Horror Literature through History

by Matt Cardin

  Will Murray

  See also: Mummies; Occult Detectives; Pulp Horror.

  Further Reading

  Briney, R. E. 1998. “Rohmer, Sax (1883–1959).” Mystery and Suspense Writers: The Literature of Crime, Detection, and Espionage, vol. 2, edited by Robin W. Winks and Maureen Corrigan, 791–804. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.

  Rohmer, Sax. [1913] 1970. The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu. New York: Pyramid Books.

  Van Ash, Cay, and Elizabeth Sax Rohmer. 1972. Master of Villainy: A Biography of Sax Rohmer. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green University Popular Press.

  ROMANTICISM AND DARK ROMANTICISM

  During the eighteenth century in Europe, a major cultural movement took place, now known as “the Enlightenment,” and those who participated in this movement celebrated reason above tradition. In politics, religion, and art, they tried to break with tradition and with historical trends, with the idea that a new, much better society could be formed along strictly rationalistic lines. The Enlightenment period gave rise to some of the most sophisticated literature, philosophy, and political thought in European history. In France in 1789, a revolution put people in power who were determined to rebuild the government, and indeed all of France, along lines spelled out by important theoretical works of Enlightenment thinkers, many of whom were also important for the leaders of the American Revolution. Despite many accomplishments, the French Revolution finally produced what became known as “the Terror.” More than 16,000 people were executed for being antirevolutionary in a period of not much more than a single year. For many, both in France and throughout the Western world, this was taken as a sign that the Enlightenment was a failure.

  As a literary, aesthetic, and general cultural movement, romanticism was something of a reaction against what was perceived by some to be the soulless rationalism of the Enlightenment. Romantics championed heightened emotion and depth of feeling, and focused on human subjectivity and extreme psychological states.

  What has been termed dark romanticism focused on the most pointedly Gothic aspects of the basic Romantic position, with the focus on the human psyche assuming a decidedly darker slant and emerging as a deep dread of the monstrous and sinister forces that might lurk within—and emerge from—the unconscious mind. It is dark romanticism, allied with the Gothic, that serves as the progenitor of modern Western horror fiction.

  Matt Cardin

  The cultural movement known as romanticism was, if anything, even more widely influential than the Enlightenment thinkers were. For some, romanticism was the rejection of Enlightenment ideals. While they did not dismiss reason as unimportant, they saw it as being soulless; the full human being is more than just a rational mind, being also an often tumultuous or chaotic emotional soul. What reason was to the Enlightenment, the will was to romanticism. However, there were many who participated in the Romantic movement who saw in it an extension of the best aspects of the Enlightenment, building on the best ideas of the previous generation while avoiding their errors.

  It is important to distinguish between romanticism and dark romanticism, because a conflict existed between these two artistic directions within romanticism overall. While those who tended to write darker, more Gothic material simply went their own way, other writers who publicly identified themselves as leaders of a Romantic movement, including William Wordsworth and Lord Byron, took issue with the more fantastic and grotesque writing being published as “Romantic literature.” These leaders came to represent the more utopian or uplifting side of romanticism, although even they went on to write a few “dark” pieces themselves.

  Important Romantic authors include, in Germany, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, E. T. A. Hoffmann, Friedrich Hölderlin, Heinrich von Kleist, Friedrich Schelling, and Ludwig Tieck; in England, William Blake, Lord Byron, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Hazlitt, John Keats, Charles Lamb, Sir Walter Scott, Mary Shelley, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and William Wordsworth. In the United States, many canonical authors, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and Edgar Allan Poe, are considered either Romantics or to have been strongly influenced by romanticism.

  Romantic literature often presents the reader with isolated characters whose psychological states are described in great detail. The concept of the unconscious mind becomes extremely important in Romantic writing and usually appears in some combination with nature; that is, nature is understood as the image or mirror of the unconscious mind. Very often the emotional or mental state of a character will be reflected in the weather or in landscape features; Wuthering Heights is a late example of this, providing in its stormy, remote setting a psychologically appropriate background for a novel about passionate, isolated characters.

  This close association of the unconscious mind with nature is often described in terms of the supernatural. Coleridge, for example, believed that the imagination could produce knowledge, just as reason can. The inspired artistic genius was, for him, a seer. From the Romantic point of view, the artist of the Enlightenment was trying to create art by using a sort of recipe; true art, however, was supposed to have a mysterious origin. The artist did not create ideas consciously, but was receptive to the appearance of ideas that originated somewhere beyond the mind.

  Modern Western horror fiction has its roots in dark romanticism, which is the more Gothic aspect of the Romantic movement. For some, the unconscious mind was seen as a gateway to higher, loftier thinking, but for others, the unconscious mind was a terrifying presence, an evil twin. Vampires, doubles, specters, all manner of beings meant to represent the guilt or the evil impulses of the main character abound in Dark Romantic writing. Frankenstein’s monster is at times described as an evil double of Frankenstein himself, relentlessly pursuing him, refusing to allow him to forget or abandon his responsibilities. James Hogg’s influential 1824 novel The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner has a similar plot; in Edgar Allan Poe’s story “William Wilson,” the roles are reversed, and the pursuing twin is the main character’s better side, rather than his evil side.

  As the nineteenth century continued, aspects of dark romanticism cropped up in the fiction of later generations. Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde embodies both halves of one character in two distinct persons, while Arthur Machen’s novella “The Great God Pan” revolves around a malevolent woman who represents something like the collective unconscious of all humanity, rather than of a single individual. Many ghost stories of this later era involve considerable uncertainty about the existence of the ghost. It is impossible to say with any certainty that the ghostly woman or double of the main character in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story “The Yellow Wall-Paper” is an objectively other entity, or only some other part of her own mind.

  Dark romanticism also became mingled with the literary movement known as decadence, which developed around the year 1890. The “Decadents” were writers and artists who also turned away from official rationalism and embraced the unconscious, treating it as a form of cultural exhaustion. Oscar Wilde was often included among the Decadents, as was French author J. K. Huysmans, whose novel about black magic, entitled La-Bas (literally translated as “Down There,” although it has also been published in English under the title The Damned), was influential on H. P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, and other horror writers. The Decadents were as concerned with society as the Romantics were, but had none of the optimistic utopianism of the Romantics; for the Decadents, society was like one huge work of art, and the decay of both society and individuals was regarded as beautiful.

  Dark romanticism has since become associated with the aesthetics of a renewed Gothic cultural movement, while many of the aesthetic discoveries and ideas of the Romantics, especially with regard to the unconscious, remain in circulation today. The term is also sometimes used to describe a hybridization of the modern “romance novel,” or love story, and horror fiction.

  Michael Cisco

  See also: The Bront
ë Sisters; Byron, Lord; Coleridge, Samuel Taylor; “The Great God Pan”; Hawthorne, Nathaniel; Poe, Edgar Allan; The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner; Shelley, Mary; The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; “The Yellow Wall-Paper.”

  Further Reading

  Fiedler, Leslie. 1966. Love and Death in the American Novel. New York: Stein and Day.

  Thompson, G. R., ed. 1974. “Romanticism and the Gothic Tradition.” Introduction to The Gothic Imagination: Essays in Dark Romanticism. Pullman, WA: Washington State University Press.

  ROSEMARY’S BABY

  Rosemary’s Baby is an American horror novel written by Ira Levin, first published in 1967. Levin’s novel, a story of a woman who becomes the center of a plot by a coven of witches to bring about the Antichrist in New York City, was the beginning of a trend of devil and demon-possession horror novels in the late 1960s and 1970s. It was a bestseller for Levin, and the subsequent film adaptation cemented its status as a horror classic.

  Ira Levin was already an established writer when he wrote Rosemary’s Baby, his second novel. His first novel, A Kiss Before Dying (1953), won Levin an Edgar Award for Best First Novel. Rosemary’s Baby tells the story of Rosemary Woodhouse, a naïve young woman who has just moved to a New York City apartment with her actor husband. Experiencing a difficult pregnancy, she grows suspicious of her neighbors, who she believes are witches, and eventually comes to the conclusion that she is impregnated with the spawn of Satan. The plot is firmly rooted in the Gothic tradition, as a helpless young heroine is isolated in a Gothic-style building with people who want to do her harm. Levin, however, adds depth to his novel by highlighting the powerlessness of Rosemary, who is repeatedly ignored when she seeks help. Her doctor, recommended by her neighbors, dismisses her early concerns when she expresses the painful symptoms of her pregnancy. Later, when her friends, frightened by the mother-to-be’s gaunt and sickly appearance, push Rosemary to get help, Rosemary’s husband, Guy, convinces her that her friends are meddling, hysterical women. When Rosemary finally escapes to a hospital and a doctor who is not under the coven’s control, that doctor promptly calls her husband to pick her up, dismissing Rosemary’s claims as the cries of a paranoid and anxious mother. The true horror, perhaps, lies in Rosemary’s lack of agency as she tries to navigate a patriarchal society that dismisses her as a weak woman rather than one controlled by the satanic threat.

  Levin would later return to this premise of women meeting horror at the hands of the men in their life in his next novel, The Stepford Wives (1972). Rosemary’s Baby was met with enormous critical acclaim and commercial success. Levin wrote a sequel titled Son of Rosemary in 1997, but it did not earn the same praise as its predecessor.

  Horror film director William Castle bought the rights to Rosemary’s Baby before the novel was even published, eager to bring Levin’s tale to the silver screen. The adaptation was a passion project for Castle, who was known more for his promotion gimmicks than his craft. He hoped that Rosemary’s Baby would make him a respected director; however, the studio refused to make the film if Castle was directing. Instead, Castle took the role of producer, and Roman Polanski wrote and directed. Rosemary’s Baby, the film, debuted in 1968 to enormous critical and popular praise. The movie, starring Mia Farrow as Rosemary, was nominated for several awards, including the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and several Golden Globes, earning nominations for Best Screenplay and Best Original Score. Ruth Gordon, who played Minnie Castavet, won an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress. Mia Farrow also earned a nomination at the Golden Globes for Best Actress. Polanski’s film is considered to be a classic horror film, often earning spots on best film lists. It was selected for preservation in the United States’ National Film Registry.

  Like the novel, the film adaptation of Rosemary’s Baby spawned sequels and remakes. In 1976, a television film was made titled Look What’s Happened to Rosemary’s Baby, which was intended to be a sequel. Ruth Gordon reprised her role as Minnie Castavet, but Rosemary was played this time by Patty Duke. The film was universally disliked. In January 2014, NBC released a four-hour television miniseries of the original novel. Zoe Saldana was cast as Rosemary, and the setting was changed to Paris. This television adaptation received lukewarm reviews.

  Lisa Kröger

  See also: Devils and Demons; Incubi and Succubi; Witches and Witchcraft.

  Further Reading

  Adler, Renata. 1968. “Movie Review: Rosemary’s Baby.” New York Times, June 13. http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=EE05E7DF1738E271BC4B52DFB0668383679EDE.

  Fisher, Lucy. 1992. “Birth Traumas: Parturition and Horror in ‘Rosemary’s Baby.’” Cinema Journal 31, no. 3: 3–18.

  Langan, John. 2008. “A Devil for the Day: William Peter Blatty, Ira Levin, and the Revision of the Satanic.” In American Exorcist: Critical Essays on William Peter Blatty, edited by Benjamin Szumskyj, 45–70. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.

  Levin, Ira. 2012. “‘Stuck with Satan’: Ira Levin on the Origins of Rosemary’s Baby.” Criterion.com, November 5. https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/2541-stuck-with-satan-ira-levin-on-the-origins-of-rosemary-s-baby.

  Lima, Robert. 1974. “The Satanic Rape of Catholicism in Rosemary’s Baby.” Studies in American Fiction (Autumn): 211–220.

  Valerius, Karyn. 2005. “Rosemary’s Baby, Gothic Pregnancy, and Fetal Subjects.” College Literature 32, no. 2: 116–135.

  RUSSELL, RAY (1924–1999)

  Ray Russell was an American writer and editor. He was known for his work as fiction editor for Playboy magazine in the 1950s and 1960s, during which time he was responsible for making the magazine a prime market for short fiction, especially horror and science fiction. He was also an accomplished horror writer in his own right, publishing several novels and short stories until his death in 1999.

  As fiction editor for Playboy, Russell was responsible for publishing science fiction and horror writers such as Kurt Vonnegut, Richard Matheson, and Ray Bradbury, to name only a few. It was during his time at Playboy that he discovered Charles Beaumont, a writer with whom he would later work. More than fifty of Russell’s own works appeared in Hugh Hefner’s magazine, including the short story “Sardonicus” (1961), which was later published as part of a trio of stories and adapted into film as Mr. Sardonicus (1961), for which Russell wrote the screenplay. He also penned the script for Roger Corman’s X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes (1963), as well as several other film projects, including The Horror of It All (1964) and Chamber of Horrors (1966). X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes won Russell, along with his fellow screenwriter Robert Dillon, an award at the Trieste International Film Festival in 1963. He continued his work with Charles Beaumont when the two worked together on a screen adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s story “The Premature Burial” (1962). The film was directed by Roger Corman.

  Russell’s other works include the 1962 novel The Case Against Satan, which tells the story of two priests who come to the aid of a young demon-possessed girl. The novel is remarkable in that it came before William Peter Blatty’s 1971 novel The Exorcist. Russell’s 1976 novel Incubus combined the shock of sex and the gore of horror as a demon tries to impregnate human women, mostly with horrific results. A movie based on Incubus was made in 1982, starring John Cassavetes. In the 1970s, Russell continued to work with Playboy, editing several story anthologies (sometimes anonymously) including The Playboy Book of Horror and the Supernatural (1967). In 1985, a collection of his short stories was released, titled Haunted Castles: The Complete Gothic Tales of Ray Russell. Penguin released a new edition in 2013.

  The Case Against Satan: Demonic Possession or Disturbed Psyche?

  Russell’s The Case Against Satan (1962) is a classic tale of demon possession and exorcism, notable for the fact that it appeared nine years before William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist (1971).

  The plot is a familiar one: teenager Susan Garth begins to act unusually, her behavior marked by explosions of violence an
d profanity. The Catholic Church sends two priests to perform an exorcism, though the younger of the two priests is skeptical, believing more in modern-day psychology than in biblical demons. The battle between the two priests is perhaps more important to Russell’s novel than is their battle with the demon. Unlike Blatty, who later used a similar plot to espouse his own Christian—specifically Catholic—ideology, Russell sows the seeds of doubt. The clergymen, the Garth family, and the readers are left wondering if the events were supernatural or due to the derangement of an unstable mind.

  Given this, The Case Against Satan is less of a supernatural horror novel and more of an intellectual adventure. Most readers will close the book unsure of what exactly transpired, and Russell maintains a sparse tone throughout, offering some sort of distance to the subject matter. Still, though the supernatural is not proven per se, the novel seems to acknowledge a spiritual realm, though maybe not one related to any particular religion.

  Russell’s novel was successful in launching a renewed interest in supernatural books that featured demon possession, including Blatty’s novel and Ira Levin’s Rosemary’s Baby (1967). Though Blatty’s and Levin’s books take a hard stance on the supernatural, Russell’s lays the groundwork for the skeptic’s possession novels of the twenty-first century, particularly novels such as Paul Tremblay’s A Head Full of Ghosts (2015), in which a reality television crew tapes a teenage girl’s exorcism, which may or may not be supernatural in nature.