Lucifer is a damned fine fellow, and I hope he may win

Phillip Pullman wrote an Introduction for the 2008, Oxford University Press edition of Milton’s Paradise Lost. Pullman starts his Introduction as follows:

A correspondent once told me a story—which I've never been able to trace, and I don't know whether it's true—about a bibulous, semi-literate, ageing country squire two hundred years ago or more, sitting by his fireside listening to Paradise Lost being read aloud. He's never read it himself; he doesn't know the story at all; but as he sits there, perhaps with a pint of port at his side and with a gouty foot propped up on a stool, he finds himself transfixed.
  Suddenly he bangs the arm of his chair, and exclaims 'By God! I know not what the outcome may be, but this Lucifer is a damned fine fellow, and I hope he may win!'
  Which are my sentiments exactly.

Thinking that tracing this story to its source might be a good test for AI, I asked Google’s AI and ChatGPT. Google AI obviously had no idea, and offered up a mix of mild platitudes, plot summary and hallucinations; ChatGPT was somewhat similar, but identified Pullman as the source: it was unable to trace the story any further than Pullman. Having spent an afternoon doing what Pullman was unable to do in 2008, I now have some sympathy for Pullman, Google’s AI and ChatGPT.

Rather than recount in full, step-by-tedious-step process by which I clawed my way back through time, pre-dating one version of the story after another, I will present what I believe to be the first version of the story, and then summarise what seems to have happened to the story afterwards.

The story originates with a work of fiction, Realmah, by Sir Arthur Helps, which first appeared in Macmillan’s Magazine in 1867–68, and was published by Macmillan, in 2 volumes, in 1868.

In Chapter 5 of Realmah (which appeared in December 1867), we get the following scene:

It fell to the lot of a very saintly, good man, to have to travel with [Lord] Thurlow, who was then Attorney General. A journey to the North was a serious thing in those times, and my saintly friend dreaded the long journey, with the blustering Attorney-General, who he was sure would utter many naughty words before they arrived at York.
  They had hardly left London before the good man remarked, "We shall have a long journey, Mr. Attorney, and so I thought I would bring some books to amuse us. I daresay it is a long time since you have read Milton's 'Paradise Lost.' Shall I read some of it to you? It will remind us of our younger days." (In those days men read great works; for there were not so many books of rubbishing fiction, to which the reading energies of the present day are directed.) "Oh, by all means!" said Thurlow, "I have not read a word of Milton for years."
  The good man began to read out his Milton: presently he came to the passage where Satan exclaims, "Better to reign in hell than serve in Heaven." Upon which Thurlow exclaimed, "A d—d fine fellow, and I hope he may win." My saintly friend in horror shut up his "Paradise Lost," and felt that it would be no good reading to the Attorney-General, if he was to be interrupted by such wicked expressions of sentiment.

The Lord Thurlow mentioned here is Edward Thurlow, 1st Baron Thurlow (1731–1806), was Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain for fourteen years and under four Prime Ministers (1778–83, 1783–92). In 1906, this “blustering Attorney-General” was accidently mis-identified as Lord Eldon, i.e.: John Scott, 1st Earl of Eldon (1751–1838), Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, 1801–6, 1807–27. Other changes to this story occurred in the most colourful lines attributed to Lords Thurlow / Eldon:

"A d—d fine fellow, and I hope he may win." (1867, 1869, 1871)
"D—d fine fellow! I hope he'll win!" (1878, 1884)
"A d—d fine fellow. I hope he may win." (1909)
"A damned fine fellow! I hope he will win." (1925)
"This is a fine fellow. I hope he'll win." (1933)
"A damned fine fellow. I hope he may win" (1984, 1988)

As you can see, the only stable parts here are "fine fellow"; "I hope"; and "win"—the ellipsis of "damned" making it impossible to search for, and the change from "Lord Thurlow" to "Lord Eldon" eliminating all the pre-1909 examples.

Returning to Pullman’s version of the story, it is clear that his characterisation of the Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, being entertained in a post-chaise to York with a reading of Milton, as a "bibulous, semi-literate, ageing country squire … with a pint of port at his side and with a gouty foot propped up on a stool" is very wide of the mark.

Note also that Realmah is a utopian novel, set in a made-up prehistoric empire called ‘Sheviri,’ featuring detailed accounts of its government and religion. That is—much like Haywood’s Memoirs of Utopia—it related anecdotes about real British public figures in the form of "utopian" fiction.

Since Lord Thurlow died in 1806, and had last been Lord High Chancellor in 1792, this anecdote was generations old by 1867. It is possible that it was recorded earlier than 1867, but, if so, I haven’t been able to find it—yet. Based on this very unscientific test, it seems that we are still a long way from AI agents being able to duplicate the above research effort, and so we must be even further away from them being able to exceed our research efforts. When we reach the point when AI agents can exceed us, it is likely that many of the "bibulous, semi-literate, ageing country squires" of history, will be recognised as—as is the case with this one—a fiction, built upon a fiction.

Teaching English in Utrecht, using The Female Spectator

My Bibliography of Eliza Haywood (2004) includes two sections given over to reprints of sections of works by Haywood before 1850: "Ac. Reprints in monographs" and "Ad. Reprints in periodicals."

Referring to these two sections in my Introduction, I stated that "It is likely that more Haywood items will be identified as critical interest in the contents of eighteenth-century periodicals increases and as a greater number of electronic resources become available that make it easier to conduct searches of these periodicals." When I wrote this I had in mind E. W. Pitcher's 1995 identification of over a dozen reprints "of Eliza Haywood’s Stories in The Weekly Entertainer," which was published in Notes and Queries.

Well, there hasn't exactly been a flood of articles like Pitcher's, but I have identified so many reprints myself that I have had to give up trying to incorporate them into the numbering scheme I used in 2004. I haven't have time to establish precise word-counts and provide detailed references to the source text reprinted. And, because I could neither number the items, or knew exactly what details to record, I pretty much stopped collecting any information about reprints.

Having recently discovered a pretty nice example of a reprint from The Female Spectator—detailed below—I have decided that I will start (soon) to keep some sort of list of reprints here. If I ever publish a second edition of my Bibliography I will simply omit these sections.

* * * * *

When I was updating my post Eliza Haywood Links, which the lists eighteenth- and nineteenth-century editions of works by Eliza Haywood, I stumbled upon a reprint of a lengthy story taken (with acknowledgement, which is unusual) from The Female Spectator. The reprinted story appears in James Low's The Winter Evening Or, A Collection of English Prose and Verse, 2 vols. (1780), 1.142–87. The copy of volume one, on Google Books here, is reproduced from the incomplete set in Tilburg University Library (but digitised by the National Library of the Netherlands).

The editor of this anthology, James Low (1759–1817), was a "Teacher of the English Language in Utrecht," where he studied divinity at the university. He seems to have arrived in Utrecht in 1779, married in 1780, and as ordained at Flushing in 1783. According to William Steven, who gives a biography of Low in his History of the Scottish Church, Rotterdam (1833), 232–34 (here), "his constitution, by nature healthy and vigorous, rapidly gave way" after the death of his son (at 26) and—soon after—of his wife. "He was a high Calvinist; and he was most punctual in his attendance at church courts, in whose debates, from his perfect knowledge of Dutch, he was enabled to take a part."

Low published his anthology of English verse and prose soon after he started teaching English. It was reviewed in a number of Dutch journals (here and here), and at least one German periodical (here). Copies occasionally appeared for sale in bookseller's catalogues up to the 1840s (here). After that, The Winter Evening dissapeared from view, almost completely.

Low's Winter Evening is not on ESTC, and it appears that there is no other copy in an institutional library. There was, however, a copy for sale, so I bought it. I gather it had been for sale for a considerable period, since the vendor had increased the price in some online catalogues, but not others. When I asked about this I was told that the lower price was "very outdated". The change was minimal and the book is obviously very uncommon, so I made no complaint; and once it arrived I felt I had got a screaming bargain anyway: as you can see, it is a beautiful example of Dutch paper wrappers.

The reference that Low provides for his excerpt from The Female Spectator is interesting: "Female Spectator. vol. V. p. 290—312." The "vol. V." is an error for "vol. III"; the page reference narrows down the edition that Low used for his reprint. Of the ten editions of The Female Spectator in English, only three have the story excerpted on pages "290—312": the 4th, 5th and 6th editions of 1750, 1755 and 1766 [i.e., Ab.60.6, Ab.60.7 and Ab.60.8]. Even the most recent of these appeared when Low was a child, so I am guessing he had taken his own (second-hand) copy with him, when he went to Utrecht.

Above and below are the pages where the text appears in eight of the first nine editions. Above are Ab.60.1—Ab.60.2 did not get to volume 3—Ab.60.3, Ab.60.4, Ab.60.5; below are Ab.60.6, Ab.60.7, Ab.60.8, and Ab.60.9.

Teaching Eliza Haywood

At some point in the Northern Winter of 2020 (i.e., early 2020, since the Northern Winter runs from ca. December 2019 to March 2020), the Modern Language Association of America will publish Approaches to Teaching the Works of Eliza Haywood, with contributions from twenty-five scholars, myself included.



Among the broad range of Haywood scholars included in this volume, are those who have done so much to make her work available in edited form: Paula R. Backscheider (Selected Fiction and Drama of Eliza Haywood), Catherine Ingrassia (Anti-Pamela), Tiffany Potter (The Masqueraders and The Surprize), and Earla Wilputte (The Adventures of Eovaai, Three Novellas). Also included are scholars who have made a name for themselves with book-length studies, which have had a significant impact on Haywood studies: Ros Ballaster (Seductive Forms: Women’s Amatory Fiction from 1684 to 1740), Kathryn R. King (A Political Biography of Eliza Haywood), and Kirsten T. Saxton (The Passionate Fictions of Eliza Haywood).

David Oakleaf—another significant name in Haywood studies—comments that “The pedagogical range and resourcefulness of this volume is impressive. Any teacher of Haywood will benefit from a thorough engagement with the material presented.” I am certainly looking forward to reading the other contrutions, whichI have not yet seen.

* * * * *

My own essay ("Haywood’s Works: Availability, Editing, and Issues of Bibliography") will be in the first section, titled “Materials,” which is intended to identify "high-quality editions, reliable biographical sources, and useful background information." Although I primarily intended my essay to be a history of the availability of Haywood's works—in original editions, various micro-format duplicates, and printed editions, whether in facsimilie or edited form—what I ended up focussing on is the extent to which the growth and focus of Haywood scholarship has depended on the availability of Haywood's works in edited form.

Obviously, for works to be studied at all, they need to be available to a scholar; but for works to be widely studied, they really need to be widely available in edited form. Certainly, for the most part, those works by Haywood which have been the most frequently edited are also the ones that are most frequently discussed in scholarship. However, the correlation is imperfect, suggesting a bias among Haywood scholars for Haywood’s prose fiction and periodicals over her drama, nonfiction, and Haywood's many translations.

What my survey suggested to me is that convenient edited editions of Idalia and The Fatal Secret, for instance, are certainly called for, and would probably encourage more studies of those works, but the developing critical interest in Haywood’s periodicals and longer works of original prose fiction suggest that editions of The Young Lady or The Fortunate Foundlings would do more to expand the range of Haywood scholarship. Publishers take heed!

Blogging and the Academy

This evening I read Marcy Willard and Dean Leffingwell's "Blogging to Accelerate Peer Review of Doctoral Dissertations" from e-Research Collaboration: Theory, Techniques and Challenges (2010). A search on Google for this chapter-title suggests nobody has either read it or commented on it. I am not really very surprised.

It is hard to imagine who the article is intended for. It is part new-tech. boosterism and part how-to guide. If you are a blogger already (like me) the how-to guide is not a lot of use and the boosterism will just raise a smile. (The same is probably true if you are a Web 2.0 and social-media technophobe, but the smile will mean "not in a thousand years.")

The only person the chapter might be useful to is someone about to start a PhD, but the boosterism seems to be intended to win over skeptical supervisors, rather than curious PhD students. Weird.

And, of course, as a regular blogger, Willard and Leffingwell's reference to articles from 2005 and 2007 seem pretty dated already. It is a bit like watching Mr Burns demanding that Marge "Fill up" his ancient automobile "with petroleum distillate, and re-vulcanize my tires!" And the boosterism just seems naïve.

Still, it is good to see something on blogging. I have plenty of colleagues, who will spend all day on email and web-searches, but would never dream of publishing a blog or setting up a Facebook page.

"How do you find the time?" I was asked recently. (How indeed.) "What is the point?" I guess now I have a chapter to give them which attempts an explanation. Peer-reviewed, in a book, with references (albeit, some of them already dated), so that you know that it is the real deal …

FWIIW this looks like a much more useful article on "Informal Writing, Blogging and the Academy."

Eliza Haywood's Reputation before the 20C

When I was preparing my lecture on Eliza Haywood for Anna Poletti's unit on Writing women, I decided to use Google Books to survey Haywood's reputation and representation in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. What I found was pretty much what I expected to find, but it is interesting.

Results of a search for “Eliza Haywood” in works 1700–1800 (excluding works by Haywood): 40 hits

Main references (30 = 75%)
In works by Alexander Pope: 19 refs = 47.5% (very prominent: 11 of the first 13 hits)
In works by Richard Savage: 7 refs = 17.5% (quite prominent: 7 of the central hits)
Reviews in The Monthly Review: 3 refs = 7.5% (prominent: 3 of the first 14 hits)
Fielding's Memoirs of Grub Street: 1 refs = 2.5%

Passing/incidental references (10 = 25%)
Walpole’s work on engravers: 2 refs = 5%
In the BM Cat. of MS: 2 refs = 5%
In bookseller’s catalogues: 6 refs = 15% (not very prominent, among the last hits)

Basically, Pope and Savage's bile (In The Dunciad, An Author to be Lett and The Authors of the Town) constitutes most of Haywood's reputation and representation in the 18th century. (If we add eighteenth century work first published in the nineteenth century, we can add Swift to this herd of swine [i.e., sexist pigs].) For a sample of the negative, dismissive, outrageous and idiotic statements made about Eliza Haywood in the last two centuries see my Wall of Shame (here).

Of course, if you look harder (under "Mrs Haywood" for example) you can find dissenting voices or, at least, other voices, which I will collect below …

[1758]. Charlotte Lennox, Henrietta, 2 vols. (London, 1758): 36:

"Well," said Mrs. Eccles, "how do you like my books? are they not prettily chosen?"
  "I assure you," replied she, taking down one, "you chose very well when you chose this; for it is one of the most exquisite pieces of humour in our language."
  "I knew you would approve of my taste," said Mrs. Eccles, "but what have you got?—O! the Adventures of Joseph Andrews—Yes; that is a very pretty book, to be sure!—but there is Mrs. Haywood's Novels, did you ever read them?—Oh! they are the finest love-sick, passionate stories; I assure you, you'll like them vastly: pray, take a volume of Haywood upon my recommendation."
  "Excuse me," said Henrietta, "I am very well satisfied with what I have; I have read this book three times already, and yet I assure you, I shall begin it again with as much eagerness and delight as I did at first.

* * * * *

In the nineteenth century, the criticism is only slightly more varied, and that largely due to the increasing number of female writers and critics whose opinions were published.

[1810]. Anna Letitia Barbauld, “On the Origin and Progress of Novel Writing” (1810):

Mrs. Haywood was a very prolific genius: her earlier novels are in the style of Mrs. Behn's, and Pope has chastised her in his Dunciad without mercy or delicacy; but her later works are by no means void of merit. She wrote The Invisible Spy and Betsy Thoughtless, and was the author of the Female Spectator. But till the middle of the last century, theatrical productions and poetry made a far greater part of polite reading than novels, which had attained neither to elegance nor discrimination of character.

[1811]. Memoirs of the life of the Right Honourable Sir James Mackintosh, edited by Robert James Mackintosh (1835), 2.105 (22 June 1811):

Female genius always revives Mrs. Barbauld's generous mind. Her remarks on Mrs. Inchbald are excellent; what she says of Madame D'Arblay is excellent; and one sentence, contrasting the rapture of a first success with the languor and disappointment of more advanced years, is beautiful and affecting. Her own remarks are plain, short, and sensible, but have the painful appearance of flowing from a dispirited mind, and present a melancholy contrast with the works of her youth and enthusiasm. She informs me that Mrs. Haywood was the authoress of 'Betsy Thoughtless,' one of the favourites of my youth. She displeases me, by classing the 'Man of Feeling' with a book by Pratt, an imitator of Sterne ….

[1819]. Catherine Hutton, Oakwood Hall (1819), 93–94:

"How came this to find a place in your collection?"
"Indiana Danby! my dear," said Mrs. Oakwood, "is a novel of the middle ages. The shining light of the ancients, such as Richardson, Fielding, Smollett, and perhaps Mrs. Haywood, was set; and that of the moderns, such as Dr. Moore, Holcroft, Godwin, Miss Burney, and Miss Edgeworth, not yet risen."

[1844]. Charles Whitehead, Richard Savage: A Romance of Real Life (1844), ch. 15 fn.

Eliza Haywood, although now nearly forgotten, attained during her life-time to an enviable celebrity. Pope, in his Dunciad, has heaped terrible infamy upon her head. Her plays I have not seen; but I have looked into her novels of which "The History of Betsy Thoughtless " and "Jenny and Jemmy Jessamy " are the most considerable. They possess no common degree of merit, but are altogether unfit for modern perusal.

[1864]. Dr. John Doran, “Their Majesties' Servants”: Annals of the English Stage (1864), 1.344:

The "Fair Captive" was an adaptation by Mrs. Haywood, a lady who began by writing as loosely as Aphra Behn, concluded by writing as decorously as Mrs. Chapone, and left charge to her executors, in 1756, to give no aid to any biography of her that might be attempted, on the ground that the least said was the soonest mended.

So, Haywood was, according to her critics (on my Wall of Shame), a "disgraceful," "shameless," "vulgar" and "voluminous writer of indifferent novels" which detail "lascivious passion, rapes, adultery, and murder" and are, as a consequence, "altogether unfit for modern perusal" and "now nearly forgotten." Haywood herself "figures indecently" in the Dunciad—a phrase that elides Haywood's representation and her own putative indecency—and that "the least said" about her, the better.

Alternatively, we have (as here) "a very prolific genius" who "attained during her life-time to an enviable celebrity," and whose "works are by no means void of merit." Indeed, she is, "perhaps," one of the "shining light[s] of" eighteenth-century literature. Her "Betsy Thoughtless " and "Jenny and Jemmy Jessamy" are the most considerable" of her novels and the first of these was "one of the favourites of [the] youth" of Sir James Mackintosh.

Although it is possible to create the second, positive, picture from the evidence above, it is clear from my Wall of Shame and the full quotes above that such a positive portrait is not representative. It is necessary to largely ignore the qualifications offered, and much of the faint praise is offered in double-negative ("by no means void of merit") whereas the criticism is often unqualified and is stated positively.

[UPDATE 26 February 2015]

Dark Hero Texts

I chose the editions—and some of the texts—for my new course, The Dark Hero [ATS2914/ATS3914] on the KISS-principle (i.e., keep it simple). So, they are all from the OUP World's Classics series. The upshot is, as you can see, that they make a very neat and pretty display.

The only problem is, I am already reconsidering this decision because Doctor Faustus and Other Plays (front text above) isn't very good. No doubt I am biased. I wanted to use Doctor Faustus: The A-text, ed. David Ormerod and Christopher Wortham (University of Western Australia Press, 1985), which is an excellent edition, but it is out of print.

Having re-read the play in the Ormerod and Wortham edition yesterday, I turned to the World's Classics edition this morning to see how it compared, and it compared poorly. I chose this edition, edited by David Bevington and Eric Rasmussen, because it contains both the A- and B-text versions of the play, which promised to be great for comparison, and other plays by Marlowe, which might encourage students to read others plays by Marlowe.

The problems is, the editors are pretty cavalier with the text, modernising, moving chunks around and imposing a 5-Act structure on both versions of the play, though there is no textual authority for doing so in any quarto. (See, the "Note on the Text," p. xxv and xxvii (here)). The introduction, to the life and times of Marlowe is wildly inadequate for a student, with gaping omissions, and the introduction to the plays in Marlowe's canon is brief and very uneven (excellent on Tamburlaine I and II, pretty good on The Jew of Malta and Faustus and pretty pathetic on Edward II).

And so, I have now ordered the New Mermaids edition (here), Norton Critical Edition (here) and the Revels Plays, New edition (here). The last of these is edited by Bevington and Rasmussen, but there is supposed to be a substantial introduction in this edition.

These three student editions of Doctor Faustus are all in the same price range as the World's Classics edition, though you get a lot fewer pages for your money. I am hoping that at least one of them is at least as good at the Ormerod and Wortham edition, demonstrating more respect for the text and including an introduction that compensates for the absence of Marlowe's other plays. We'll see …

[UPDATE: 2 July 2016: After all my pictures disappeared again I decided to give up on external hosts for large versions (1000px) of my image files and, for now on, will stick with the smaller images (500px), which Blogger is prepared to host.]

The Faust Tradition

Study Guides, Essays and Notes

Faust. This site has it all: sections on the Legend of Faust, Books, Music, Theatre, Art, Film, Games …

See also Cummings study guide

Prose Faust Texts, Chapbooks etc. in English

The history of the damnable life, and deserved death of Dr. John Faustus. Newly printed, and in convenient places, impertinent matter amended, according to the true copy, printed at Frankford; and translated into English, by P.R. gent. (London: Printed by C. Brown; for M. Hotham, at the Black Boy on London-bridge, and sold by the booksellers, [ca. 1700]) in Early English Prose Romances, edited by William John Thoms (London: Nattali and Bond, 1858), vol. 1, 151–300. [Wing H2156]

The Second Report of Doctor Iohn Faustus, containing his appearances, and the deedes of Wagner. VVritten by an English gentleman student in VVittenberg an Vniuersity of Germany in Saxony. Published for the delight of all those which desire nouelties by a frend of the same gentleman. (London: Printed by Abell Ieffes, for Cuthbert Burby, and are to be sold at the middle shop at Saint Mildreds Church by the stockes, 1594) in Early English Prose Romances, edited by William John Thoms (London: Nattali and Bond, 1858), vol. 1, 302–414. [STC 10715]

The History of Dr. John Faustus: Shewing how he sold himself to the devil, … Also, strange things done by him, and his servant Mephistopholes. With an account how the devil came for him, and tore him to pieces (Derby: Printed in the year, 1787)

History of DR. FAUSTUS Shewing His wicked Life and horrid Death, and how he sold himself to the devil, to have power for 24 years to do what he pleased, also many strange things done by him with the assistance of MEPHISTOPHELES. With an account how the Devil came for him at the end of 24 years, and tore him to pieces (n.d. [18C?]) in Amusing Prose Chap-Books, Chiefly of Last Century, edited by Robert Hays (London: Hamilton Adams, 1889), 286–98.

Marlowe's Faustus

Christopher Marlowe, The Tragicall History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus, [A1, the 1604 quarto text] edited by Alexander Dyce (London, mid-19C).

Christopher Marlowe, The Tragicall History of D. Faustus [A text] ed. Hilary Binda (2010?)

Christopher Marlowe, The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus, [B1, the 1616 quarto text] edited by Alexander Dyce (London, mid-19C).

Christopher Marlowe, The Tragedie of Doctor Faustus [B text] ed. Hilary Binda (2010?)

Other British Faust texts

William Mountfort, The Life and Death of Doctor Faustus, Made into a Farce, in Six Plays, Written by Mr. Mountfort, 2 vols. (1720)

Goethe's Faustus

Faust, in the original metres, Translated by Bayard Taylor (pre-1878).

Faust Parts I & II (2003). A complete translation by A. S. Kline, with line numbers, and full stage directions.

Other European Faust texts

Historia vnd Geschicht Doctor Johannis Faustj des Zauberers An edition in German (with a translation into English) by Prof. Harry Haile, University of Illinois, based on the Wolfenbüttel Manuscript (1580s).

Das Volksbuch von Dr. Faust (um 1580)

[UPDATED 18 June 2013]

The Dark Hero, Books, Links etc

This page will be my dumping ground for links and comments as I trawl the net in preparation for my Dark Hero course. A proper web-log = blog!

This page on the The Norton Anthology of English Literature site was my inspiration for the course. Or, at least, it was the one that suggested to me that I might be able to establish a course that focusses on the "Satanic and Byronic Hero": that there were sufficient resources to do it and that it could be justified in academic terms. (Although, I decided it would be best to use the term "Dark Hero" rather than "Satanic Hero": there is no point frightening the horses, is there?) This is how the page begins …

Not until the age of the American and French Revolutions, more than a century after Milton wrote Paradise Lost, did readers begin to sympathize with Satan in the war between Heaven and Hell, admiring him as the archrebel who had taken on no less an antagonist than Omnipotence itself, and even declaring him the true hero of the poem.

* * * * *

This site by Brouke M. Rose-Carpenter for a fifth-year unit (LITR 5535: American Romanticism) at University of Houston-Clear Lake seems like a great starting point.

I like this list of Byronic characteristics:

1. A rebel
2. Does not possess the usual “heroic virtues”
3. Dark Qualities
4. Larger than life
i. Intellectual capacity
ii. Self respect
iii. Hypersensitivity
5. Moody by nature
6. Struggles with integrity
7. Distaste for social institutions and social norms
8. Exiled, outcast, or outlaw
9. Cynical
10. Loner
11. Passionate about a particular issue
12. Emotional
13. Rebels against life itself
14. Arrogant
15. Confident
16. Troubled past
17. Often characterized by some unknown sexual crime
18. Extremely conscious of himself
19. A figure of repulsion, as well as fascination

I also liked the list of Byronic characters she has collected

Cain, Genesis
Odysseus
Romeo, Romeo and Juliet
Satan, Paradise lost
The Flying Dutchman
The Wondering Jew
Rochester, Jane Eyre
Heathcliff, Wuthering Heights
Conrad, The Corsair
Childe Harold
Giaour, The Gaiour
Manfred Astarte,
Ancient Mariner, Rhyme to the Ancient Mariner
George Vavasor, Can you forgive her?
T.J. Swift, Stranger in her Bed

Bruce Wayne, Batman
Gabriel Van Helsing, Van Helsing
Corbin Dallas, The Fifth Element
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
Captain Jack Sparrow, Pirates of the Caribbean
Professor Snape, Harry Potter’s
Hell boy, Hellboy
William Wallace, Brave heart
John Smith, Mr. and Mrs. Smith
Any character, X-men
Shrek, Shrek’s
Ranger, The Stephanie Plum series
Lucivar, Saetan, and Daemon, The Black Jewels Trilogy and Dreams Made Flesh

Better still, the Byronic heroine

Nikita, La femme Nikita
Xena, Xena: The Warrior Princess
Lara Croft, Tomb Raider
Jane Smith, Mr. and Mrs. Smith
Surreal, The Black Jewels Trilogy, & Dreams Made Flesh
Domino Harvey, Domino
Le-lo, The Fifth Element

I don't think that Le-lo is a Byronic heroine, and both Lara Croft and Jane Smith seem to be simply action heroes. Still, it is a start.

* * * * *

As for books: it looks like this is the best recent coverage of the Byronic hero-type, although after only six years the focus on Angel and the absence of more recent figures makes the book seem a little dated.

Atara Stein, The Byronic Hero in Film, Fiction, and Television (2004) is a must. Unfortunately, it is not held at Monash (*sigh*) and so I will have to order it … but it looks good on Google books.

* * * * *

Most of the links on this page (The Faust Tradition from Marlowe to Mann) are dead, but I expect most are still somewhere online, so I will try to recreate the live links here soon.

A Chapbook History of Dr. Faustus

This chapbook History of Dr. Faustus was published in Glasgow in the 1840s. It was published as a part of a series, along with such classics as The Sleeping Beauty of the Wood, The History of Jack and The Bean-Stalk,, The History of Beauty and the Beast, History of Jack the Giant Killer, The Story of Blue Beard and about 150 others. As you can see above, this is number 119. If I wasn't paying off two rather pricey Haywood items, I would buy either this large collection, or this smaller one.

The full title is:

History of DR. FAUSTUS Shewing His wicked Life and horrid Death, and how he sold himself to the devil, to have power for 24 years to do what he pleased, also many strange things done by him with the assistance of MEPHISTOPHELES. With an account how the Devil came for him at the end of 24 years, and tore him to pieces.

The full text appears in Amusing Prose Chap-Books, Chiefly of Last Century edited by Robert Hays (London: Hamilton Adams, 1889), 286–98. But I read it in John Ashton, Chap-books of the Eighteenth Century with facsimiles, notes, and introduction (London, Chatto and Windus, 1882), which—in typical fashion—has been scanned by Google Books but is not available online. I have given the first three chapters below.

I bought this little chapbook as a prompt to get me started on my reading for the new course I am preparing on the Dark Hero—not that you need an excuse to buy a chapbook like this. The course will start with Marlowe's "Doctor Faustus" and will probably end with Byron's "Cain".

In fact, most of the texts in between simply track a path between these two key texts. I am considering spending more than one week on Faustus. I wanted to read the play as soon as I heard about it, and loved it as soon as I read it, but I also loved the Faustbook and the chapbook version that I have read in Ashton, so I am tempted to include these too. All I have to do is come up with an excuse to include them…

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Chapter I. Dr. Faustus’ birth and education, with an account of his falling from the Scriptures.

Dr. John Faustus was born in Germany. His father was a poor labouring man, not able to bring up his son John; but he had a brother in the same country, who was a very rich man, but had never a child, and took a great fancy to his cousin, and he resolved to make a scholar of him; and in order thereunto, put him to the Latin school, where he took his learning extraordinary well. Afterwards he put him to the University to study divinity; but Faustus could in no ways fancy that employment; wherefore he betook himself to the studying of that which his inclination is most for, viz., necromancy and conjuration, and in a little time few or none could outstrip him in the art. He also studied divinity, of which he was made Doctor; but within a short time fell into such deep fancies and cogitations that he resolved to throw the Scriptures from him, and betake himself wholly to the studying of necromancy and conjuration, charms and soothsaying, witchcraft, and the like.

Chapter II. How Dr. Faustus conjured up the Devil, making him appear at his own house.

Faustus, whose mind was to study conjuration, the which he followed night and day, he took the wings of an eagle, and endeavoured to fly over the world, to see and know all the secrets of heaven and earth; so that in a short time he attained power to command the Devil to appear before him when he pleased. One day as Dr. Faustus was walking in a wood near to Wurtemberg, in Germany, he having a friend with him who was desirous to know of the doctor’s art, he desired him to let him see if he could then and there bring Mephistopheles before him; all which the doctor immediately did, and the devil upon the first call made such a noise in the wood as if heaven and earth would have come together; then the devil made such a roaring as if the wood had been full of wild beasts. The doctor made a circle for the devil, the which circle the devil ran round, making a noise as if ten thousand wagons had been running upon paved stones. After this it thundered and lightened, as if the whole world had been on fire. Faustus and his friend, amazed at this noise, and the devil’s long tarrying, thought to leave his circle; whereupon he made him such music, the like was never heard in the world. This so ravished Faustus that he began again to conjure Mephistopheles in the name of the prince of the devils to appear in his own likeness; whereupon in an instant hung over his head a mighty dragon. Faustus calls again after his former manner, after which there was a cry in the wood as if hell had opened, and all the tormented souls had been there. Faustus, in the meanwhile, asked the devil many questions, and commanded him to show many diabolical tricks.

Chapter III, How Mephistopheles came to Dr. Faustus’ house, and what happened between them.

Faustus commanded the spirit to meet him at his house byten of the clock the next day. At the hour appointed he came into his chamber asking Faustus what he would have. Faustus told him it was his will and pleasure to conjure him to be obedient to him in all points of those articles, viz.: —

First, That the spirit should serve him in all things he asked, from that time till his death.

Secondly, Whatsoever he would have, he should bring him.

Thirdly, Whatsoever he desired to know, he should tell him.

The spirit answered him and said he had no such power of himself, until he had acquainted his prince that ruled over him. “For,” said he, “we have rulers over us that send us out, and command us home when they please; and we can act no further than our power is, which we receive from Lucifer, who, you know, for his pride, was thrust out of heaven. But,” saith the spirit, “I am not to tell you any more except you make yourself over to us.”

Whereupon Faustus said, “I will have my request? but yet I will not be damned with you.” Then said the spirit, “You must not, nor shall not have your desire, and yet thou art mine, and all the world cannot save thee out of my hands.” Then said Faustus, “Get thee hence, and I conjure thee that thou come to me at night.” The spirit then vanished. Faustus then began to consider how he might obtain his desire, and not give his soul to the devil.

And while Faustus was in these his devilish cogitations night drew on, and this hellish spirit appeared to Faustus, acquainting him that now he had got orders from his prince to be obedient to him, and to do for him whatsoever he desired, provided he would promise to be his, and withal to acquaint him first what he would have of him? Faustus replied that his desire was to become a spirit, and that Mephistopheles should be always at his command; that whatsoever he called for him, he shall appear invisible to all men, and that he should appear in what shape he pleased, to which the spirit answered that all his desires should be granted if he would sign those articles he should wish or ask for. Whereupon Dr. Faustus withdrew and stabbed his wrist, receiving the blood in a small saucer, which cooled so fast, as if it forewarned him of the hellish act he was going to commit; nevertheless he put it over embers to warm it, and wrote as follows: —

“I, John Faustus, approved doctor of divinity, with my own baud do acknowledge and testify myself to become a servant to Lucifer, Prince of Septentrional and Oriental, and to him I freely and voluntarily give both soul; in consideration for the space of twenty-four years, if I be served in all things which I shall require, or which is reasonable by him to be allowed; at the expiration of which time from the date ensuing, I give to him all power to do with me at his pleasure; to rule to retch and carry me where he pleases body and soul. Hereupon I defy God and Christ, and the hosts of angels and good spirits, all living creatures that bear his shape, or on whom his image is imprinted; and to the better strengthening the validity of this covenant and firm agreement between us, I have writ it with my blood, and subscribe my name to it, calling all the powers and infernal potentates to witness it is my true intent and meaning. JOHN FAUSTUS.”

[UPDATE: 2 July 2016: After all my pictures disappeared again I decided to give up on external hosts for large versions (1000px) of my image files and, for now on, will stick with the smaller images (500px), which Blogger is prepared to host.]

A New Wikipedia Entry on Ned Ward

At the start of this year the Wikipedia entry on Ned Ward (here) was useless. Which was particularly annoying to me because I wanted to include at least an excerpt of Ward's The London Spy on my eighteenth-century survey course at Monash, and the library resources on Ward were thin (to say the least: they had no edition at all of The London Spy in the general collection).

The entry on Ward was a particularly good example of just how insubstantial the public-domain resources are for students (or scholars) who stray beyond the confines of typical survey-course authors of the period, such as Swift, Johnson, Fielding etc.

And, unlike Aaron Hill's afterpiece The Walking Statue; Or, the Devil in the Wine Cellar (1710)—which I have described elsewhere as "one of those relatively minor eighteenth-century works, by a relatively minor eighteenth-century writer"—The London Spy is constantly being quoted, and is known by every student of the eighteenth-century. Nevertheless, it's author "hardly casts a shadow on the internet."

In order to do something about this, and to give my more experienced and talented students a more useful assessment task than they were accustomed to, I asked them to produce a replacement Wikipedia entry on Ned Ward. Which they did, and did extremely well.

And so today—somewhat belatedly—I uploaded Annie Blachly's entry on Ned Ward. It is a vast improvement on the existing entry. I hope it survives its editorial scrutiny (not all rewrites do), prompts many edits, corrections and additions. Thanks Annie!

[UPDATE 13 November 2010. As of yesterday the "stub tag" was removed from the Wikipedia entry on Ned Ward. It is now a fully fledged, fair dinkum entry. Which means it survived its editorial scrutiny!]

The Dark Hero: Demonic, Deranged and Cursed

On Thursday I was told that my new unit, The Dark Hero: Demonic, Deranged and Cursed, has been approved to run next year at Monash. It has a new Arts-faculty-wide unit code: ATS2914/ATS3914.

I have wanted to run a course like this for a very long time. One of my favourite honours courses at the University of Tasmania was The Byronic Hero, but the particular type of Byronic-Hero stories that have always attracted my attention are the ones with a supernatural element: Marlow's Faustus, Milton's Satan, Beckford's Vathek, Byron's Cain.

When I was a teenager I lived on a constant diet of fantasy and horror stories, books on witchcraft and the occult, and Hammer Horror films, so I ended up reading Stoker's Dracula and Goethe's Faust as soon as I had enough of my own money to buy them.

From memory, both were second-hand copies from the Dennis Wheatley Library of the Occult series, which were pretty common, and cheap, in op-shops, garage sales and book exchanges at the time.

I had quite a few "Library of the Occult" volumes at one stage, before I went to university and decided I was far too mature for that sort of thing. And, since I always needed more book-money, I decided to sell the lot. I don't remember what I spent the money on, but it is a decision I soon, and have long, regretted!

I recently started buying replacement copies of some of the paperbacks that I sold then, but the books are a lot harder to find and a lot more expensive now. (Which reminds me of that saying "no man is rich enough to buy back his past.") The images below are taken from one such recent—nostalgic—purchase; appropriate, yes?

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The type of "Dark Hero" that my new course focusses on is everywhere in modern fiction, film and TV: David Boreanaz as Angel (Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003) and Angel (1999–2004), Johnny Depp as Dean Corso (The Ninth Gate (1999), the whole League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003), Heath Ledger as The Dark Knight (2008) and Ian Somerhalder as Damon Salvatore (The Vampire Diaries (2010), but you could include almost every supernatural romance and romantic vampire hero in this list.

But the focus of my unit is on the ur-texts, the Dark Heroes of the Early Modern, Modern and Romantic periods. The synopsis runs as follows:

The unit is designed to introduce students to the development of the Dark or Satanic Hero in a range of major English texts selected to illustrate the tremendous impact and popularity of this powerful figure in the Romantic Period. Writers such as Marlow, Milton, Beckford, Lewis and Byron created defiant heroes who embody radical individualism, self-sufficiency and ambition, but who are isolated, gloomy and dissatisfied by their revolt against God, government and society. Special attention will be given to the relationship between the Dark and Byronic Heroes in the nineteenth century and the survival and transformation of this figure in the vampires and villains of contemporary culture.

I haven't decided on the final text list yet. There are a few I haven't read that I am considering, like Charlotte Dacre's Zofloya: or The Moor (1806) and Charles Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer (1820); there is also a lot of poetry to choose from, apart from Byron's “Manfred” (1816–17) and “Cain” (1822), like Bürger’s “Lenore” (1773); Goethe's “The Bride of Corinth” (1797); Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (1798) and “Christabel” (1797–1800), and Keats' “La Belle Dame sans Merci” (1819). Narrowing down the list will be a real challenge. But fun. Lots of fun.

[UPDATE: 2 July 2016: After all my pictures disappeared again I decided to give up on external hosts for large versions (1000px) of my image files and, for now on, will stick with the smaller images (500px), which Blogger is prepared to host.]

Print Culture for Undergraduates

Trysh Travis is circulating a CFP for a SHARP Affiliate Panel at the MLA Conference (Los Angeles, California, 6–9 January 2011)

This panel that will examine the place of print culture in the undergraduate literature curriculum (in English and/or language departments) in an era in which students may be more accustomed to reading on screens than on paper and administrators are clamoring for a "back to basics" approach to literary study.

Faced with these conditions, how do scholars of print culture justify-and implement-its study across the various levels of a major?

How can we do book history as undergraduate class sizes expand indefinitely?

How can we leverage undergraduates' infatuation with new media (text-messaging, Facebook, Twitter) on behalf of the study of print culture?

These and other questions relating to the uses of print culture within undergraduate pedagogy may be addressed through case studies, theoretical musings, programmatic overviews, and the like.

[A fascinating topic. Unfortunately the panel is only open to members of MLA (by 7 April) and of SHARP (by 1 July). If you are one of the happy few who fit this criteria …]

Proposals and short CV by 15 March to:

Trysh Travis
Center for Women's Studies & Gender Research
Box 117352
University of Florida
Gainesville, FL 32611-7352