New Publication: Gothic Theories of Dreaming in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Notebooks (Gothic Dreams and Nightmares)

I am delighted to share what to me is very exciting news – the publication of a long-awaited chapter! My essay ‘Morphean Space and the metaphysics of nightmare: Gothic theories of dreaming in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Notebooks’ was recently published in the excellent book, Gothic Dreams and Nightmares, edited by Carol Margaret Davison for Manchester University Press. This is a special piece for me, on a topic that reaches back into the roots of my research journey and simultaneously points forwards to larger, ongoing projects.

It’s especially exciting to see this chapter out in the world because I originally wrote it as a companion piece alongside another chapter: ‘The Poetics of Space, the Mind, and the Supernatural in S. T. Coleridge’ in The Palgrave Handbook of Gothic Origins (2021), which you can read my blog post about here. Together, these essays illuminate some of the fascinating ways that the Romantic poet and thinker Coleridge grappled with ideas of the supernatural, science, and contemporary theories of the mind, consciousness, dreams and nightmare, resulting in a wide range of written material, both poetic and personal, that can best be read (or so I argue in these chapters!) through the lens of the Gothic.

Chapter Abstract: Samuel Taylor Coleridge was haunted by nightmares, which he extensively documented in his private notebooks. This chapter argues that Coleridge’s nightmare writings should not only be considered narrative texts in their own right, and therefore as extensions of his literary oeuvre, but also that they can best be understood through the language, architecture and impulses of the Gothic. Despite Coleridge’s conscious attempts to distance himself from the Gothic in his literary criticism, his notebook writings about nightmares and his attempts to scientifically theorise them are unsettlingly infused with and informed by this same mode. In particular, this chapter examines the Gothic nature of Coleridge’s concept of ‘Morphean Space,’ which he developed through extensive engagement with contemporary theories on the causes of dreaming, ranging from the medical and biological to the supernatural. ‘Morphean Space’ was the unique space within which dreams occurred, but it also overlapped with both the material, waking world and the immaterial realm of the supernatural. In this model, nightmares were caused by demonic entities invading the body via Morphean Space and taking possession of the mind. This chapter asserts that Morphean Space can be mapped onto the similar spatial constructions of the haunted labyrinths and subterranean crypts within earlier Gothic novels. It argues further that this similarity empowers Coleridge to draw on the Gothic mode when writing about his own nightmares, allowing him to employ Gothic literary techniques to express, theorise, and ultimately to regain authorial control over the nightmare forces that threatened to possess his mind.

I am in excellent company in this book, which promises a fascinating range of chapters that delve into different facets of the Gothic’s intersection with dreams and nightmares. I also want to congratulate the other contributors, and particularly the book’s brilliant editor, Carol Davison, for their determination and perseverance while writing and editing this book through some particularly difficult and turbulent years during the pandemic. I am sure they are all as excited to see this one out in the world as I am!

Link to Gothic Dreams and Nightmares: https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526160621/