Algunos ejemplos conspicuos

Alive again? Then show me where he is, I’ll give a thousand pounds to look upon him

Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2, iii, 3 (quoted by Maturin)55

According to Maturin, the idea for Melmoth came from the following pas­ sage in one of his sermons:

At this moment is there one o f us present, however we may have departed from the Lord, disobeyed his will, and disregarded his word - is there one o f us who would, at this moment, accept all that man could be­ stow, or earth afford, to resign the hope o f his salvation? - No, there is not one - not such a fool on earth, were the enemy o f mankind to traverse it with the offer.56

It must have occurred to Maturin that the chance of life-extension could prove to be a greater temptation for the individual than he implies above. Thus it is this contingency which is explored throughout his ‘sermon-in- fiction,’57 Melmoth the Wanderer. In this novel Maturin draws attention to the power o f sermons by citing the example o f the puritanical weaver who has been driven mad by a single sermon delivered by the celebrated preacher Hugh Peters.58 Both preacher and Gothic novelist deploy a dis­ course o f disquiet. M aturin’s private horror is that he may be one who, after ‘preaching in a conventicle with distinguished success,’ finds that ‘towards twilight his visions were more gloomy and at midnight his blas­ phemies became more horrible.’59 Such a dichotomy sums up the popular view of the dual personality which enabled Maturin to take on the role of Calvinist cleric by day and writer of tales o f terror by night. As Alethea Hayter suggests, the nocturnal side o f Maturin allowed his subterranean fears and hatreds to emerge in order to transform the fictions he planned during the day.60 Maturin certainly recognised the perils involved in oscil­ lating between the light o f reason and the darkness o f the imagination, for as he points out in M elmoth: ‘There are some criminals o f the im agina­ tion whom if we could plunge into the oubliettes of its magnificent but lightly-based fabric, its lord would reign more happy.’61 Melmoth himself may be regarded as a criminal of the imagination, since he has sold his soul so that he could prolong his life. This life-extension could then be transferred to anyone who would be willing to make the same diabolical

transaction. Thus the main interest of the novel is built up around Mel- m oth’s search for such an individual, whom Maturin described earlier in his sermon as a ‘fool on earth.’

The pursuit m otif provides Maturin with a format which has the flexibility o f a picaresque novel. M elm oth's ‘Chinese-box’ arrangement

would suggest that it had been conceived as a series o f tales rather than as a centralised novel. A critic for the Quarterly Review states that even though the effect o f these interpolated tales should be that o f fine work­ manship they are instead ‘involved and entangled in a clumsy confusion which disgraces the artist, and puzzles the observer.’62 In his preface, Maturin defends this intricate structure by claiming that ‘I had made the misery o f conventional life depend less on the startling adventures one meets with in romances, than on that irritating series o f petty torments which constitutes the misery of life in general.’63 In his analysis of the theme and structure of M elmoth, Jack Null sees M aturin’s disjunction of the chronology and unity o f the book as part of a deliberate process to fragment the reader’s perception o f the world of the novel.64 This tech­ nique may also be intended to convey the characters’ moral disorienta­ tion and spiritual entanglements brought about by M elm oth’s persecutions.

M elmoth created for Maturin by far the greatest sensation o f all his

novels. It also proved to be an economic success, earning for him around five hundred pounds. Yet it received a mixed reception at the hands of the critics. Scott hailed Maturin as now worthy o f taking the ‘headship of the School of Terror,’65 but the Edinburgh Review expressed the hope that he would soon abandon ‘this new apotheosis o f the old Raw-head- and-bloody-bones.’66 Here the critic expanded on this m etaphor to chas­ tise Maturin for his ‘G olgotha’ style of writing as well as his zest for such horrors as cannibalism, all of which he denounced as a sacrifice of genius in the temple o f false taste. John Wilson Croker, writing in The

Quarterly Review, was just as damning in his assessment of Melmoth.

According to Croker, in comparison with Melmoth the W anderer Lew is’s

M onk appeared ‘decent,’ Polidori’s Vampire seemed ‘am iable’ and Mary

Shelley’s Frankenstein, ‘natural.’67 Most o f the adverse criticism o f the novel was levelled at M aturin’s treatment o f suffering, which prompted the N ew M onthly Review to describe him as a connoisseur in agony. Maturin was even described in the Edinburgh Magazine and Literary

M iscellany as revelling in the plight o f the tormented:

the reverend author appears to our imagination like some vulcan o f the anvil, assiduously labouring and forging shackles, bolts and instruments of torture with

MATURIN AND THE ROSICRUCIAN HERESY

this difference, that with the poor mechanic it was not his matter of choice whereas Mr Maturin with all the flowery paths of fiction open to him, has preferred this tortuous and gloomy one.68

Blackwood referred to the chaos of M aturin’s absurdities, but neverthe­

less conceded that he was capable o f true poetry and ‘walks almost with­ out a rival, dead or living, in many of the darkest, but at the same time the most majestic circles o f rom ance.’69 The mention o f ‘circles’ above may be a response to the convolutions o f the plot. Certainly the critic for the Quarterly Review resolved not to waste his time ‘in endeavouring to unravel the tissue o f stories which occupy these four volum es.’70 Despite this review er’s discouraging reaction, an attempt will be made here to outline the narrative.

Melmoth is made up o f three tales concerning the characters Stanton,

the Spaniard and the Parricide, followed by the ‘Tale of the Indians,’ ‘G uzm an’s Family’ and the ‘Lovers’ Tale.’ These separate episodes fo­ cus upon M elmoth’s persecutions contained within a frame-narrative which concerns John Melmoth. At the beginning o f the novel, set in 1816, John, who is a student at Trinity College, Dublin, has been summoned to his uncle’s death-bed. As the heir to the estate, young Melmoth is given instructions to destroy a painting of an ancestor as well as to destroy an old manuscript. The painting, which John had seen earlier, turns out to be a portrait of John Melmoth which was painted in 1646. Young M elm oth’s uncle, who was reputed to be ‘the last man on earth to be supersti­ tious,’71 assures his nephew that the subject o f the painting is still alive and that he him self is dying of fright. In the preface to St Leon, as men­ tioned earlier, Godwin recounts a similar tale concerning a painting by Titian. Before his death, John Melmoth warns his future heir that he too will see the living original of the portrait. This prophecy is soon fulfilled, for, as the old man lies dying, a mysterious stranger enters the room bearing an uncanny resemblance to the painting o f John Melmoth. Even though young Melmoth is prepared to dismiss this as a coincidence, he is nonetheless determined to satisfy himself that his uncle is neither insane nor prone to superstitious imaginings. Therefore he enquires amongst the servants about this family legend. Eventually he is told by the sibyl­ line Biddy Brannigan o f a persistent rumour concerning a seventeenth- century ancestor who was still ‘without a hair on his head changed, or a muscle in his frame contracted.’72 Apparently, his spasmodic appearances heralded the deaths o f members o f the family whom he haunted in their dying hour.73

the mystery o f the portrait is contained within the manuscript which his uncle had ordered him to destroy. Melmoth decides to read the docu­ ment, which contains six Gothic tales written by an Englishman, John Stanton. The first story is the T a le of Stanton’ set in 1677, which fol­ lows out a story-within-a-story pattern with Stanton listening to an old woman’s account o f Melmoth as a guest at a wedding feast. In this ac­ count may be found echoes of Coleridge’s Rime o f the Ancient M ariner (1798), particularly since the mariner in the poem is noted for a hypnotic stare,74 a characteristic of Melmoth when intent upon effusing ‘a most fearful and preternatural lustre.’75 The now sinister atmosphere at the wedding prompts Father Olavida to ask ‘Who is among us? — W ho?’76 Olavida then proceeds, in the spirit of ‘prophetic denunciation,’77 to try and identify the mysterious stranger. Some of his guesses seem to al­ lude to other famous wanderers and suggest that M aturin’s version of the Rosicrucian hero is a synthesis of a number of other Gothic immortals and blasted sinners. For Olavida, Melmoth is Cain-like and ungodly, leaving behind him the fiery foot-prints o f Hell: ‘W here he treads, the earth is parched.’78 His Satanic presence inhibits the priest’s sacred task to utter a blessing because of the infernal vapours he exhales: ‘where he breathes, the air is fire!’79 Finally, M elmoth’s typology may be extended to the Wandering Jew, for both accursed beings have a glance like light­ ning. Speculation ends (at least on one score) when by suddenly drop­ ping dead, the priest obligingly confirms M elmoth’s unsavoury reputation as a harbinger o f death.

After hearing this doom-laden story, Stanton is warned that Melmoth also seeks out vulnerable individuals who have been struck by tragedy or disaster. Predictably Stanton’s terror eventually leads to his confinement in a madhouse, where Melmoth bargains with him to exchange his soul for prolonged life. The diabolical transaction is contingent upon the exer­ cise o f free will and moral responsibility, for as Stanton’s persecutor points out: ‘with the loss of reason (and reason cannot long be retained in this place), you lose also the hope of imm ortality.’80 The manuscript concludes with Stanton leaving the asylum having successfully resisted M elmoth’s offer.

Having finished reading Stanton’s tale, John Melmoth decides to com ­ ply with his uncle’s wishes and bums both the manuscript and portrait. The second story, ‘Tale of the Spaniard’, tells of a monk, Mon^ada, who confides to the authorities that he is being tormented by a mysterious be­ ing. Not surprisingly Mon9ada is accused of conversing with the devil.

The most effective way o f dealing with this problem was to bum alive the possessed and afflicted monk. Most sensibly, he tries to escape, using

MATURIN AND THE ROSICRUCIAN HERESY

the m onastery’s subterranean passages where he hallucinates hearing the anthems o f demons howling ‘on that awful verge where life and eter­ nity m ingle.’81 When the escape attempt fails, Mon^ada is captured by the Inquisition, and his subsequent imprisonment neatly provides Ma­ turin with a convenient interlude for the narration o f the parricide’s tale.

This time the victim is a mortal version o f Melmoth who claims to have sold his soul to Satan and his minions in order to carry out their de­ monic works. Even though the parricide declares ‘I have no religion, I be­ lieve in no God, I repeat no creed,’ like Schemoli he has ‘that superstition o f fear and [of] futurity, that seeks its wild and hopeless mitigation in the sufferings of others when our own are exhausted.’82 The parricide’s belief that this is the best theology - since it is hostile to all human beings - re­ calls M aturin’s dire warnings against those who set up their own creed.83 The parricide anticipates the appearance of Melmoth, who visits Mon^a- da while he is a prisoner of the Inquisition. Mon<jada manages to resist M elm oth’s offer resolutely even though he has been condemned as a her­ etic to be burnt alive at an auto da f t . Remarkably Mon^ada manages to avert his ordeal in an escape attempt which resembles that of G odw in’s St Leon.

Mongada finds refuge in a Jewish household by hiding in a secret pas­ sage beneath the house, where he discovers the aged Jew Adonijah. Like Melmoth, Adonijah has sought for forbidden knowledge, saying ‘like our fathers in the wilderness, I despised angel’s food and lusted after for­ bidden meats, even the meats of the Egyptian sorcerers.’84 Ironically his punishment consists of unlimited life-extension. As he says to Monga- da, ‘my presumption was rebuked as thou seest: - childless, wifeless, friendless, at the last period of an existence prolonged beyond the bounds o f nature.’85 Surrounded by the skeletons of M elmoth’s victims, Adoni- ja h ’s fate is to record their stories. Littered around him are parchments and charts which appear to be scrawled with human blood. Ironically, his death has to be earned. Only when he has completed this task will he be allowed to die, in a perverse parody o f M elmoth’s quest for a willing vic­ tim who will agree to perpetual life in exchange for his soul. Mon?ada, whom he has chosen as his scribe, translates from the Greek the next three stories, which testify to M elm oth’s failure to find a successor.

The first of these is the ‘Tale of the Indians,’ set in 1680, which de­ scribes M elm oth’s discovery o f an island in the Indian Ocean whose sole inhabitant is Immalee, an innocent European girl. On her island paradise she is also the epitome o f Rousseau’s ideal of the noble primitive. Here the state o f nature represents a microcosmic recreation o f the world be­ fore the Fall, being synonymous with Im m alee’s spiritual and moral

purity. For a while, Melmoth forgets that he is the Cain o f the moral world while he shares with Immalee the beauties of the idyllic isle.86 As Maturin points out, ‘at our first transgression, nature expels us, as it did our first parents from her paradise for ever.’87 The imagery o f Eden aptly expresses Immalee’s transition from innocence to experience as M el­ moth tells her o f the evils o f the outside world. Maturin describes this learning process as a painful initiation. Now that Immalee has sampled the Tree of Knowledge, she finds the fruit ‘bitter to her taste.’88 Indeed in the ‘Lovers’ T ale’ the first state of love is likened to mankind before the Fall ‘inhaling the odours o f paradise’ and ‘enjoying the communion of the Deity.’89 Nevertheless, Melmoth the tempter persuades Immalee to mar­ ry him three years later when the couple reach Spain, the country o f Im­ malee’s birth. By binding himself to Melmoth, Immalee risks sharing in his damnation. The ceremony is enacted in a ruined Gothic chapel where Immalee notices that the hand that binds them in marriage ‘was as cold as that of death.’90 Robert Kiely draws attention to this death imagery as indicative of how Immalee’s life is eventually to become ‘a series o f dull and repetitive vows to death’91 which culminate in her own death and that of M elmoth’s child. Paradoxically sh e'is described as the bride o f death when her bridegroom is, in fact, the possessor of perpetual life. But the imagery of death in this context refers to the extinction o f M elmoth’s spiritual salvation.

Interpolated within this story is the ‘Tale of Guzm an’s Fam ily’ which is set prior to 1676. This account o f the poverty o f a family may be auto­ biographical. Nevertheless, the description of how the eldest son is driv­ en to selling his own blood to a surgeon in order to buy food for the starv­ ing family was probably taken from Polidori’s tale of an immortal, The

Vampire (1819).92 Yet despite such grinding poverty, the father o f the

family manages to resist Mel m oth's offer.93

The story o f W alberg’s family is followed by ‘The Lover’s T ale’ set in the 1660s, which describes how once again Melmoth fails to secure a vic­ tim. Following the ‘Lovers’ T ale’ the ‘Tale of the Indians’ is resumed with an account o f the death of Immalee, who in Spain is known as Isidora. But just before Mon9ada tells young Melmoth more tales about

his ancestor, the W anderer himself arrives to announce that his own end has come. Melmoth then ages rapidly in a Faust-1 ike ending to the nov­ el. His final words are a warning to John Melmoth and Mon^ada: ‘remember your lives will be the forfeit o f your desperate curiosity. For the same stake I risked more than life - and lost it! - Be warned - re­ tire! 194

MATURIN AND THE ROSICRUCIAN HERESY

and elixir o f life as akin to madness. For Melmoth love is experienced as the joy of madness like M aturin’s hero Connal in The M ilesian Chief, who reflects on the relationship between desire and lunacy:

my long night will be without a ray, but not without a dream: on my desolate rock the light of your image will visit me, as the moon does the cell o f the maniac, it brings madness with it, but it brings the joy o f madness too.95

M elmoth’s madness is the purely mechanistic form of reason which eradi­ cates irrational fears of extinction by extinguishing death itself. Hence Melmoth lives out the Rosicrucian tradition prefigured by Cornelius Agrippa, who insisted that individuals could surmount death through the power o f the intellect. By transcending mortality, Agrippa believed that humanity could be elevated to god-like proportions. Theologically, the acquisition of the philosopher’s stone and the elixir of life represented considerable autonomy from G od’s eternal laws.

The heresy implicit in M elmoth’s defiance o f his creator parallels Faust’s attempt to regain the dominion lost through the Fall. Agrippa claimed that Adam by his ‘original sin’ lost power over nature which the magus regains through the conquest o f death. The Christian and Rosicru­ cian patterns of redemption may be seen in the following analogies. First, Adam by eating the forbidden fruit o f the Tree o f Knowledge precip­ itated the necessity for the divine redemption o f the Crucifixion and Res­ urrection. Similarly the adept who drinks the elixir of life having had ac­ cess to the philosopher’s stone must then seek out salvation in his own extended existence. For one of the characters in Melmoth, who is de­ scribed as an apprentice of Satan, exculpation may be achieved through the guilt and suffering of others. As he tells one of his victims, Alonza Mon^ada, ‘I have literally worked out my salvation by your fear and trem­ bling.’96 For the adept who has stepped outside the confines of his own mortality, there can be no Day of Judgement upon which he may exoner­ ate him self for his sins. Since the symbolic effect o f the Fall must be re­ versed in his own protracted lifetime, the adept is forced into a limbo o f endless boredom within which there is no foreseeable goal. As a result