« A unique aura of ancient, elemental evil » : les migrations du feu dans The Great God Pan (1894) d’Arthur Machen

Abstract

Fire and its derived metaphors are omnipresent components of the Great God Pan, Arthur Machen’s decadent fin-de-siècle fantasy. Machen’s nightmarish novella relates the aftermath of a failed scientific experiment on a young female patient by a neurologist strongly influenced by alchemical writings. This cerebral exploration results in the bringing to light and subsequent release of an untamable subterranean force of regression, indistinction, and dissolution embodied in the central female character of Helen Vaughan. The latter, the monstrous progeniture of the young patient and of the eponymous satanic entity, is repeatedly associated with an impure underground fire, a sign of her transgressive all-consuming sexuality. Naturally, her dark protean character is to be aligned with other late-Victorian representations of venomous females, often characterized by the presence of flamboyant motifs. The fires of growing feminist rebellion, perceived in the 1890s as a threat to the very foundations of Victorian society, certainly animate Helen’s character. Crucially, fire is subjected to constant displacements and shifts in this narrative structured like a (bad) dream : it is a circulating trope most definitely indexing Victorian fears of degeneration and decline.