Zofloya: or The Moor by Charlotte Dacre
Victoria di Loredani, the protagonist of Zofloya, or The Moor (1806), a story of desire, betrayal, and many murders set in Venice in the closing years of the fifteenth century, is subjected to Satan’s final judgment in this passage. The story follows Victoria as she develops from the spoiled daughter of indulgent aristocrats to a career of ever-deepening wickedness under Satan’s watchful eye. The story told by Charlotte Dacre skillfully depicts the heroine’s transition from Ann Radcliffe’s heroines’ vitalized position to a fully conscious commitment to sin that goes beyond ‘Monk’ Lewis’ deluded Ambrosio. The most audacious element of the book is its depiction of Victoria’s powerful sexual attraction to her Moorish servant Zofloya, which breaks both racial and social taboos.
The novel’s portrayal of satiated desire, unrestrained cruelty, and gigantic self-absorption defies conventional assumptions of women’s writing and has a strong ability to upset readers. The first in nearly 200 years, this edition’s preface explores why Zofloya, a highly original work by an interesting and outlandish author, merits to be read alongside known Gothic classics.
Zofloya: or The Moor by Charlotte Dacre
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The novel’s portrayal of satiated desire, unrestrained cruelty, and gigantic self-absorption defies conventional assumptions of women’s writing and has a strong ability to upset readers. The first in nearly 200 years, this edition’s preface explores why Zofloya, a highly original work by an interesting and outlandish author, merits to be read alongside known Gothic classics.
The language is extremely archaic and requires some getting used to it. Although this novel starts out extremely slowly, if you stick with it, the suspense rises and the ending is really satisfying. This book won’t disappoint you if you’re a bit of a horror/gothic novel connoisseur like me and know good dark lit when you read it, but other readers might find it a little too plodding and old-fashioned for their tastes.
This book fascinates me. It’s a book by a woman with sexist female characters, troubled mother-daughter relationships, and scenes where women murder other women. It is really unusual. At the time, readers were appalled.
It has been challenging to integrate this book into established accounts of the Gothic. It displays untamed appetites and lusts that appear out of place in feminist critical conceptions of the female author canon.
It is an unconventional literature that, in the Gothic tradition, subverts categorization through sensationalism, violence, and the paranormal. It’s a hallucinogenic book that makes use of dreams and other dream realms. When it was written, dreams were increasingly seen as omens or as a key to unlocking one’s own identity’s riddles.
