Canterville Ghost Research Articles

Elusive Allusions: Shirley Jackson’s Gothic Intertextuality

Abstract: This article analyzes Shirley Jackson’s use of allusions in The Haunting of Hill House and Hangsaman . Drawing from Nicholas Royle’s work on the Freudian uncanny in relation to literature and pedagogy, it argues that, in both novels, allusions draw readers with literary knowledge into the protagonist’s psychological experience and ultimately comment on literary studies as an inherently gothic practice. In Hill House , a connected web of allusions to Charles Perrault’s “Bluebeard,” Oscar Wilde’s “The Canterville Ghost,” and Samuel Richardson’s Pamela works to convey the house’s telepathic power while simultaneously inviting us to feel, along with Eleanor, a proud possessiveness if we are (or think we are) able to discern the allusions’ significance for the novel. In this way, Jackson puts her well-read readers in the place of gothic protagonist; we believe we have a special ability to unearth the novel’s secrets but must ultimately wonder whether we, like Eleanor, are the ones who have been consumed. In Hangsaman , allusions to Pamela , Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland , Through the Looking-Glass , the 1908 pornographic novel The Way of a Man with a Maid , and "The Waste Land," as well as the Tarot and Tony Sarg’s marionettes, lead readers through a disorienting maze of clues and connections that replicates its protagonist’s disconnection from reality during her first year of college. In both novels, Jackson cultivates an uncanny reading experience through uncertain recollections, telepathic communications, and surprising correspondences. She illuminates both the allure and danger of literature’s enchanting power, revealing the intrinsically gothic nature of our engagements with the literary tradition.

Development of the dance-rock opera genre in the creative content of ‘Mykhailo Vodianoi’ Academic Theatre of Musical Comedy, Odesa

Background. Staging of rock opera began in Ukraine simultaneously in theaters of drama, opera and musical comedy in the mid-80s. The first drama and ballet performances were based on the works of Russian authors. From 1986 to 1993 Kharkiv Theater of Musical Comedy made stage production of rock operas based on the works of Alexander Zhurbin, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Alexey Rybnikov leaders of its repertoire policy. Since the 2000s, Odessa Theater of Musical Comedy has staged a dance-rock opera as a new modification of stage play with rock opera. The relevance of the article. Stage performances of dance-rock operas have not yet been sufficiently studied in Ukraine. Such Ukrainian musicologists as Olga Verkhovenko, Iryna Palkina, Halyna Filkevych fragmentarily have studied genre features and performance forms of dance-rock operas. In addition, some periodicals have covered these productions in their critical reviews. Methods. The work is based on a typological method, which made it possible to classify performances as a rock opera genre. The biographical method has also been applied to determine the artistic influences on the choreographer Heorhii Kovtun. The comparative method made it possible to separate the dancerock opera from other productions related to the genre of rock opera, as well as from apologetic performances that exploit already invented forms. When analyzing the performances, some elements of the reconstruction method were used. Results of the study. Odessa Musical Comedy Theater presented four performances in the genre of dance-rock opera, three of which were staged by Heorhii Kovtun. The first (and most successful) production with a new performance approach was the play “Romeo and Juliet” based on Shakespeare’s tragedy with music and libretto by Yevhen Lapeiko (Odessa). A new type of leading performers (selected at casting) appeared in the play. The type of rock opera artist represented by Kyryl Turychenko is characterized by freedom from musical comedy clichés. A pop singer with appropriate acting, athletic and dance training, he could sing when falling, climbing a two-story stage tower, or during a dynamic dance. Scenography by Stanislav Zaitsev showed a tendency towards brevity, constructiveness and simultaneous development of action in three stage dimensions. Other productions of Heorhii Kovtun – “The Canterville Ghost” and “Silicon Silly Woman.net” based on the works of Russian authors D. Rubin, A. Ivanov, O. Pantykin and K. Rubinsky developed rock opera principles invented by the choreographer rather than deepened them. The director of “The Canterville Ghost” did not quite clearly indicate the vector of the main idea. This led to the breakup of stage action into spectacular theatrical attractions with pyrotechnics and impressive stage design transformations. In fact, it is still not clear what the director was trying to recreate – a melodrama, a comedy with elements of satire or Guignol. The play “Tristan and Isolde” based on the works of the Ukrainian composer Alexander Nezhigai and playwright Serhii Piskuriov was staged by the theater director Vladimir Savinov. His ignorance of musical theater specifics contributed to the vocally and musically weak performance. Most of the action in the stage production was organized by the choreography of Anatolii Bedichev. Contrary to expectations, V. Savinov’s performance was also significantly inferior to Н. Kovtun’s performances in relation to libretto adaptation, stage design and tempo-rhythm of the performance. All rock-dance opera performances were aimed at teenage and youth audiences. Conclusions. Unlike rock operas of the previous decades, the production proposed by choreographer H. Kovtun is characterized by a synthesis of modern choreography, spectacular show, performance universalism and dynamс crowd scenes. As a choreographer, he did not pay much attention to the actors’ work on the characters. Vocally the singers gravitated towards the pop style (using microphones). Unlike earlier productions of rock operas in Ukrainian theater (with phonograms or symphonic jazz instrumentation of the theater orchestra), the troupe of Odessa Musical Comedy Theater performed rock operas with combined accompaniment (studio phonogram, theater orchestra, rock band). Further study of the multiple issues identified in the article requires a deep analysis of the repertoire, types of rock opera in the theater of musical comedy in Ukraine and the distinctive vocal and acting performance features.

ФОРМЫ ВЗАИМОДЕЙСТВИЯ «СВЕТСКОГО» И «ПРИРОДНОГО» В ХУДОЖЕСТВЕННОМ ТВОРЧЕСТВЕ ОСКАРА УАЙЛЬДА: ВЫГОДНЫЙ ОБМЕН И ЖЕРТВОПРИНОШЕНИЕ

Most of Oscar Wilde’s works focus on the high society (including the royalty), which is portrayed as artificial, imitative, and ludic. These characteristics are epitomized in the process of collecting (artificial) rarities (The Picture of Dorian Gray, Salome, The Young King), or in the passion for performance and mystification (The Birthday of the Infanta, The Sphinx Without a Secret, The Importance of Being Ernest). As opposed to the “high society”, Wilde shows the natural (or ancient) milieu, which is firmer and healthier, but devoid of aesthetic perfection. Paradoxically, the high society represents external, corporeal, aesthetic form of life, while the natural milieu means the spiritual and ethic one. Wilde shows the aesthetic or ethic perfection as a fatal and dangerous phenomenon, since fully expressing themself in one, the person has to abandon the other. As a result, a good-looking person becomes a paragon of immorality, while a morally upstanding one looks too much ugly). Wilde is interested in the technique of the interaction between the opposites, rather than in the depiction of the absolute corporeal or moral perfection. The article aims at showing the two forms of interaction between “the civilization” and “the nature”. The positive model shows a profitable exchange: one side gives exactly as much as the other side receives (i.e. the rescued Hare for the rescued Star-Child; the peace of the Canterville Ghost for Virginia’s fortunate marriage). This is the case when the characters, who have some problems with their bodies (the transparent Ghost or the serpent-like Star-Child) gain the distinct shape, as if passing from the ancient to the modern state. In the cause of mutually beneficial exchange, the happy end (in Wilde’s terms) is possible. In the negative model, we can clearly see the imbalance between the two sides: one side gives more, but receives less, while the other becomes the figure of worship. Gradually, the influence of one of the sides grows: the “predator”, like the vampire, consumes and exhausts their “victim”. Instead of the modern exchange, the relationships between “the civilization” and “the nature” transform into the ancient ritual of the sacrifice, or idol worship (Basil, Nightingale, Jokanaan), with the members of this process returning to the ancient - formless - state.

Negotiating Existential Concerns of Death and Meaninglessness through the Grotesque in Oscar Wilde’s The Canterville Ghost

Grotesque and existentialism in the field of literature generally raise four points. On the one hand, the grotesque has always been associated with negative connotation elements that usually include deformity, death, violence or monstrosity. In fact, the grotesque often carries pejorative connotations for it challenges traditions and deviates from what is accepted as the norm. On the other hand, existentialism, traced way back to as early as the 19 th century, often question the meaning of life and struggle with the anxiety of death while constantly looking for ways to justify one’s existence in a world that is filled with pessimism. Thus, this paper aims to find a point of convergence between existentialism and the grotesque by primarily focusing on how the male protagonist, Sir Simon in Oscar Wilde’s The Canterville Ghost employs the grotesque as a way to deal with existential concerns as pointed out by Irvin Yalom namely death, meaninglessness, freedom and existential isolation with an emphasis on the first two concerns. Three grotesque elements, specifically, Bakhtin’s carnivalesque, Thomson’s exaggeration, and Kohut’s narcissism will be studied alongside the two existential concerns, death and meaninglessness. By focusing on grotesque and existential elements, the paper will illustrate how the male protagonist is able to rely on the grotesque to subdue his fear and terror brought upon by the existential concerns in order to justify his sense of existence. Keywords: Oscar Wilde; Existential Concerns; Carnivalesque; Grotesque Body; Extravagance

Variants of Comprehension of the “Own” and the “Alien” in Anglo-American Literature of the End of the Nineteenth Century

The problem of encounter – meeting/conflict of the “own” and the “alien” became especially actual in Anglo-American literature of the end of the XIXth century due to the increasing tension in relations between the newly-born American nation and Old Europe on the threshold of World War I. The brightest examples of encounter depiction are revealed in the works by O. Wilde (The Canterville ghost), H. James (Daisy Miller) and M. Twain (Innocents abroad).This study concentrates on the analysis of three works with the similar plot-lines – the arrival of American “innocents”, having “new”, free-from-prejudice, pragmatic and down-to-earth life approach, to the Old World where they have to face the “old”, traditional cultural and moral values. Special attention is paid to O. Wilde’s complication of the subject-matter of his story due to the specific choice of the main character – a supernatural being. Thus, the range of problems in “The Canterville ghost” increases from the real conflict of the English (“own”) and the American (“alien”) to the encounter of the material and the ideal, of poetical literary world of fantasy and romance and reality.The researcher makes the conclusion that the works represent three different views on the encounter problem and the ways of its solution, influenced by the writers’ origin and their own interest in the certain party of the encounter which they belonged to by birth – “English” (O. Wilde), “transatlantic” (H. James) and “American” (M. Twain). H. James’ view appears to be the most pessimistic – the compromise of the “own” and the “alien” is impossible. M. Twain’s innocents admit the great value of the Old World’s cultural achievements. However, their victory over utilitarian attitude to life is an isolated case contrasting with overall pragmatism. O. Wilde’s view seems to be the most positive: his characters return to the Old World’s historical and cultural traditions and to the wonderful poetic world created by the European literature. However, the story itself is presented in a form of ironic, parodical play with the clichés of Gothic literature which shows artificiality and illusiveness of the depicted events and impossibility of their embodiment in real life.

Репрезентация архетипа «Привидение» в новелле О. Уайльда «Кентрвильское привидение»

Репрезентация архетипа «Привидение» в новелле О. Уайльда «Кентрвильское привидение»

The Decadent Image: The Poetry of Wilde, Symons and Dowson by Kostas Boyiopoulos

Reviewed by: The Decadent Image: The Poetry of Wilde, Symons and Dowson by Kostas Boyiopoulos Heather Marcovitch The Decadent Image: The Poetry of Wilde, Symons and Dowson by Kostas Boyiopoulos; pp. 224. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2015. £70.00 hardcover. It has been my experience that English decadent poetry, that oddly sinuous combination of the Romantic privileging of sensation and the signifying potential of French symbolist poetry, can engender a love-hate relationship in a reader. The appreciation of a decadent poem’s gorgeous imagery is sometimes counteracted by impatience about its tendency to slip into purple prose, and the deliberately circular structure of a poem can frustrate the attempts of a reader to discern its meaning. The over-the-top imagery [End Page 208] of Oscar Wilde’s early poems, the impressionism of Arthur Symons’s poems about London entertainments, and Ernest Dowson’s poetic expressions of longings for which there is no resolution often frustrate readers who, finding that conventional analytical approaches do not work well on these poems, will sometimes dismiss these works as shallow or immature. It is gratifying, then, to read Kostas Boyiopoulos’s book The Decadent Image: The Poetry of Wilde, Symons and Dowson (2015), in which these poems receive a thoughtful analysis of their imagery and poetic style. Boyiopoulos gives a spirited defence of these poems as articulating a “poetics of transgression” located in the body’s negotiation with art and eroticism (4). Scholars have discussed extensively the connection between decadent poetry and the aesthetic axiom that art is both the expression and creation of self-knowledge. What Boyiopoulos adds to the conversation is a meticulous attention to the details of the poems he discusses and readings that highlight the imagery and sound patterns as contributing to a tradition of decadent poetry, one that he extends to other English poets of the fin de siècle such as Michael Field, Theodore Wratislaw, and Richard Le Gallienne. The highlight of the book is its detailed study of Oscar Wilde’s early poems, many of which have been dismissed by some critics as having too much of the air of the schoolroom about them or, more precisely, the air of a young Oscar Wilde acting as England’s enfant terrible. Boyiopoulos traces some of the imagery in Wilde’s poems—notably, “The Garden of Eros” (1881), “Charmides” (1881), and “The Sphinx”—through the commonplace book Wilde kept while at Oxford and particularly through his notes on William Kingdon Clifford’s philosophy of “mind-stuff.” Clifford’s connection to Wilde’s early poems, sometimes overlooked by scholars, is a refreshing departure from the conventional focus on a Ruskin-Pater dyad influencing Wilde’s thoughts about art. Implicitly, one can trace this particular legacy to Wilde’s passing interest in spiritualism and his invocation of Constance Naden’s Hylo-Idealism in the epitaph to “The Canterville Ghost” (1887). In his section on Symons, Boyiopoulos considers Symons as a flâneur of London whose peripatetic musings form the subject matter of his two most famous books of poetry, Silhouettes (1892) and London Nights (1895), although I would argue that the speaker in most of the London Nights poems watches much more than he walks. His discussion of the city as a metonymic image for the female body and for the accompanying feminization of the city itself is especially intriguing and gestures toward an objective correlative to his argument about the vexed relationship between body and self that he perceives in decadent poetry. At times, Boyiopoulos’s mimicking of decadent style in his prose can be distracting, but these instances turn out to be interesting examples of the self-contained structures of decadent poetry. He writes about “Morbidezza” (1892), for instance, that “the contracting and expanding rhythms of the ‘bosom’s wavering slope’ make the poem breathe with Verlainesque daintiness” (111). The occasionally precious language [End Page 209] that punctuates these readings points to an inadvertent consequence of analyzing these poems in terms of their style and language. Decadent poetry, as Boyiopoulos argues, resists a totalizing reading or a reading that might suggest, in a utilitarian fashion, analogies to mundane phenomena. Without the external referent, reading the poem seems...

To Broadway, To Life! The Musical Theater of Bock and Harnick by Philip Lambert (review)

Reviewed by: To Broadway, To Life! The Musical Theater of Bock and Harnick by Philip Lambert Chris M. McCoy To Broadway, To Life! The Musical Theater of Bock and Harnick. By Philip Lambert. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. pp. xvi + 361. $35.00 cloth. The Broadway songwriting team of composer Jerry Bock and lyricist Sheldon Harnick has rightfully earned its place in the pantheon of the American musical. Collaborating between the transitional years of 1957 and 1970, this team wrote seven Broadway shows, the most successful of which, Fiddler on the Roof, is one of the most beloved and most frequently revived in the musical canon. The seven shows they created (in collaboration with many other Broadway masters too numerous to name) run the gamut from the virtually forgotten The Body Beautiful (1958) to the Pulitzer Prize-winning Fiorello! (1959) and the cult classics Tenderloin (1960), She Loves Me (1963), and The Apple Tree (1966) to the disappointing The Rothschilds (1970) as well as the career-defining Fiddler on the Roof (1964). Their shows garnered seventeen Tony Awards and inductions into the Theater and Songwriters Halls of Fame, as well as honorary degrees, awards, and productions from around the world. Their collaborative years on the Broadway stage fell directly within the transition from the Rodgers and Hammerstein era to the concept and rock musicals of the late 1960s and 1970s. Philip Lambert's To Broadway, To Life! demonstrates how the evolution of this creative duo parallels the seismic shifts happening on the Broadway stage and in U.S. society at large during this time. As Lambert observes, "Bock and Harnick stand right on the bridge between the old [End Page 221] and the new: their second show and first big success, Fiorello!, shared a Best Musical Tony Award with The Sound of Music, and their last major effort, The Rothschilds, opened on Broadway the same year as Stephen Sondheim's innovative Company" (xii). With close readings of each work from the collaborators' oeuvre, this first full-length monograph dedicated to the work of Bock and Harnick is a fascinating study not only of the subjects but also of the reception of their works and their contributions to the evolution of the American musical. The book is not a biography in the traditional sense, but rather a scholarly approach to the subjects' collaborative life together. The first two chapters provide parallel biographies of each artist's early life with appreciatively more attention paid to their artistic development than to their personal lives and relationships. These chapters give a picture-postcard view of a bygone era when adult summer camps in the Catskills provided theatrical training for up-and-coming artists and when television variety shows were nurturing future musical and theatrical talent. The intersection with other rising stars at this time, such as Chita Rivera, Charlotte Rae, and Beatrice Arthur, make for entertaining and informative reading about Broadway's so-called Golden Era. Each succeeding chapter focuses on a different Bock and Harnick musical in chronological order with a comprehensive, if sometimes formulaic methodology: genesis, collaborative creation, musicological and dramaturgical analysis, production process, reception, and revivals or further productions. Through these close readings, Lambert illuminates Bock and Harnick's unique style, providing further evidence as to why their creations are significant contributions to the musical canon. To Lambert, Bock's compositions "demonstrate a particular flair for tailoring musical style to dramatic setting," which helps to explain why virtually all of their musicals cross countries, time, and culture from 1890s New York to an Eastern European parfumerie to a Russian shtetl (35). Likewise, Lambert characterizes Harnick's lyrics as "razor sharp, all-too-relevant social commentary" inviting obvious comparisons with Yip Harburg and Harold Rome (27). In addition to his consideration of their Broadway musicals, Lambert also gives sufficient attention to other, less-defining works, such as songs written for revues, film and commercial work, the made-for-television The Canterville Ghost (1966), and even a one-act puppet show (1963). What emerges from each of these descriptions is Bock and Harnick's indefatigable striving for experimentation and innovation. Although Lambert describes Fiddler on the Roof as a work "mark[ing...

Jacobsen v Katzer and Kamind Associates – an English legal perspective

In The Canterville Ghost, Oscar Wilde wrote: “We have really everything in common with America nowadays except, of course, language.” It is quite possible that the analytical techniques of English and American lawyers were not uppermost in his mind when he composed that famous line but, on the evidence of Jacobsen v Katzer and Kamind Associates1, it remains surprisingly accurate; there appears to be a distinct difference between how lawyers on each side of the Pond would approach the interpretation of the same, relatively simple, FOSS licence.

The spectre of genre in 'the Canterville ghost'

The spectre of genre in 'the Canterville ghost'

Whose Precaution after all? A Comment on the Comparison and Evolution of Risk Regulatory Systems

A century ago, Oscar Wilde spun the story of the Canterville Ghost, who haunts a stately British manor and terrifies its European denizens, rattling chains at night and leaving bloodstains on the carpet. But the Otis family arrives from America and buys Canterville Chase, undaunted by the ghost. The ghost does his best to frighten the Otises, but they nonchalantly barrage the ghost with American technology, commercialism, and fearlessness. Unable to scare the Americans, the European ghost ultimately capitulates and falls on the mercy of the Otis daughter, who guides his guilty soul to a final resting place where his haunting days can end. How far has comparative law progressed since Wilde's day? Like Wilde's satire, modern comparisons of risk regulation in the United States and Europe are often cast in stereotypes. They depict Europeans as risk-averse, afraid of the unknown, afraid of new technologies and of global markets, jumping to adopt precautionary regulations against the most remote and speculative risks. Meanwhile Americans are seen as risk-indifferent or even risk-preferring, blustering blithely past risks, confident that new technology and the power of (American) markets will solve every problem and that precaution is a waste of time and a hindrance to progress. As Herbert Bernstein would have told us, these are stereotypes, fit for an Oscar Wilde comedy, not for serious analyses of comparative law. In this article, I echo Herbert's admonition to those who would paint stark contrasts between American and European legal systems based only on a few data points. I argue in this article that despite some divisive rhetoric of late, U.S. and European systems of risk regulation are not divergent in the simple way in which they are claimed to be. Part I documents the claim of divergence and greater European precaution. Part II argues that, instead, U.S. and European risk regulatory systems diverge in some ways, converge in others, and display a complex pattern of interaction. Both the United States and Europe have quite active environmental regulatory systems; the United States has hardly ceased regulating. Both the United States and Europe are often highly precautionary - and on several prominent examples, including particulate air pollution, mad cow disease in blood, youth violence, and terrorism, it is the United States that is acting in the more precautionary manner. The United States and Europe do not diverge as much as is claimed on the general use of precaution in regulation, but they often do diverge on the particular question of which risks to worry about and regulate most. This particularized divergence gives rise to visible conflicts. Part III considers the methods and challenges of comparative law and argues that the broader reality in transatlantic risk regulation is a process of hybridization, in which both systems borrow legal concepts from each other in a complex and continuous mutual evolution. Part IV offers concluding thoughts.

Recordings from Caedmon, Inc., Ralph Waldo Emerson: Essay on Education and Self-Reliance. Ralph Waldo Emerson: Poetry. Oscar Wilde: The Canterville Ghost

Recordings from Caedmon, Inc., Ralph Waldo Emerson: Essay on Education and Self-Reliance. Ralph Waldo Emerson: Poetry. Oscar Wilde: The Canterville Ghost