears. Charles Robert Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer employs narrative to “humanize” what Frank Kermode calls the “disorganized time” represented by “the interval between tick and tock,” an effort that assumes greater importance in response to industrialization's dehumanizing effects. Mary Shelley's The Last Man capitalizes on the Romantic theme of “fastness,” weaving together memory and prophecy to attain a narrative perspective that encompasses the whole of human history. I conclude with a chapter on the sensation novels of the 1860s, which bring Gothic themes of usurpation from the distant past to the contemporary world of railways and divorce courts.