Welsh Journals

THE PROBLEM OF THE GOTHIC NOVEL IN WALES IN a recent article,1 Mr. James Henderson raised the question of the use of Wales as a setting for Gothic novels. Considering the romantic in- terest in Wales in the period covered (i 790-1 820), he reasonably assumed that Wales would have been so used, as were Scotland and Ireland. Of a list which he compiled of forty-nine novels that by their titles seemed to be Gothic novels set in Wales, he found surprisingly enough that none were both Welsh and Gothic. However, he was not able to examine copies of all the novels on his list; in particular he felt from what the reviewers said of one of these unexamined novels, Mrs. Isabella Kelly's The Abbey of St. Asaph,2, that it might prove to be a Welsh Gothic novel in the manner of Mrs. Radcliffe. In an effort to further the investigation of this subject, I have examined the most promising of the novels which escaped Mr. Henderson. Of most importance is The Abbey of St. Asaph which is indeed what Mr. Henderson guessed it to be. Since it is apparently a unique example of a Gothic novel set in Wales, I feel that its principal characteristics are worth mentioning. About two-thirds of the action in The Abbey of St. Asaph is set in Wales. These Welsh settings have the generalized features common to all Gothic ones; the lack of a vivid particularized Welshness is probably due to this tradition of stereotyped description among the lesser Gothic novels as well as to the limitations of the author's own abilities. This is not to say that Mrs. Kelly made no effort to make her settings seem Welsh. She used Welsh place and family names, attempted some Welsh dialect (rather awkwardly), referred to Welsh legends, gave her characters some supposedly Welsh characteristics, and tried (very feebly) to make her scenic descriptions seem Welsh. In other words, within the limits of her art she strove to make her setting Welsh. Of the total Welsh material, the Gothic portion is the most extensive and the most carefully wrought. It should be noted that none of the Gothic episodes occurs outside of Wales. It seems that Mrs. Kelly equated Wales and Gothicism. The principal settings (both Welsh and Gothic) of the novel are the Abbey of St. Asaph and the adjacent ruins of the Castle of St. Asaph. The Abbey, 'a gothic, noble piece of archi- tecture, built on the base of a solid rock,' is inhabited by the Trevallion family despite the ghost of Sir Eldred who supposedly roams its abandoned wing. The Abbey contains the expected subterranean passageways and vaults in one of which Sir Eldred has been secretly imprisoned for almost twenty years. The Castle, 'tottering in superb decay,' is entirely given over to what appears to be the shade of Owen of Trevallion, the guilty founder of the race.