Abstract
Walsh presents a study on depictions of the demonic other in early modern English demonic possession narratives, demonstrating the influence that this literary archetype played on conceptions of the Victorian Gothic animal. Drawing on sixteenth- and seventeenth-centuries possession pamphlets, this chapter highlights how animals were configured and embodied within the Protestant spirituality of this period. With the 1597–1598 possession of William Sommers in Nottingham as a central case study, this chapter illustrates how this archetype of the demonic animal or animalistic demoniac would be later recast in a Darwinian paradigm to express the social and cultural anxieties of the Victorian period. Followed by an analysis of the animalistic in Victorian Gothic literature, Walsh concludes that the demonic animal motif that emerged from the early modern literary tradition would shape the perceptions of both animals and the demonic for centuries to come.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Agamben, Giorgio. 2004. The Open: Man and Animal, trans. Kevin Attell. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Almond, Philip C. 2004. Demonic Possession and Exorcism in Early Modern England: Contemporary Texts and Their Cultural Contexts. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Anon. 1599. The Triall of Masiter Dorrell, or, a Collection of Defences, Etc. London: A. Ri.
British Library Manuscripts. Master Brigges Temptation. In Harley 590, Item 3, 6–63.
Bomarito, Jessica (ed.). 2006. Society, Culture, and the Gothic. In Gothic Literature: A Gale Critical Companion, vol. 1, 107–229. Detroit, MI: Gale.
Caciola, Nancy. 2003. Discerning Spirits: Divine and Demonic Possession in the Middle Ages. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Clark, Stuart. 1999. Thinking with Demons: The Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Darrell, John. 1598. A Breife Narration of the Possession, Dispossession, and, Repossession of William Sommers and of Some Proceedings Against Mr Iohn Dorrell Preacher, with Aunsweres to Such Obiections as Are Made to Prove the Pretended Counterfeiting of the Said Sommers. Together with Certaine Depositions Taken at Nottingham Concerning the Said Matter. Amsterdam: G. Co.
———. 1599. A Brief Apologie Prouing the Possession of William Sommers. Written by Iohn Dorrell, a Faithful Minister of the Gospell: But Published Without His Knowledge, with a Dedicatorie Epistle Disclosing Some Disordered Procedings Against the Saide Iohn Dorrell. Middelburg: R. Schilders.
———. 1600. A True Narration of the Strange and Greuous Vexation by the Devil, of 7. Persons in Lancashire, and Vvilliam Sommers of Nottingham Wherein the Doctrine of Possession and Dispossession of Demoniakes Out of the Word of God Is Particularly Applyed Vnto Sommers, and the Rest of the Persons Controuerted: Togeather with the Vse We Are to Make of These Workes of God. By Iohn Darrell, Minister of the Word of God (England).
French, Anna. 2015. Children of Wrath: Possession, Prophecy and the Young in Early Modern England. Farnham: Ashgate.
Fudge, Erica. 2002. Perceiving Animals: Humans and Beasts in Early Modern English Culture. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Greenblatt, Stephen. 1985. Shakespeare and the Exorcists. In Shakespeare and the Question of Theory, ed. Geoffrey H. Hartman and Patricia Parker, 163–187. New York: Methuen.
Hendershot, Cyndy. 1998. The Animal Within: Masculinity and the Gothic. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Hogle, Jerrold E. 2002. The Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Jenner, Mark S.R. 1997. The Great Dog Massacre. In Fear in Early Modern Society, ed. William G. Naphy and Penny Roberts, 44–61. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press.
Johnstone, Nathan. 2006. The Devil and Demonism in Early Modern England. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Kallendorf, Hilaire. 2003. Exorcism and Its Texts: Subjectivity in Early Modern Literature of England and Spain. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Levack, Brian P. 2013. The Devil Within: Possession & Exorcism in the Christian West. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Lunn-Rockliffe, Sophie. 2012. Visualizing the Demonic: The Gadarene Exorcism in Early Christian Art and Literature. In The Devil in Society in Premodern Europe, ed. Richard Raiswell and Peter J. Dendle, 439–458. Toronto: Centre for Reformation Renaissance Studies, Victoria University.
McKechnie, Claire Charlotte. 2013. Man’s Best Fiend: Evolution, Rabies, and the Gothic Dog. Nineteenth-Century Prose 40 (1): 115–140.
Mollmann, Bradley J. 2008. Seeking the Supernatural: The Exorcisms of John Darrell and the Formation of an Orthodox Identity in Early Modern England. PhD dissertation, Miami University.
More, George. 1600. A True Discourse Concerning the Certaine Possession and Dispossession of 7 Persons in One Familie in Lancashire, Which Also May Serve as Part of an Answere to a Fayned and False Discoverie Which Speaketh Very Much Evill, as Well of This, as of the Rest of Those Great and Mightie Workes of God Which Be of the Like Excellent Nature. By George More, Minister and Preacher of the Worde of God, and Now (for Bearing Witnesse Unto This, and for Justifying the Rest) a Prisoner in the Clinke, Where He Hath Continued Almost for the Space of Two Yeares (London).
Morse, Deborah Denenholz. 2007. ‘The Mark of the Beast’: Animals as Sites of Imperial Encounter from Wuthering Heights to Green Mansions. In Victorian Animals Dreams: Representations of Animals in Victorian Literature and Culture, ed. Deborah Denenholz Morse and Martin A. Danahay, 181–200. Aldershot and Burlington, VT: Ashgate.
Nyndge, Edward. 1615. A True and Fearefull Vexation of One Alexander Nyndge Being Most Horribly Tormented with the Deuill, from the 20. Day of Ianuary, to the 23. Of Iuly. At Lyering Well in Suffocke: With His Prayer Afer His Deliuerance. Written by His Owne Brother Edvvard Nyndge Master of Arts, with the Names of the Witnesses That Were at His Vexation (Imprinted at London: for W. B., and are to bee sold by Edvvard Wright at Christ-Church gate).
Oldridge, Darren. 2000. Protestant Conceptions of the Devil in Early Stuart England. History 85 (278): 232–246.
Ortiz-Robles, Mario. 2015. Liminanimal: The Monster in Late Victorian Gothic Fiction. European Journal of English Studies 19 (1): 10–23.
Perkins, William. 1596. A Discourse of Conscience: Wherein Is Set Downe the Nature, Properties, and Differences Thereof: As Also the Way to Get and Keepe Good Conscience. Treatise of Conscience. Cambridge: Printed by Iohn Legate, printer to the Vniversitie of Cambridge.
Punter, David. 1998. Gothic Pathologies: The Text, the Body, and the Law. London and New York: Macmillan and St. Martin’s Press.
Ritvo, Harriet. 1991. The Animal Connection. In The Boundaries of Humanity: Humans, ed. Machines Animals, James J. Sheehan, and Morton Sosna, 68–81. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Salisbury, Joyce E. 1994. The Beast Within: Animals in the Middle Ages. New York: Routledge.
Sands, Kathleen R. 2002. An Elizabethan Lawyer’s Possession by the Devil: The Story of Robert Brigges. Westport, CT: Praeger.
———. 2004. Demon Possession in Elizabethan England. Westport, CT: Praeger.
Stevenson, Robert Louis. 1886/1987. Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Longmans, Green, and Company.
Stoker, Bram. 1897/1979. Dracula. New York: Penguin.
Thomas, Keith. 1983. Man and the Natural World: Changing Attitudes in England 1500–1800. London: Allen Lane.
———. 1997. Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century England. New York: Oxford University Press.
Uszkalo, Kirsten C. 2015. Bewitched and Bedeviled: A Cognitive Approach to Embodiment in Early English Possession. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Walsham, Alexandra. 1999. Providence in Early Modern England. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
Wells, H.G. 1896/1993. The Island of Doctor Moreau: The Island of Doctor Moreau: A Variorum Text, ed. Robert M. Philmus. Athens and London: University of Georgia Press.
Williams, Guy. 2006. An Apocalyptic and Magical Interpretation of Paul’s ‘Beast Fight’ in Ephesus (1 Corinthians 15:32). The Journal of Theological Studies 57 (1): 42–56.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Walsh, B.C. (2020). ‘Like a Madd Dogge’: Demonic Animals and Animal Demoniacs in Early Modern English Possession Narratives. In: Heholt, R., Edmundson, M. (eds) Gothic Animals. Palgrave Studies in Animals and Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34540-2_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34540-2_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-34539-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-34540-2
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)