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ABSTRACT
This article examines the first three literary reactions to Fenian terrorism: Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson’s co-written novel, The Dynamiter (1885); Tom Greer’s A Modern Daedalus (1885) and Henry James’ The Princess Casamassima (1886). Although these works approach terrorism from different angles, they set the pattern for subsequent treatments that will “give primary voice to the perspective of the terrorist”. “Zero”, the hapless bomb-makers in The Dynamiter, is a surprisingly urbane, sympathetic figure; Greer illustrates both the necessity and the moral quandaries of terrorism and James shows considerable sympathy for anarchism’s causes, even though terrorism threatens high art and culture. I also hope to show that fiction can provide excellent source material for studying the cultural imaginary of terrorism and, by extension, make a bid for the inclusion of literature scholars under the umbrella of Critical Terrorism Studies.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. In their introduction to Critical Terrorism Studies: A New Research Agenda, Jackson, Smyth and Gunning call for “widening the disciplinary basis of terrorism research” by adding a more intellectual diversity, “including political science, anthropology, psychology, international relations, area studies, conflict resolution, and feminist studies” (Jackson, Smyth, and Gunning Citation2009, 4). Literary criticism is notably absent.
2. On the distinctions between Russian and Fenian terrorism, see Clutterbuck (Citation2004). See also Averich (Citation1984, 166) and Cole (Citation2012, 85).
3. “When the night for action came … this little band [of Irish skirmishers] would deploy … and at the same instant strike with lightning the enemy of their land and race … In two hours from the word of command London would be in flames, shooting up to the heavens in fifty different places” (“O Donovan”, Laqueur and Alexander Citation1987, 113 [italics in the original]).
4. For a history of the Fenian dynamite campaign, see Whelehan (Citation2012).
5. Nonetheless, we see the exact same rhetoric in the aftermath of the 1605 Gunpowder Plot. See Herman (Citation2014, 117–121).
6. All the newspaper cites come from The British Newspaper Archive (http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/).
7. In fact, the Irish nationalist movement as a whole did not embrace continental radicalism (Whelehan Citation2012, 27–69).
8. See also The Western Daily Press, 10 March, Citation1884, 8, and the Hull Packet, 14 March, Citation1884, 7.
9. Charles Parnell’s refusal to answer W.E. Forster’s accusations of complicity in the Phoenix Park murders was widely noted and condemned in the press. For example, Parnell “has wrapped himself hitherto in a contemptuous silence, and only allowed his subordinates, Mr. O’Brien and Mr. O’Donnell, to meet the demands of public opinion for frank and full explanations with an insulting refusal” (Times of London, 23 February, 1883, 9). See also Warren (Citation2004) and Lyons (Citation1977, 242–243).
10. On the possible connection of this scene to Henry James, The Princess Casamassima, see n. 21.
11. See especially the illustrations in pages 120a–f in Givens (Citation1997b).
12. On Stevenson’s scepticism towards colonialism and empire, see Linehan (Citation1990) and Brantlinger (Citation1988, 19).
13. “Barrow” and “child” refer to what Zero calls the Red Lion Court Outrage in which the only victims were “a scavenger’s barrow” and an injured child (440). Adding to the fiasco, Somerset doubts that anybody was injured, let alone a child (440).
14. Thomas Greer (1846–1904) was an Irish doctor who practised in Cambridge, England. He ran unsuccessfully for the North Derry seat as Liberal Home Ruler. A Modern Daedalus is his sole venture into fiction (Brown Citation1916, 98). A Modern Daedalus has received very little critical attention, the most extensive being Ó Donghaile (Citation2011, 79–88).
15. Greer’s novel is one of a series of books in this period imagining the terrorist or anarchist use of air power to bomb the enemy into submission. See also George Griffith (1893) 2006, The Angel of the Revolution and E. Douglass Fawcett (1893), Hartmann the Anarchist. The topic was also widely discussed in the press. For example, “War v. Annihilation”, an unsigned article in the 23 May 1885 Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette. The author reports with horror that he attended a lecture on “A System of Air Torpedoes” proposing that “mechanical means could be perfected to as to enable serious attacks to be upon armies, forts, and arsenals by the use of air torpedoes or ‘aerostats’. … The author grimly pictured how the British Fleet would be destroyed by winged bands of dynamitards” (2). He also notes that “this serious and scientifically advanced aerostat idea was anticipated only a few weeks ago by a humorous writer” (2): Tom Greer.
16. Greer titles this chapter, “Killing no Murder”, which is the title of a 1657 pamphlet by Edward Sexby (Citation1657) arguing for the legitimacy of killing Oliver Cromwell because he is a tyrant. Not only does the phrase “killing no murder” nicely summarises the chapter’s argument, it implicitly serves to remind the reader of Cromwell’s own actions in Ireland (e.g., the 1649 Drogheda Massacre), thus further legitimising Irish resistance to English rule.
17. As Jack’s father says, “The Boers taught us a lesson at Majuba Hill that hasn’t been thrown away, and there are a thousand lads in Ireland who could hit an officer between the eyes at a thousand yards” (31–32). Jack’s brother, Dick, first kills the land agent who has just evicted a family, using this tactic, and he trains an army to do the same. Eventually, “the whole country was in the hands of the insurgents” (159), but how they would fare against a British fleet and the collective might of the British is left unanswered. It is Jack’s invention that tips the balance.
18. “Our Irish skirmishers would be well disguised. They would enter London unknown and unnoticed. [After the explosions reduce London to ashes], the blazing spectacle would attract all eyes, and leave the skirmishers to operate with impunity in the darkness” (Irish World, 28 August, 1880, quoted in Laqueur and Alexander [Citation1987, 113–114]).
19. James was clearly aware of the Fenian bombings. In a letter dated 24 January 1885, he noted that the country was “gloomy, anxious, and London reflects its gloom. Westminster Hall and the Tower were half blown up 2 days ago by Irish Dynamiters” (Letters James Citation1980, 64).
20. As Ó Donghaile (Citation2011, 40) puts it, “James’s bottom line on anarchism – a position that fuses both literary and political conservatism – is that it threatens culture …”; or, as another recent critic has it, James “depicts the revolutionary as suffering from a jealous rage which so restricts his imagination that the whole of his philosophy amounts to nothing more than a thoughtless wish to ‘damn’ that which has taken centuries and generations to build” (Stuart Citation2003, 26). For Margaret Scanlan, “James suggests the futility of all revolutions” (Scanlon Citation1992, 382). For a much more sympathetic view of the novel, see Trilling’s (Citation2008, 58–92) classic essay and Rowe (Citation1984, 169–176).
21. The parallel may be more than coincidental. While Ivan Turgenev’s novel, Virgin Soil, is generally considered one of the prime sources for The Princess Casamassima (the two main characters are “natural sons of noblemen, become conspirators, attract aristocratic ladies and then lose them to revolutionary comrades, become disillusioned with socialism, and kill themselves rather than continue their careers as revolutionists” [Tilly Citation1960, 3]), James may also have gotten the idea of a disillusioned radical who commits suicide from The Dynamiter. Robert Louis Stevenson and James were great friends, and The Dynamiter appeared in April (Detectives and Their Work Citation1885), exactly the time James was working on The Princess, the first instalment appearing in the September 1885 issue of The Atlantic. Furthermore, in an 1887 article, James wrote on Stevenson for Century Magazine, he singled out The Dynamiter as the best part of New Arabian Nights (Smith Citation1948, 152–153).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Peter C. Herman
Peter C. Herman is Professor of English Literature at San Diego State University. He has published widely on early modern literature and is now working on fictional representations of terrorism. His article on Macbeth and the Gunpowder Plot was published in the Journal for Cultural Research and his article on John Updike’s Terrorist appeared in Modern Philology.