Joanna Baillie’s De Monfort: A Crisis of Class Identity

Year 2024, Issue: 29, 206 - 217, 21.03.2024

Tuğba Şimşek

https://doi.org/10.30767/diledeara.1409456

Abstract

The late eighteenth and the early nineteenth centuries in Britain are characterised by socio-cultural and political turmoil and transformations specifically due to the impacts of the revolutions, the growth of the middle class and thus the changing class hierarchies. Within this chaotic socio-political atmosphere, the Gothic becomes a very dominant and popular genre projecting these transitions of this period. Joanna Baillie who is influenced by the Gothic craze of the age like many writers is regarded as one of the most significant playwrights of the period. In one of her well-known Gothic plays, De Monfort (1798), Baillie portrays the anxiety and fear of the loss of power and status by the aristocracy. Thus, she creates a Gothic atmosphere surrounded by claustrophobic and paranoid anxiety of De Monfort. De Monfort, who is also affected by fear and paranoia dominating the period as a result of the political sanctions, cannot adjust himself to the changing social structure. Considering the changing class hierarchies, particularly De Monfort’s attachment to his family name becomes the core of the play in terms of his fear of obliteration. In the context of the socio-cultural and political dynamics of the Romantic period, this study aims to argue how Baillie illustrates the shifting class dynamics and the anxieties of the period with reference to her Gothic play, De Monfort.

Keywords

Joanna Baillie, Gothic, De Monfort, class identity, anxiety

Joanna Baillie’nin De Monfort Adlı Eserinde Sınıfsal Kimlik Bunalımı

Abstract

Özellikle devrimlerin etkisi, orta sınıfın büyümesi ve böylece değişen sınıfsal hiyerarşiler dolayısıyla Britanya’da 18. yüzyıl sonu ve 19. yüzyıl başı, sosyo-kültürel ve politik karmaşa ve dönüşümlerin olduğu bir dönem olarak nitelendirilir. Bu kaotik sosyo-politik ortamda Gotik, dönemin bu değişimleri yansıtan baskın ve popüler bir tür olarak karşımıza çıkar. Birçok yazar gibi dönemin Gotik furyasından etkilenen Joanna Baillie bu dönemin en önemli oyun yazarlarından biri olarak kabul edilir. En bilinen Gotik oyunlarından biri olan De Monfort (1798) adlı eserinde Baillie, aristokrasinin güç ve statü kaybetme kaygısını ve korkusunu işler. Böylece yazar, De Monfort karakterinin klostrofobik ve paranoyak kaygılarıyla çevrili Gotik bir atmosfer yaratır. Politik uygulamalar sonucu döneme hâkim olan korku ve paranoyanın da izlerini taşıyan De Monfort değişen yapıya ayak uyduramaz. Dönemin değişen sınıfsal hiyerarşileri göz önüne alındığında, özellikle De Monfort’un aile soyadına olan bağlılığı, yok olma korkusu açısından oyunun ana noktasını oluşturur. Romantik dönemin sosyo-kültürel ve politik yapısı bağlamında, bu çalışmanın amacı, Baillie’nin De Monfort adlı Gotik eserinde dönemin değişen sınıfsal dinamiklerini ve kaygılarını nasıl yansıttığını tartışmaktır.

Keywords

Joanna Baillie, Gotik, De Monfort, sınıfsal kimlik, kaygı

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