The Gothic Quest: A History of the Gothic Novel

by Montague Summers

Book by Summers, Montague

Genres: Gothic, Nonfiction, Literary Criticism

443 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1938

About the author

Augustus Montague Summers was an Anglican priest and later convert to Roman Catholicism known primarily for his scholarly work on the English drama of the 17th century, as well as for his studies on witches, vampires, and werewolves, in all of which he professed to believe. He was responsible for the first English translation, published in 1928, of the notorious 15th-century witch hunter's manual, the Malleus Maleficarum.

Reviews

[Katarzyna Bartoszynska · Rating 4 out of 5]

“To escape thus from humdrum reality is a primitive desire, and, in itself, it is excellent and right. The world, if we had not our dreams, would, God knows, be a very dull place. Of course, as precisians will never fail to tell you, there is danger in dreams. But, if we had not our dreams, life, I take it, would be far more dangerous; in fact, it would not be worth living at all. We call our dreams Romance, and it was just this that the Gothic novelists gave to their readers. This, then, is exactly the reason why I think the Gothic novelists, with all their faults and failings, have done us an infinite service, and proved themselves true friends to those of us who care to withdraw, be it even for a short time, and at rare intervals, from the relentless oppression and carking cares of a bitter actuality.” (198)

A classic of Gothic criticism. To be honest, I had kind of figured it was out-dated and not really worth reading, but I was wrong. It's definitely old school, and often more descriptive than analytical (the chapter on the Historical Gothic, for instance, is mostly a list of semi-detailed descriptions of all Gothic novels influenced by Sophia Lee's The Recess), but nonetheless, there are some insightful arguments to be found. The essential argument, or rather, paean, as you can begin to see from the above quote, is that the Gothic represents the height of the romantic, which is the opposite of the realistic. But there is also a lot of good material in the classic, philological vein, discussing influences and literary-historical contexts. And delightful, ornate prose, with an occasional touch of the curmudgeonly. I'm glad I read it.

[Malia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is extremely proof that criticism is autobiography. Montague Summers a) has the greatest name of all time for a chronicler of Gothic literature and b) is a one man Satanic Panic.

I love how he hates Gothic literature that has the supernatural explained. Like he thinks Satan is REAL and to have a book where it was a deranged monk causing the hijinks just WON'T DO.

He also makes kind of a lot of wild suppositions/accusations that aren't really cited in a way that holds up to my contemporary eyes, so I feel like everything in this book should be taken with a grain of salt.

[Alex Sarll]

Hard to believe that this was written on the eve of the Second World War, when the copy I found in Victoria Library earned several understandably suspicious looks from my spouse for its resemblance to a cursed tome. As for Montague Summers himself, well, he looked like Mr Toad dressed up as an early modern clergyman for a lark, and often wrote like that too, seeing nothing wrong in breaking off from a potted biography of a writer to splutter for a few pages about the terrible shortcomings in someone else's bibliography of them. Even when I agree with him, I sometimes found myself raising an eyebrow; yes, I do think it undermines a Gothic novel when, at the end, a feeble Scooby-Doo explanation insists that none of the spooky stuff we've seen was genuinely supernatural, but it's a bold angle to argue that the main reason for this is that of course the supernatural is real, and why shouldn't novels reflect that? Still, if nothing else this attitude does fit Summers to his subject, as against his sniffiness about stories which play on the misdeeds of an often shakily understood Catholic Church, which surely is going to impede anyone's enjoyment of the genre nearly as much as scepticism of spectres.

At its worst, The Gothic Quest can read as a terrible warning to all who fancy a go at literary criticism, if only in its Goodreads form. Sometimes there'll be page after page of unenlightening plot summaries of C-list novels, most of them deservedly forgotten, each garnered with a little opinion but less insight - and that's when he's not getting bogged down in the minutiae of various slightly different editions. Sometimes even material that's potentially interesting in its own right, as with the survey of circulating libraries, suffers from his inability to leave anything out, drowning the key points in repetition, and fragmenting the momentum of the book as a whole. This is the first time in a while that I've taken so long over a library book as to find myself butting up against renewal limits.

Yet, I did persevere, and not just because old books smell so nice, especially when one is reading lovely evocations of the settings and furniture of the Gothic as a whole, all those crags and castles, monasteries and midnight bells. Part of it is that, in amassing so many trifles, Summers has included some gems. Are there too many contemporary reviews quoted? Undoubtedly, but the best of them are hilarious, such as this from the Mirror: "If we merely apprize our readers that there exists a novel bearing the title above mentioned, we think we shall do sufficient honour to the Wanderer of the Alps, and the author ought to thank us for not proceeding any further." Elsewhere, the laugh is at rather than with the original writer: Frankenstein "was regarded by the Monthly Review as 'An uncouth story... setting probability at defiance and leading to no conclusion either moral or philosophical. A serious examination is scarcely necessary for so eccentric a vagary of the imagination as this tale presents.'" He correctly anatomises the failings of the 'critickins' (and isn't that a fabulous word?) who attempt to prove that Shakespeare can't have written Titus Andronicus simply because it offends their own tender sensibilities, and is good on how odd it is that Mrs Radcliffe and Monk Lewis should so often be bracketed together as the presiding figures of the Gothic when they were such fundamentally different writers. True, to some extent this rests on another deviation, into the Romantics versus the Augustans, but as well as neatly summarising the latter's crimes ("They aimed at an elegant and correct serenity; they achieved a systematized and monotonous frigidness."), he goes further when he notes that the only Augustan of any lasting interest, Pope, was at his best when his closet Romantic tendencies were showing. And heavens know, if we scorn the Augustans, as of course we must, then it's hard to think of anything better suited to offend their snooty shades than this wilfully uneven, overstuffed and barely structured celebration of blood, thunder and perversity. Although in an odd sort of yin-yang way, I wonder whether, just as Pope is saved from total worthlessness by that Romantic mote, Summers might not have his own Augustan blemish. After all, most critics tend at least to pretend that work they praise elevates itself above its genre, if only in some small way. Whereas the main impression here is that, so long as some three-volume obscurity fits itself to the form of the Gothic and isn't too abysmally executed, that'll be more than enough for Monty.

Alas, that reverence for proper form curdles at last, and proceedings end on a slightly sour note with the book finally reminding us when it was written. For 380 pages we've had little hint of 20th century cultural production beyond occasional snotty references to Ulysses and Chatterley. Initially the short closing chapter, Surrealism And The Gothic Novel, feels like more of the same - opening with potshots at some of the more ludicrous claims of Monsieur Andre Breton and chums, and heavens know they deserve them. But pointing out that the Surrealists' manifesto talks a right load of crap shades into a blanket dismissal of their art, and then ominous mutterings about how they might well be in league with the forces of Hell (what could automatic writing usher in?) or worse, Communism. Which, granted, in 1938 was in an especially monstrous mode - though it's noticeable (and perhaps for the best) that Summers makes no mention of any other contemporary political systems that were no friend to the arts. But from here he extends to a wobbly and deeply partial argument that all radical art is terrible and all good artists are conservative. When he claims outright that Romanticism is reactionary not revolutionary, it's hard to know if he genuinely believes it, which would be idiotic, or is dishonestly trying to sell the reader on it, but either way it's an embarrassment when Romanticism was so often and obviously both. Mercifully, he's unable to look for very long at the present, so even this awkward final stretch is ameliorated by some more lovely writing on the topic of ruins, with which he clearly felt more comfortable.