Diana Pérez Edelman, Embryology and the Rise of The Gothic Novel (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021) pp.179, £109.99 Hb. £99.99 Pb. £79.50 ebook. ISBN: 978-3-030-73647-7
Diana Pérez Edelman’s study correlates the proto-scientific field of embryology with the genesis of the Gothic novel. Through a biological context, Edelman uncovers the scientific relationship between Gothic narratives and eighteenth-century theories of embryology. The study aims to broaden understandings of the historical and cultural roots of the Gothic alongside scientific theories of generation. It aims to destabilise dichotomies that have dominated the critical history of Gothic studies, such as male/female, natural/supernatural, horror/terror, and conservative/progressive. For this purpose, Edelman traces the links between early Gothic works and their embryological contexts. ‘Through the sciences of generation’, Edelman argues, ‘the Gothic emerges, ironically, as scientifically progressive and an aesthetic success in its proliferation of genres’ (3). Therefore, Edelman takes a revisionist approach to Gothic studies, challenging dominant readings of the Gothic which perceive it as a nostalgic turn to the sacred and superstitious. Edelman agrees with Diane Hoeveler’s premise of the Gothic constituting an ambivalent shift to a progressive and secular modernity (3). The author’s investigation of the origins of the Gothic was prompted by Steven Bruhm’s claim that the search for the mysterious genesis of the Gothic results in ‘“ghostly manifestations’’’ (3). Edelman materialises these manifestations through the Gothic’s biological and aesthetic origins by drawing on the history of medicine, focusing on the relationship between embryology and the formation of the Gothic genre.
Embryology and the Rise of The Gothic Novel shifts away from focus on the maternal body and birth, instead focusing on conception: the central concern of embryology. It also intertwines feminist and medical perspectives to show how embryology played a role in the development of the Gothic genre, while exploring the ways in which the Gothic adopts and contests scientific progress. The Gothic, Edelman asserts, is the ‘mode most suited to explore these questions’ (5). Accordingly, the book aligns itself with discussions of the ‘“materialist register”’ in the Romantic period, such as James Robert Allard’s Romanticism, Medicine, and the Poet’s Body (2007) and Gavin Budge’s Romanticism, Medicine and the Natural Supernatural (2012), studies which focus on bodily materiality. Edelman’s monograph distinguishes itself by extending this materialist register to the reproductive sciences, combining both a study of aesthetics and biology.
Embryology and the Rise of The Gothic Novel is divided into seven chapters. Chapter One, ‘Conceiving the Gothic’, introduces the study through a close reading of an unpublished poem by Horace Walpole, who describes his juvenile poem through contemporaneous theories of embryology; panspermism (an early form of preformatism), preformation (the belief that microscopic human beings reside in the female egg or male sperm before conception), and epigenesis (the theory that the foetus gradually develops to achieve full form). Preformation and epigenesis are competing theories, yet both express an underlying conflict between male and female, often downplaying the female role. The history of criticism for Gothic Studies, Edelman contends, addresses science and medicine but omits the reproductive sciences. The introduction further establishes a link between embryological discourse and the development of the Gothic through the ‘autogony of self’ (17), monstrosity, and hybridity. The introduction, while informative, includes extensive discussions of preformatism and epigenesis, in some instances at the expense of the argument.
Chapter Two argues for Walpole’s progressive engagement with embryological discourses to challenge the notion that the Gothic is merely nostalgic and unconcerned with scientific progress and modernity. The representative text of this chapter is Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1764), often read as an idealisation of a Gothic past. Edelman refutes this argument by contending that the novel’s engagement with the supernatural was to get at the truth of biological origins, as supported by Walpole’s borrowings of concepts and terms from embryological scientific models. Chapter Three centres on the novels of Ann Radcliffe. Edelman challenges the critical history of Radcliffean scholarship which characterises her oeuvre as conservative Gothic, due to its assertion of paternalistic societal values. Instead, Edelman explicates the role of Unitarian religious influences in shaping Radcliffe’s writing, arguing that Radcliffe’s work is representative of epigenetic literature in its centring of biological identity as a plot point and its proliferating narratives.
The first two main chapters are concerned with development of the Gothic genre by tracing their embryological origins through the influence of preformist and epigenetic discourse from contemporaneous scientific and religious perspectives. In the three remaining chapters, the author shifts the focus to more epigenetic literary works that were published during the mid and late stage of the Gothic period, which is more demonstrative of epigenetic literature. Chapter Four turns to the first edition of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1816), highlighting Shelley’s concerns with origins and monstrosity. Edelman uncovers the embryological contexts of Frankenstein to argue for the aesthetic success of the Gothic genre and how the novel was conceptualised. Much of this chapter reiterates previous studies of Frankenstein in which the embryological context has been discussed extensively. However, this chapter provides a detailed explication of these contexts. Chapter Five directs the focus to Charles Robert Maturin’s Melmoth the Wanderer (1820), published two years after Frankenstein, as an illustration of the conflict between preformation and epigenesis and the clash of superstition/science, and mechanic/organic. The discussion of Melmoth establishes an explicit connection with embryological discourses whereas with Frankenstein, as Edelman argues, the links are implicit. The frame narrative of Melmoth intertwines aesthetically with the theme of human generation, supported by the novel’s own self-reflexivity. This chapter supports the premise of the study quite strongly as direct connections are made between the text’s aesthetics and relevant theories and is exemplary in its unique reading of an understudied Gothic text. Chapter Six moves on to James Hogg’s The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824), and, in contradistinction to the previous three works, argues for an anti-preformationist narrative through the Calvinist context of the plot, which emphasises the theology of double-predestination. The novel is posited as an allegory of biological preformation, supporting a progressive and positive view of epigenesis through the main character’s loss of identity.
Edelman’s study concludes with a discussion of ‘Gothic Offspring’ (169), arguing that the multiple forms of the Gothic are easily traceable due to its emphasis on essential questions concerning origins, which morph alongside the development of reproductive sciences. This claim is not entirely convincing as it homogenises the forms of the Gothic to ‘fundamental biological and aesthetic concerns’ (169). The Gothic is presented as an embryonic source with descendants, which plays into the theme of reproduction, but does not fully consider the variations and proliferations of the Gothic or problematise the notion of the Gothic itself. Perhaps further studies can consider texts – to play upon the genesis metaphor – that are ‘regenerated’ by foundational Gothic works. Nonetheless, the author’s delineation provides a coherent timeline of Gothic works characterised as epigenetic.
Overall, Embryology and the Rise of The Gothic Novel is an interesting and well-researched monograph, offering original insights into the development of the Gothic alongside eighteenth-century embryological discourses. It provides a critical and informative literary-scientific perspective into well-known as well as understudied texts of Gothic literature. I recommend it as a reference for eighteenth-century Gothic fiction, specifically for researchers interested in epigenetic literature and embryological discourses.
Arwa F. Al-Mubaddel, Cardiff University
