Textuality and sublimity in Dracula

pp. 129-147

in: Andrew R. Smith, Gothic radicalism, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2000

Abstract

In Chapter 22 we saw how Foucault provided us, coincidentally, with a helpful explanation for the Gothic fascination with constructions of the self, and how this related to notions of modernity. In The History of Sexuality, vol. I, Foucault argues that a scientific investigation into a form of sexual self-consciousness takes place in the Victorian period.¹ As we shall see, Dracula can be read as a confirmation of Foucault's treatise. However, I will also explore the presence of a sexual sublime in the novel, a version of the sublime which in part unsettles Foucault's account of the attempts made to police, and so contain, desire. This latter reading is not hostile to Foucault's conclusions, but I do want to explore some of the limitations of his history of sexuality and these limitations become apparent when we consider how the sublime recasts some of his conclusions. My aim is to show how this presence of a Gothic sublimity continues to challenge traditional constructions of the self; here in formations of the subject which are to be found within late-nineteenth-century debates concerning science and sexuality.