Kerry Dean Carso introduces Monaldi: A Tale (1841) by Washington Allston, the latest addition to our Gothic Originals series.
In retrospect, it seems foreordained that I would edit the Gothic novel Monaldi: A Tale (1841) by the American painter Washington Allston (1779–1843), as my life’s journey led me to Allston’s homes and haunts repeatedly, before I ever knew of him.
In his time, Allston achieved fame as a Grand Manner history painter in both Great Britain and the United States, but his novel has received less attention from scholars than his paintings. He set the novel in Italy, a place he knew well, and made his protagonist Monaldi a painter like himself. In the novel, Monaldi becomes a successful artist, infuriating a school friend named Maldura, who fails as a poet. Maldura plots against Monaldi to convince him his wife has been unfaithful. Enraged, the formerly mild Monaldi stabs his wife and then descends into madness. My introduction to this new edition addresses the Gothic literary qualities of the novel: the frame narrative, the Italian setting (which features a cavern, a monastery and banditti), sexual transgression and attempted murder.
The Gothic began haunting me at Harvard College during my junior year in the 1990s, when I first read Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho. Little did I know that a major subject of my future scholarly activity – 200 years earlier – also spent his college years (1796–1800) at Harvard reading Gothic novels (Allston especially loved Radcliffe too).
After I graduated, I spent three years as a Freshman Proctor in Harvard Yard. Unbeknownst to me, Allston was near; from my dorm window, I could see the Old Burial Ground, Allston’s final resting place. While living at Harvard, my path intersected with Allston’s when I interned at the Longfellow House, where there was an Allston collection housed in the basement.
It wasn’t until graduate school, however, that I would learn about Allston’s Monaldi from Professor William Vance at Boston University. I found the intersections between art and literature in Monaldi worthy of more attention. I wrote a chapter on Allston for my interdisciplinary American Studies dissertation, which became my first book (American Gothic Art and Architecture in the Age of Romantic Literature, University of Wales Press, 2014), and now, the Gothic Originals series has allowed me to take a closer look at Allston’s semi-forgotten novel. I hope that Allston will once again engender interest on both sides of the Atlantic.
Kerry Dean Carso is Professor of Art History at the State University of New York at New Paltz.