The dark circus : an examination of the work of Mervyn Peake, with reference to selected prose and verse

Marx, Lesley Glen

The dark circus : an examination of the work of Mervyn Peake, with reference to selected prose and verse

Master Thesis

1983

Publisher

University of Cape Town

Department

Department of English Language and Literature

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Abstract

I have attempted in this dissertation to draw together a number of strands that make up the intricate and often bizarre tapestry of Mervyn Peake's work. In the Introduction, I raise an issue that seems to be most central to his vision: the relationship of the artist to worlds both real and imaginary, and the way in which these two worlds relate to each other. In Chapter One, I attempt to examine the multi-faceted nature of Peake's talent. Drawn to all the variety of life, expressing his perception of that variety in many different ways, he tries to come to terms with both the aching beauty and tenderness of the world and its horror and ugliness, often, indeed, revealing beauty in that ugliness. The chapter deals, then, with the poetry, both the joyful and the tormented, with the Nonsense world which informs so much of Peake's vision, and with the need to balance the contrary forces of life which he often reveals so tellingly. Chapter Two brings us to the heart of his vision in Titus Groan. In this chapter I deal with the nature of fantasy and its relation to other modes of opening out the real so that its richness may be revealed: ranance, the marvellous,Gothic. I then examine these in terms of the mythic world that is Gorrnenghast, paying particular attention to ritual and the ways in which the characters in the novel respond to their world, often through escape into private worlds and secret rituals. Peake's use of the grotesque is examined in relation to whether characters are able to grow through their private rituals. The mythic world is again important in Gorrnenghast but here we find a tension between Titus who is at once a part of and apart from his environment, and the Castle which is at once oppressive and nurturing. The ambivalence of attitude that Titus experiences offers a focus for the conflict experienced by the other characters in response to the Castle. Titus is seen to be torn between his role as epic hero of his society and as romantic hero, true to his own impulses. Consequently, the movement towards an assimilation of outer and inner worlds is of vital importance and throughout one is aware that Peake, too, is trying to achieve this assimilation. Having vindicated himself as epic hero of the sheltering canmunity, Titus grows out of the mythic stillness of Gormenghast and in Titus Alone, .we see him confronted by a dystopic world bound to linear time. It is in this deracinated world that Titus learns the value of the Mother that is Gormenghast. He realises that it has given him a set of values that he may bear inside him, that informs and beautifies the world. The parallel between Titus's experience of myth and Peake's experience of imagination is clear, as both put their worlds to the test - the one by physical separation, the other by courageous self-travesty.

Keywords

English Language and Literature

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