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Melmoth el Errabundo
Cuando a principios del siglo XIX la novela gótica languidecía repitiéndose a sí misma, un excéntrico clérigo irlandés, de familia hugonote huida de Francia tras la revocación del Edicto de Nantes, le proporcionó su cota más alta que ciertamente excedió a todo cuánto el género había logrado hasta entonces. Se trata de Charles Robert Maturin (1780-1811, oscuro autor de varias novelas publicadas anónimamente o bajo seudónimo y de algunas tragedias de efímero éxito, como Sir Bertram o The Castle of St. Aldobrand, quién se aseguró la inmortalidad literaria con Melmoth el Errabundo, "obra romántica por excelencia y código del romanticismo" , en opinión de Charles Baudelaire.
Desmedida y fragmentaria en su estructura, pero exenta de la ampulosidad y retórica propias de la ficción gótica así como las usuales explicaciones racionales a sus profusos efectos sobrenaturales, la novela narra, con una sabia dosificación de elementos terroríficos, la pesadillesca historia de un hombre condenado a la inmortalidad como consecuencia de un pacto con el diablo. La trágica grandeza del personaje, para Lovecraft una de las "supremas figuras alegóricas de la moderna literatura europea" equiparable a Don Juan de Moliere, al Fausto de Goethe y al Manfredo de Byron, explica la fascinación que despertó en escritores como Walter Scott, Balzac, Poe, Víctor Hugo, Baudelaire y, más recientemente, André Bretón.
Desmedida y fragmentaria en su estructura, pero exenta de la ampulosidad y retórica propias de la ficción gótica así como las usuales explicaciones racionales a sus profusos efectos sobrenaturales, la novela narra, con una sabia dosificación de elementos terroríficos, la pesadillesca historia de un hombre condenado a la inmortalidad como consecuencia de un pacto con el diablo. La trágica grandeza del personaje, para Lovecraft una de las "supremas figuras alegóricas de la moderna literatura europea" equiparable a Don Juan de Moliere, al Fausto de Goethe y al Manfredo de Byron, explica la fascinación que despertó en escritores como Walter Scott, Balzac, Poe, Víctor Hugo, Baudelaire y, más recientemente, André Bretón.
514 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1820
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About the author
Charles Robert Maturin
161 books125 followersCharles Robert Maturin was an Irish Protestant clergyman (ordained by the Church of Ireland) and a writer of gothic plays and novels.
His first three works were published under the pseudonym Dennis Jasper Murphy and were critical and commercial failures. They did, however, catch the attention of Sir Walter Scott, who recommended Maturin's work to Lord Byron. With the help of these two literary luminaries, the curate's play, Bertram (first staged on 9 May 1816 at the Drury Lane for 22 nights) with Edmund Kean starring in the lead role as Bertram, saw a wider audience and became a success. Financial success, however, eluded Maturin, as the play's run coincided with his father's unemployment and another relative's bankruptcy, both of them assisted by the fledgling writer. To make matters worse, Samuel Taylor Coleridge publicly denounced the play as dull and loathsome, and "melancholy proof of the depravation of the public mind", going nearly so far as to decry it as atheistic. Coleridge's comments on Bertram can also be found in 'Biographia Literaria', chapter 23. The Church of Ireland took note of these and earlier criticisms and, having discovered the identity of Bertram's author (Maturin had shed his nom de plume to collect the profits from the play), subsequently barred Maturin's further clerical advancement. Forced to support his wife and four children by writing (his salary as curate was £80-90 per annum, compared to the £1000 he made for Bertram), he switched back from playwright to novelist after a string of his plays met with failure. One of his grandsons, Basil W. Maturin, a Chaplain at Oxford University, died in the sinking of RMS Lusitania in 1915.
Charles Robert Maturin died in Dublin on 30 October 1824. Honoré de Balzac and Charles Baudelaire later expressed fondness for Maturin's work, particularly his most famous novel, Melmoth the Wanderer.
His first three works were published under the pseudonym Dennis Jasper Murphy and were critical and commercial failures. They did, however, catch the attention of Sir Walter Scott, who recommended Maturin's work to Lord Byron. With the help of these two literary luminaries, the curate's play, Bertram (first staged on 9 May 1816 at the Drury Lane for 22 nights) with Edmund Kean starring in the lead role as Bertram, saw a wider audience and became a success. Financial success, however, eluded Maturin, as the play's run coincided with his father's unemployment and another relative's bankruptcy, both of them assisted by the fledgling writer. To make matters worse, Samuel Taylor Coleridge publicly denounced the play as dull and loathsome, and "melancholy proof of the depravation of the public mind", going nearly so far as to decry it as atheistic. Coleridge's comments on Bertram can also be found in 'Biographia Literaria', chapter 23. The Church of Ireland took note of these and earlier criticisms and, having discovered the identity of Bertram's author (Maturin had shed his nom de plume to collect the profits from the play), subsequently barred Maturin's further clerical advancement. Forced to support his wife and four children by writing (his salary as curate was £80-90 per annum, compared to the £1000 he made for Bertram), he switched back from playwright to novelist after a string of his plays met with failure. One of his grandsons, Basil W. Maturin, a Chaplain at Oxford University, died in the sinking of RMS Lusitania in 1915.
Charles Robert Maturin died in Dublin on 30 October 1824. Honoré de Balzac and Charles Baudelaire later expressed fondness for Maturin's work, particularly his most famous novel, Melmoth the Wanderer.
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