Beckford's Inversion of Romance in Vathek

Abstract

The contradiction between escapism and didacticism in Beckford's Vathek has long troubled its readers. While the eighteenth century accepted the tale's moral conclusion as justification for its sensual excess and grotesque humor, modern readers are likely to reject that interpretation, concluding that the tale's ironies serve a frivolous rather than a serious end. Yet the elements of parody, such as stylistic and imaginative exaggeration, are contained by a rigidly architectonic form that inverts the triadic principle of romance. This essay explores Vathek's progress through the stages of romance ‐ agon, pathos, and anagnorisis ‐ to document Beckford's careful manipulation of a familiar convention. The novel retains the structure of romance, but inverts the hero's progress. The result is a linear descent: aesthetically, from the Hill of Pied Horses to the Hall of Eblis; psychologically, from wish‐fulfillment to frustration; and metaphysically, from a vision of humanity as unlimited potentiality to humanity as finite actuality in an alien world. This inversion not only unifies aesthetics and ethics, or orientalism and protestantism, but also complicates the moral vision of romance by presenting a dark vision of the human condition.