The subversive subtext of Shakespearean allusion in Sheridan LeFanu’s ‘Carmilla’

Abstract

Early on in J. Sheridan LeFanu’s ‘Carmilla’, Laura’s father rattles off the opening lines of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice (p.14; 1.1.1-4). It is the most obvious but not the only allusion to Shakespeare in LeFanu’s gothic tale. This article identifies a handful of further references, notably to Cleopatra and Ophelia, and to instances of disguise in The Taming of the Shrew and Romeo and Juliet, and to cross dressing in Twelfth Night. It begs the question, ‘What is Shakespeare doing haunting LeFanu’s nineteenth-century text?’ Ultimately connecting these allusions, some more subtle than others, to the othering of Carmilla (and her associates) and to the twin corruptions of cross-dressing and suicide, the article finds that the sometimes only half-visible figures of Shakespeare’s plays act as alluring but corrupting forces within LeFanu’s diabolical tale not unlike the titular vampire.