Gothic Implications on the Enlightenment, Puritanism, and Transcendentalism in Charles Brockden Brown’s Wieland

Yıl 2020, Cilt: 8 Sayı: 4, 1201 - 1206, 24.08.2020

Gökçenaz Gayret

https://doi.org/10.18506/anemon.623472

Öz

The impetus behind the current study lies in exploring how Charles Brockden Brown expostulates reason and rationalism by posing questions to Enlightenment ideas, criticizes Puritanism through addressing the detrimental influence of religious fanaticism on society and humanity, and violates Transcendentalist concept of the inherently good and dignified human with gothic representations in Wieland. Brown underlines the dark applications of reason, obsessive religious melancholy, and destructive evil nature of humanity by locating the sources of terror and retaining a gothic mood of emotional and psychological extremity in the novel. The study shows that Brown violates the idea that reason ensures the progress of humanity; offers his critiques of the impending influence of religious mania on humanity by addressing Puritanism; and questions the transcendentalist view by presenting how the perverse nature of evil buried within each individual drags humans into diabolical actions through gothic elements which do not deal with rationality.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Gothic, The Enlightenment, Transcendentalism, Reason, Rationality

Charles Brockden Brown’un Wieland Adlı Eserinde Aydınlanma, Püritanizm ve Transandantalizm Üzerine Gotik Çıkarımlar

Öz

Bu çalışma, Charles Brockden Brown’un Wieland adlı eserinde gotik betimlemelerle Aydınlanma fikirlerine sorular yönelterek akıl ve rasyonelliğe nasıl karşı çıktığını, toplum ve insanlık üzerinde köktendinciliğin zarar verici etkisine göndermede bulunarak Püritanizmi nasıl eleştirdiğini ve insanı doğası gereği iyi ve saygın kılan Transandantal düşünceyi nasıl çiğnediğini incelemeyi amaçlamaktadır. Eserde, Brown korku kaynaklarını saptayarak ve duygusal ve ruhsal aşırıcılığın gotik mizacını sürdürerek aklın kötüye kullanılmasının, saplantılı dini melankolinin ve insanlığın habis doğasının altını çizmektedir. Çalışma, Brown’un rasyonellikle ile özdeşleşmeyen gotik elementler ile aklın insanlığın ilerlemesini temin ettiğini savunan düşünceyi tanımadığını, Püritanizme göndermelerde bulunarak insanlık üzerinde dini tutuculuğun yıkıcı etkilerine, dair eleştiriler sunduğunu, bireyin kötü doğasının insanlığı nasıl şeytani eylemlere sürüklediğini göstererek transandantal görüşü sorguladığını göstermektedir.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Gotik, Aydınlanma, Transandantalizm, Akıl, Rasyonellik

Kaynakça

• Bercovitch, S. (2012). The American Jeremiad. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press.
• Bremer, F.C. (2009). Puritanism: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Brown, C.B. (2009). Wieland and Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Bruhm, S. (2014). The Ghost of the Counterfeit Child. In: C.L. Crow (Ed.), A Companion to American Gothic (p.367-375). New Jersey: Wiley and Sons.
• Davidson, C. (1986). Revolution and the Word: The Rise of the Novel in America. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Emerson, R.W. (1983). Essays and Lectures, Nature; Addresses, and Lectures, Essays: First and Second Series, Representative Men, English Traits, The Conduct of Life. New York: Literary Classics of United States.
• Foucault, M. (1980). The Eye of Power. In: C. Gordon (Ed.), Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings (p.146-165). New York: Pantheon Books.
• Goldman, E. (1917). The Hypocrisy of Puritanism. (Erişim: 17.04.2019),http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/goldman/pdfs/EmmaGoldman_THEHYPOCRISYOFPURITANISM.pdf
• Kant, I. (1784). What is Enlightenment?. In: James Schmidt (Ed.), What is Enlightenment?Eighteenth Century Answers and Twentieth Century Questions (p.58-63). London: University of California Press.
• Kilgour, M. (1995). The Rise of the Gothic Novel. New York: Routledge.
• Ladd, A.,Philips, J.R., &Meyers, K. (2010). Romanticism and Transcendentalism:1800-1860. United States: Chelsea House Publishing.
• Manuel, M. C. (1999). Charles Brockden Brown’s Wieland or, Fiction as an Instrument of Salvation in Post-Revolutionary America. Revista Alicantina de Estudios Ingles, 12: 91-104.
• Oldridge, D. (1998). Religion and Society in Early Stuart England. Aldershot: Ashgate.
• Stephanou, A. (2019). Inhuman Materiality in Gothic Media. New York: Routledge.
• Smith, A.L. (2004). American Gothic Fiction: An Introduction. New York: Continuum.
• Thoreau, H. D. (1983). Walden and Civil Disobedience. USA: Penguin Books.
• Varma, D.P. (1966). The Gothic Flame. New York: Russell & Russell.