Monstrous Philosophy: Charlotte Dacre’s Zofloya, or the Moor and John Milton’s Paradise Lost

Abstract

Charlotte Dacre’s novel Zofloya, or the Moor: A Romance of the 15th Century (1806) scandalized its contemporary reviewers, offended not only by its many references to erotic activity, often adulterous, or its extended scenes of violence, but also by its representation of the title character as an avatar of Satan. Critics of Gothic literature have offered varied interpretations of the moral issues presented in the novel, and the narrator makes numerous contradictory statements about morality, reason, and temptation. Dacre’s narrator often warns her readers (and her characters) to adhere to conventional moral principles in order to avoid evil for themselves and others, but her repeated references to Paradise Lost are similar to other Romantic era re-visions that reveal much more interest in representations of rebellion against – rather than submission to – moralistic authority. In the novel, renaissance Venice becomes a type of anti-Eden as Zofloya and Victoria debate the meaning of ‘right reason’ in alternate versions of the philosophy of Paradise Lost as they rationalize their sensual desires and crimes of power.