Title: Dreaming in fire and working in clay: the problem of translating ideas into words in Arthur Machen's The Great God Pan
Source document: Brno studies in English. 2017, vol. 43, iss. 1, pp. [213]-232
Extent
[213]-232
-
ISSN0524-6881 (print)1805-0867 (online)
Persistent identifier (DOI): https://doi.org/10.5817/BSE2017-1-12
Stable URL (handle): https://hdl.handle.net/11222.digilib/137094
Type: Article
Language
License: Not specified license
Notice: These citations are automatically created and might not follow citation rules properly.
Abstract(s)
The present article explores Arthur Machen's (1863–1947) influential work The Great God Pan (1894) in terms of the discrepancy between Machen's original aim in writing the novella, which was expressing the sublime feelings he experienced when he beheld the valley of Usk in his native Wales – and the result, a horror tale where Pan seems to embody the ultimate evil. Taking into account the original idea, as well as the final rendition problematises the idea of a sinister Pan, making him more ambiguous. First, the final version of "The Great God Pan" is analysed in terms of its Decadent features, as well as its effect on the reader, features that placed it in the horror genre. Subsequently, a contrasting way of reading is offered that considers the circumstances that gave rise to the novella. From this reading, Pan emerges as a transcendent spirit of Nature rather than an embodiment of evil.
References
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[3] Byron, Glennis (2012) 'Gothic in the 1890s.' In: Punter, David (ed.) A New Companion to the Gothic. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
[4] Dowling, Linda C. (2014) Language and Decadence in the Victorian Fin de Siecle. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
[5] Ferguson, Christine (2002) 'Decadence as scientific fulfillment.' PMLA 117(3), 465–478. | DOI 10.1632/003081202X60413
[6] Gawsworth, John (2013) The Life of Arthur Machen. Leyburn: Tartarus Press.
[7] Joshi, S. T. (1990) The Weird Tale. Holicong, PA: Wildside Press.
[8] Kaye, Richard A. (2007) 'Sexual identity at the fin de siècle.' In: Marshall, Gail (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to the Fin de Siècle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 53–72.
[9] Kristeva, Julia (1982) Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection. Columbia University Press.
[10] Lovecraft, H. P. (2012) The Annotated Supernatural Horror in Literature. Edited by Sunand Tryambak Joshi. New York: Hippocampus Press.
[11] Machen, Arthur (1923) Things Near and Far. London: Martin Secker.
[12] Machen, Arthur (2006) The Great God Pan and The Hill of Dreams. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications.
[13] Machen, Arthur (2011) The White People and Other Weird Stories. New York: Penguin Books.
[14] Machen, Arthur (2013) Far Off Things. Miami: HardPress Publishing.
[15] MacLeod, Kirsten (2006) Fictions of British Decadence: High Art, Popular Writing, and the Fin de Siècle. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
[16] Merivale, Patricia (1969) Pan the Goat-God: His Myth in Modern Times. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP.
[17] Nashe, Thomas (1905) The Works of Thomas Nashe. Edited by Ronald B. McKerrow, vol. 3. London: Bullen.
[18] Navarette, Susan J. (1998) The Shape of Fear: Horror and the Fin de Siècle Culture of Decadence. Lexington, Ky.: The UP of Kentucky.
[19] Ruddick, Nicholas (2007) 'The fantastic fiction of the fin de siècle.' In: Marshall, Gail (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to the Fin de Siècle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 189–206.
[20] Showalter, Elaine (1992) Sexual Anarchy: Gender and Culture at the Fin de Siècle. London: Virago.
[21] Thain, Marion (2007) 'Poetry.' In: Marshall, Gail (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to the Fin de Siècle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 223–240.