Zofloya or The Moor (Oxford World's Classics)

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Joseph Addison, The Spectator, 45 (21 April 1711) [accessed 2 May 2020].

Anne Mellor, ‘Interracial Sexual Desire in Charlotte Dacre’s Zofloya’, European Romantic Review, Vol. 13, No.2, June 2002, pp.169-173, p.173. There is something somewhat belated about Dacre’s exercise in the genre. Charlotte Sussman has argued persuasively that abolitionism peaked in 1792–93 and like other radical causes suffered a diminution in the years following. ‘Women and the Politics of Sugar, 1792’, Representations 48 (Fall 1994), 48–69. We admired Victoria because she followed her own desires, particularly in her pursuit of men. [8] The novel therefore represented women’s sexual subjectivity in a new way, with Clery suggesting that ‘Victoria’s passions are unlike anything else in the women’s Gothic writing of the period.’ [9] It is also interesting to consider the impact on readers at the time. Mellor argues that the text would have ‘enabled Dacre’s readers to explore a far wider range of sexual options…than did the other writing of her day.’ [10] The group also debated what Dacre’s overarching message, or moral framework, might be concerning women seeking autonomy, particularly sexual autonomy. Victoria ultimately meets her end through following her desires, and this in itself is seen as being the fault of her mother previously doing the same. The novel opens with Victoria’s mother being seduced and deserting her family. It is the mother’s pursuit of her own desires and the impact on her family honour, which is clearly indicated in the novel as the cause of Victoria’s downfall, and that of her brother who falls in with a gang of bandits. On the whole, the group concluded that Dacre was giving a negative impression of women who indulged their lust. Our debate concerning Dacre’s overarching message mirrors that in the wider historiography. For example, Nayar argues that the novel suggests that a woman pursuing her own sexual agency threatens English domesticity, the family and ultimately the boundaries of England. [11] Pramrod Nayar suggests that Dacre is therefore ambivalent about the issue of women’s agency and that it is unclear where her loyalties lay. [12] However, Clery suggests that Dacre was simply doing ‘cursory moralizing’ noting that she went on to create several other female monsters in her work. [13] And so it is possible that the inclusion of an overarching Christian message allowed her to get away with the themes that she portrays in the novel. The gothic novel is a "safe" place to experiment with interactions between dark-skinned men and fair-skinned women. The genre of the Gothic has long enabled both its practitioners and its readers to explore subjective desires and identities that are otherwise repressed, denied or forbidden by the culture at large. [10] Zofloya and interracial/cross-gender relationships [ edit ]

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Berenza's insistence on only receiving care from his wife complements and gives free rein to the femme fatale's sadistic will. However, she achieves her end by enacting the role of sacrificial wife-mother, a vision of purity that Berenza consumes, like Lewis's monk's consumption of the portrait of Madonna. Maternal femininity is, moreover, here subject to the male gaze, as Berenza pleads, "'[o]h my love, whether have you been? I have been wishing for my tender nurse to make me a glass of lemonade'" (p. 169). Though his body diminishes from illness caused by Zofloya's poison, the more nurturing attention Victoria provides, the more 'his appetite [...] increase[s] even to ravenousness' (p. 171). Berenza's consumption of maternal femininity manifests a role reversal in which he becomes a victim of Victoria and Zofloya's agenda, degenerating from a rational figure to an enfeebled idolater.

Zofloya” is a gloriously melodramatic gothic story of lust, revenge and violence, beginning with an adulterous liaison and family scandal and ending with multiple murders. It is a deliciously over the top tale with passions running high and people plunging daggers into breasts left, right and centre! Great stuff :-) Signora di Modena: a distant relative of Laurina. She is a scary woman with a long yellow face and grey eyes; her appearance is repulsive. She is the cruel tyrannical ruler of Victoria when she is captive in her household. The one other ‘serious’ use of anapestic meter in Hours of Solitude occurs in the highly ambiguous elegy ‘To the Shade of Mary Robinson’. Robinson, of course, was something of the ‘poster-girl’ for critiques of the debased status of women through the 17905. Robinson had also some not entirely savoury connection with Dacre’s father, the usurer and gangster John King. See Anne K. Mellor, ‘“Making an Exhibition of Her Self”: Mary “Perdita” Robinson and Nineteenth-Century Scripts for Female Sexuality’, Nineteenth-Century Contexts 22 (2000), 271–304. Homi Bhabha. 'Of Mimicry and Man: The Ambivalence of Colonial Discourse', October (Discipleship: A Special Issue on Psychoanalysis), 28 (Spring 1984), 125-33 (p. 128).The story itself is not too complex, somewhat like a telenovela, has a lot of drama, sex and violence. My only problem in this departmen Michelle Massé, In the Name of Love: Women, Masochism, and the Gothic (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992), p. 36. Leonardo di Loredani: son of Laurina and the Marchese, a year older than his sister Victoria, he is "unable to resist, in any shape, the temptations of his heart". He runs away from home when his mother leaves the family, and eventually is lost entirely to the power of his mistress Megalena. Both Zofloya and The Monk were criticised in their time for employing scenes of sexual transgression seen as offensive in the late 18th and early 19th century; However, Zofloya was received with greater criticism because its author was female. "When Lewis wrote The Monk it was not welcomed, but it was conceivable that a man could write this sort of infernal thing; however Dacre's crime was greater because it was inconceivable that a woman could even imagine such horrors and use such voluptuous language," Moreno wrote. [5] Critical reception [ edit ] Mary Wollstonecraft. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and A Vindication of the Rights of Men, ed. by Janet Todd (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993).

While unconsciously he thus reposed, a female chance to wander near the spot. She had quitted her house for the purpose of enjoying more freely the fresco of the evening, and to stroll along the banks of the lake; the young Leonardo, however, arrested her attention and she softly approached to contemplate him- his hands were clasped over his head and on is cheeks, where the hand of health had planted its brown red nose, the pearly gems of his tears still hung- his auburn hair sported in curls about his forehead and temples, agitated by the passing breeze-his vermeil lips were help open and disclosed his polished teeth-his bosom, which he uncovered to admit the refreshing air, remained disclosed and contrasted by its snowy whiteness thee animated hue of his complexion."(103) Generally, Zofloya is far more interested in the sexuality of women than men. Readers were scandalized in its day for the graphic depiction of female lust, including one diabolical villainess who commits mass murder as a means to sleeping with her husband’s brother. With the aid of a magic potion, she even accomplishes the rarely-examined act of male rape. Joe Bray, The Female Reader in the English Novel: Burney to Austen (New York: Routledge, 2009), p. 8. Victoria de Loredani is the beautiful, spoiled daughter of the Marchese di Loredani and his wife, Laurina. Victoria, her brother Leonardo, and her parents reside in a palazzo in Venice, Italy. They live in happiness until the Marchese's friend, Count Ardolph, visits from Germany. Ardolph, who takes pleasure in destroying the reputations of virtuous women and breaking up their marriages, appeals to Laurina's vanity and he seduces her away from her husband. The two disappear from Venice together. After Laurina elopes, Leonardo disappears from Venice without explanation, leaving only Victoria and her father in the palazzo. One year later, the Marchese encounters Ardolph in the streets of Venice. They duel, and Ardolph fatally stabs the Marchese. Laurina pays him a final visit, and the Marchese expresses his dying wish that Laurina will find Leonardo, reclaim her children, and leave Venice.a b c Chaplin, Sue (2004). Law, Sensibility, and the Sublime in Eighteenth-Century Women's Fiction. Burlington, Virginia: Ashgate Publishing Company. p.142. The third meeting of our book group focused on one of the lesser-known Gothic writers of the early nineteenth century, Charlotte Dacre ( c. 1772-1825), and her second novel Zofloya, or The Moor (1806) . Born Charlotte King, Dacre was the daughter of the moneylender John ‘Jew’ King ( c. 1753-1824), who famously engaged in an adulterous affair with the actress Mary Robinson in 1773. Dacre’s writing career began with the publication of several poems in the Morning Post, before she moved on to write four novels, of which the other three were: Confessions of the Nun of St. Omer (1805), The Libertine (1807) and The Passions (1811). Ginotti: a small character who surfaces at the end of the novel as the leader of the soldiers. He is stabbed by Leonardo and used as an additional tragic effect in the novel. Victoria di Loredani: a beautiful woman who is very proud and self-sufficient. She is initially described as having an irrepressible spirit and lives a carefree life, with a twinge of a cruel nature. After her mother leaves her father, she becomes consumed by lust, revenge and temptation, which inevitably leads to the downfall of other characters.