Just started a free Gothic Fiction class with @RomGothSam - looking today at types of demons in Gothic texts. Starting with interacting with the paradigms and understandings of the devil/demonic that these texts deal with. Biblical verses on Lucifer's fall: meagre.

Luke 10:18 is all Jesus says about Satan's fall, no story, no other context in this section.

Isa. 14:12-15 ? Elements of pride and fall but the context is a prophecy against Babylonian king.

Rev. 20:7-10 - another element of narrative =plunging into burning lake. Not coherent

Rev. 9:1 - some key features again that are put together. Milton, rather than the Bible, put the narrative together in popular thought.

2 Enoch 29:34 - pseudoepigraphic text (apocryphal)

So this is the religious background the Gothic is interacting with, lots of scope.

Soooo ur in the Gothic... have you spotted Satan recently...?

Watch out for snails.

You can sign up to @RomGothSam's classes which is Dr Hirst's only job atm: send a coffee via http://www.ko-fi.com/SamHirst 

Some themes covered in Part 1: the Pact theme. This is a literary and folkloric conceit and not Biblical. This is an almost anti-Biblical narrative, folk-religious not theologically sound, where one specific act damns you.

2. The sublime dread commander. Archangel ruin, like John Milton's conception in Paradise Lost (1667/74) which influences the Gothic in later centuries.

The "recipe" inc demonic monstrosity from Dante, theological concept as enemy of God, heritage of Milton....

....and many other constructions and concepts.

Starting with the French School, Fantastique / Fantastic Novel, where you are never sure what's going on even by the end. First text: The Devil in Love. Young knowledge seeker (Spanish) summons a shapeshifter demon.

The demon appears as a curious camel. Young man rebukes it, it becomes a dog, a pageboy, a young maid. Gender ambiguity. Sex with the demon in its maid form is the pact moment: young man has to acquiese to own damnation. After this, pronouns change to he/him and maid = devil.

In order to show young man his true form.... the devil becomes a load of snails. And then again the camel head. With an enormous tongue.

MOVING ON

Discussion now of Matthew Lewis's THE MONK (of course!!)

This one was a Goodreads Gothic Lit Group book of the month.

Idea of deceptive beauty of the devil in this story.

Again, dropping Sam's ko-fi here, and will be doin this throughout the thread. Precarious academia is bad times y'all and these classes are free so you can sign up over @RomGothSam http://www.ko-fi.com/SamHirst 

Other 18thC texts being covered also cover visions in dreams, mutual desire, romanticisation.

Now we get into deep aesthetic theory on the demonic sublime, borrowed from theological theoreticians like Edmund Burke but there were critiques of Burke and he was not the only influential theoretician. What is the sublime?

Burke's language: an encounter with the sublime creates astonishment, horror, admiration, reverence and respect. It works on your soul, leads to contemplation.

The root, model and pinnacle of the sublime is God/the Divine. Very relevant for reading Gothic texts on the demonic.

Milton's Paradise Lost is an e.g. of orthodox sublimity - the devil is an e.g. of perverse sublimnity. Stands in shadow of the Divine and is an unwilling agent of divine judgement. Reenacts own fall w/victims, unable to escape it.

Heterodox view of sublime: the sublimity is unrelinquished and not revealed as putrid, ruined, monstrous. Tension of demonic agency and free will. Daemonising the Divine. Clear separation between OT terror of God and NT Christ. Calvinist conception of Divinity - terror of God too

"Heretic texts" is a good lens to view these texts through.

More modern text e.g.s:

The Devil Rides Out 1934
Rosemary's Baby 1967
The Exorcist 1971

failures of religion to cope with demonic.

End of Days 1999 (dir. Peter Hyams)
The Prophecy 1995 (dir. Gregory Widen)

There is a lot of heterodoxy in modern texts too. Q&A time for Part 1 and there is a short break.

Buy Sam a coffee at http://www.ko-fi.com/SamHirst 

Q&A discusses dreams and sublimity discourse further, covering development of ideas and constructs from (European) Medieval to Enlightenment periods.

Also discussion on devil as agent of punishment and the tension of him unable to escape God's plan... can you work outside of it or are you trapped by it regardless? And a recap of sublimity models.

After break / Q&A for Part 1 we move on to Romantic/romantic depictions and revisions of the demonic in Part 2.

Grabbing a coffee brb

Part 2!! Differentiation between the Romantic Satan and the Gothic Satan. Romanticising Satan begins with Milton's Paradise Lost where he is depicted as an antiheroic figure. Air of the tragic, hubris, appears. Rereading of him as Misunderstood Rebel.

Set against the backdrop of socio-political upheaval in Europe and America. Devil becomes vehicle of political subversion which helps this re-reading, as a figure representing Jacobean principles - cf. William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft. Outcast female genius hurled out for-

-pursuing equality, is a theme in Wollstonecraft's work. Feminine autonomy and female desire placed in this narrative and linked here.

Byron of course doesn't mess about with subtelty he just goes for it.

Thelogical critique of Satan in Byron's poetry: devil stays sublime so his words maintain value. Byron also questions validity of original sin and arbitrary nature of God's will (same poem, Cain and Abel one)

Oooh here we go with Lermentov - Demon (1839) - the kiss of death, the doomed satanic hero with tragic "Byronic" core (but the Russian version obvs)

Loving the James Maclachlan differentiation bw these types of antiheroes - "Satan the asshole... he imagines himself God".

Discussion now of Melmoth.

Melmoth has a long-lasting embodiment as a witness to his own failure. His premise was no one would sell their soul to the devil. He wanders about proving this by tempting ppl. He seeks equals and never tempts those who can't resist. Cuts theological and colonial critique.

Melmoth cons: laughs at ppl dying, drives ppl to madness, abandons wife and kids to the inquisition, seeks forbidden knowledge, and this all comes from place of cynicism.

Covering also:::

Satanism as developed modern religion/philosophy

And
Antiheroes/Assholes in::

Legend
Good Omens
Lucifer (comics/TV show)

Break - theology to come in Part 3

Meanwhile Q&A in the break.

Observation question? Byronic hero is bad boy archetype but actually the Romanticised Antihero Satan is the actual archetype of modern bad boy romances?? Yeah totes

See also: Heathcliff vs Rochester.

Heathcliff would def cover this. Rochester not so much.

Lady devils - Lilith figure is a whole other path to trace so not covered here but yeah lots

This is a good point while we chat to drop Sam's ko-fi AGAIN this is kinda the ad break... if you don't want my ad breaks sign up to the classes I guess but here it is:: http://www.ko-fi.com/SamHirst 

Also go follow the Sheffield Gothic Studies folk for more stuff they are on Twitters

PART 3!!!! Looking now at national traditions in demonic depiction starting with the Scottish Gothic. There are overlaps in British Gothic, but def differences as well in national trends. (See my own blog series on Welsh Gothic based on Jane Aaron's book, e.g.)

Thomas Nashe: kirk of Scotland is Presbyterian so very radical reformation Calvinistic Protestantism. Scottish devil influenced by this and by Scottish folkloric elements. Theological move from sublime and monstrous to a devil you can't recognise, an adversary of all.

Oh sorry i meant to quote Nashe never mind. Also see also 1 Pet 5:8 & Matt 7:15 as key verses.

James Hogg!!! My fave. MEMOIRS AND CONFESSIONS OF A JUSTIFIED SINNER is a key Gothic text. Double Predestination thesis: both elected to be saved & elected for hell. antinomianism

Robert Wringham (main char of Hogg's text) - the demonic double. Have you accidentally murdered ppl without realising? Have you met a doppelganger who wants you to commit crimes? Do you keep losing time? Etc

Reliance on false doctrine, deception, manipulation.

Duality of the demonic double; duplicity, inward/outward acting on latent desires like ... murder, sex. The relation bw devil &man, inherent evil in man. Calvinistic point of Total Depravity. But! These texts also bring up-

-the possibility of salvation, God interested in individual salvation and keeps offering chances. So actually these texts lean into Armenianism as a counterpoint of hope.

Discussion of long tradition of difficult-to-detect demons in Scottish gothic text, which inc. MARKHEIM and DR JEKYLL AND MR HYDE... inherent duality of man, Total Depravity, inability to separate from the Dark Self in this life. Plus more! Muriel Spark & James Robertson et al

Some concluding thoughts now, bibliography going online... now it is the last break! More Q&A