Contextual Research

 

For this unit, I've chosen to adapt Fulke-Greville's 'Sonnet 100'.

I chose this sonnet as I think it explores some interesting themes such as the difficulties of existentialism, trauma and our inability to achieve properly realised insight. In my interpretation, the sonnet is about the evils that lurk within ourselves, rather than any external being, real or imagined, and how negative internal thoughts can begin to shape your lived experience. Perhaps the most telling part of the sonnet that supports this lies in its latter half; 

"Such as in thick depriving darknesses, proper reflections of the error be, and images of self-confusedness, which hurt imaginations only see; and from this nothing seen, tells news of devils, which but expressions of inward evils."

I believe that Fulke-Greville is trying to explain that our outward senses are also compromised when the mind isn't seeing clearly. These 'inward evils' are projected outward, during times when we are experiencing turmoil in our lives; i.e. enduring 'thick depriving darknesses'. 

An image created on Midjourney ai, the prompt was to imagine Sonnet 100 as an image.

I researched other analyses online to see if my understanding of the sonnet aligned with the thoughts of others. Considering that the Author was a man of Faith, (Röder et al., 2018) others have interpreted Sonnet 100 to be telling of the struggle experienced when you feel as though you are unable to connect with God. 

“Deprivation causes the self to become malignant, and to inherit that torment to which divine grace is an immunization.” 

The above quote is an articulately posed idea that suggests that the Author is unable to pacify themself from their own malignancy, their only hope is for this characteristic to be alleviated by divine intervention. This paints a picture of the Author as being in such a profoundly bleak situation, that the will of no mortal scheme will suffice in helping them to pacify themselves. When framed in this way- it makes for tremendously grave reading which for many sounds like an awful prospect; for me though, it sounded like an interesting foundation on which to base a story.

I didn't want to just rely on my own ideas to move me forward though, and sought inspiration from elsewhere. I scoured Youtube and other sites to find if there were other visual interpretations of the sonnet. It proved difficult to find, unfortunately, so I settled on the one you'll find below. It effectively creates emotion in the score alone and encourages a self-reflective, melancholy mood, and if you close your eyes, (It's better that way, rather than taking note of the confusing accompanying visuals) you can stir up the senses that Fulke-Greville might have been trying to express, laying in bed in the early hours sleep-disturbed, lashings of self-uncertainty washing over in an awesome wave. 

Ordinarily, I don't see the allure of horror texts, be it TV, Film, or literature. During the year, however, I have tried to expand my viewing tastes and have watched more than I ever have before, and I'm surprised to say that I have enjoyed many of them. For me, some of the stand-out works in the horror genre come from both Ari Aster and Robert Eggers. Their films seem to grapple with more nuanced themes of horror such as internal conflict, past trauma and grief and projecting these ideas into the realm of moving image makes for an enduring, uncomfortable and often introspective experience for the viewer. Translating these ideas of incredible complexity into effective visual storytelling is no mean feat, and Aster and Eggers are at the forefront of this contemporary movement, so it seemed only appropriate to engage with more of their works when I began to plan for my own.

The themes in Sonnet 100 are perfectly aligned with this method of didactic storytelling, and after watching the work of other students who had interpreted the sonnet and adapted it to the horror genre, I was keen to try and do this myself. I began thinking about how I might tell this story, the stirring of uncomfortable truths in the nighttime, the world collapsing on somebody. I began brainstorming the idea, and tried to develop a potential cause for the story to take place in the night-time, to begin with; a sleep-deprived single parent with a baby? It would work. But what would make it horror? I thought back to a scene in The VVitch, (Eggers) that I believe to be one of the most harrowing scenes ever put to screen. 

The scene is so effective because it is universally atrocious, with the violent murder of a baby and the horrific aftermath. It is such a horrific act, depicted in a viscerally, undeniably awful way that it commands your attention and seeks to repulse the viewer- it's astounding horror because it is so deeply unsettling, playing on the insecurities of an audience. The inclusion of folklore, those age-old cautionary tales of wrongdoing, repentance and revenge, is the star of the show here. I wanted to tap into that feeling when I was shaping my own story and include something that felt more widely recognisable as supernatural, but for some time failed to develop this idea further. After a tutorial with my Tutor, I decided to research Irish folklore, specifically 'Changelings' and thought that integrating these into my story (Or some variant of this) would provide an appropriately nefarious motive for the supernatural power. 

In Irish folklore, Changelings are described as:

"...Fairies who had been left in place of a human child or baby who had been stolen by the fairies. The child was taken for one of three reasons; to act as a servant, for the fairies to receive the love of a human child, or as an act of malice/revenge." (Post, 2021)

I liked the idea of this malevolent force doing this purely for their own enjoyment, beings of no goodwill that exist only to make the protagonist suffer. By implementing these Changelings into the story, it also helps to meet those themes discussed in the sonnet. The internalised experience creates the externally projected fear. This, paired with the conflict between the Father and the child, provided options to develop additional motives to an already deeply flawed character; the caregiver becomes the danger and fails to face up to his own trauma, the changelings offering him some form of the temptation of escapism.

Roald Dahl's compilation 'Book of Ghost Stories'

During my research, I also read a handful of scary short stories. Compiled, but not written by, Roald Dahl. There are a great variety of different stories, each written somewhere between the early 1800's and Mid 1900's. There is some great, classic horror in there and each of the stories knows how to play tricks on the readers' mind. Although there wasn't any direct translation from what I read in the book, it helped to encourage me along the way, engaging in different types of media that related to the final work that I wanted to produce.

I found research for this unit to be incredibly engaging, it pitted me against my own tastes and allowed me to explore outside of my usual parameters. Feeling as though there was some educational benefit to watching or reading different genres helped me to understand and appreciate horror as something more than my expectations had told me until now; it's not all shrieking teenagers running from a mad, chainsaw-wielding, masked man, but an art form, and a difficult one at that. Filled with rich subtext and nuance, the only comparable genre in my opinion is a comedy; to laugh and to be frightened are two of the most incredibly visceral emotions and to achieve that through visual, or textual storytelling requires some serious finesse. I've learned not to underestimate horror again!

Bibliography:

Post, I. (2021) Exploring irish mythology: Changelings, The Irish Post. The Irish Post. Available at: https://www.irishpost.com/life-style/exploring-the-irish-mythology-changelings-170347 (Accessed: December 4, 2022). 

Röder, K., Leo, R. and Sierhuis, F. (2018) “13: ‘These Ancient Forming Powers’: Fulke Greville’s Dialectic of Idolatry,” in Fulke Greville and the culture of the English Renaissance. Oxford: Oxford university press. 

Gunn, Thom, ed. The Selected Poems of Fulke Greville (U of Chicago Press, 2009), 38.