The Supernatural in Modern English Fiction — John Shaqi
The Supernatural in Modern English FictionScarborough, Dorothy
History
The Supernatural in Modern English Fiction
Scarborough, Dorothy
English fiction -- History and criticism; Supernatural in literature
Turgeniev's pronounced strain of the unearthly has had its influence
on English fiction. He uses the dream elements to a marked degree, as
in _The Song of Love Triumphant_, a story of Oriental magic employed
through dreams and music, and _The Dream_, an account of a son's
revelatory visions of his unknown father. The dream element has
been used considerably in our late fiction, some of which seems to
reflect Turgeniev. Another motive that he uses effectively is that
of suggested vampirism,[63] and of psychical vampirism,[64] where a
young man is "set upon" by the spirit of a dead woman he has scarcely
known, till he dies under the torment. This seems to have affected
such stories as that of psychical vampirism in _The Vampire_, by
Reginald Hodder. We find in much of Turgeniev's prose the symbolic,
mystical supernaturalism besides his use of dreams, visions, and a
distinct Oriental element. In _Knock! Knock! Knock!_ the treatment
of whose spiritualism reminds one somewhat of Browning's,[65] in
its initial skepticism and later hesitation, the final effect of
which is to impress one with a sense of supernaturalism working
extraordinarily through natural means, so that it is more powerful than
the mere conventional ghostly could be, we see what may have been the
inspiration for certain spiritualistic novels and stories in English.
The same tone is felt in Hamlin Garland's treatment of the subject,
for instance. The mystical romanticism of Turgeniev is less brutally
Russian than that of most of his compeers.
[63] As in _Phantoms_.
[64] As in _Clara Militch_.
[65] In _Sludge, the Medium_.
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