The Castle Spectre

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The Castle Spectre is a 1797 dramatic romance in five acts by Matthew "Monk" Lewis. It is a Gothic drama set in medieval Conway, Wales.

The Castle Spectre was first performed at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, on 14 December 1797. In a period when very few plays reached ten performances in a season, it was staged forty-seven times before June, when the theatre closed for the summer. The play had a long run also in the following year and remained in the repertoire until the late 1820s, and was revived until the end of the century. It also toured the provincial theatres and went through eleven printed editions from 1798 to 1803.

Further evidence of its extraordinary popularity is given by the fact that it crossed the ocean and opened in New York on 1 June 1798. Moreover, it was turned into a prose romance in 1829 by Sarah Wilkinson. The Castle Spectre was one of the most successful theatrical creations of the day, but also one of the most criticized. For them, the plot was too contrived, the language lacking in wit and the characters devoid of originality. Undoubtedly, what made it an extraordinary success were the striking and shocking scenes exploited by Lewis to impress his audience and, above all, the presence of the ghost. In view of Shakespeare’s important precedent in Hamlet and elsewhere, this was not the first time that a spectre had appeared on stage. But, as Jonathan Glance has remarked, "Shakespeare’s ghosts were acceptable because the people in that benighted time believed in them, but in the modern, enlightened eighteen century, such phenomena were ludicrous". Nor was it the first time a spectre had appeared on stage in a Gothic drama, because James Boaden had exploited such figures only three years before, in his Fontainville Forest. But whereas Boaden’s ghost had glided across the stage only for a few seconds and without being illuminated, Lewis’s spectre was shown in two different scenes, took part in the action, and was surrounded by music and lights in order to underline its presence.

Many judged it a blasphemy to represent the spiritual world, and thought it was scandalous to combine the solemnity of the drama with special effects. Although theatrical managers tried to persuade Lewis to give up his project, he went ahead with it, and after its first performance, accusations raged against his play. The Analytical Review wrote: "for our part, we cannot but regard the success of The Castle Spectre as truly humiliating to the pride of our national taste; and as seeming to demonstrate, that the manly and sublime beauties of the drama must resign their place in the estimations of a british pubblic to stage trick and scenery". But Lewis also knew that other sections of the public would appreciate his work, and indeed, enthusiastical comments abounded. The Monthly Mirror declared that "if we pass over the necessity of the spectre in this play, we must allow the effect produced by its introduction to be stronger than any thing of the sort that has been hitherto attempted". The Morning Herald added that “there was literally a magic in The Castle Spectre which recalled every solemn remembrance of the spectator and appealed directly to the heart”. As a playwright, Lewis was well aware that the numbers of spectators interested in the theatre was increasing enormously, and that many of them were simple workers with a simple desire for relief. Thus he adapted the forms of legitimate drama to these new demands, providing fantastic and shocking effects. In this respect Jeffrey Cox observes that he "closed the gap between high and mass culture". And this is most visible in The Castle Spectre, which he called a "dramatic romance in five acts", thus blending the typical structure of high tragedy and the hybrid nature of the romance.