''The Great God Pan'' is a horror and

fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy literature and d ...

novella by Welsh writer

Arthur Machen Arthur Machen (; 3 March 1863 – 15 December 1947) was the pen-name of Arthur Llewellyn Jones, a Welsh author and mystic of the 1890s and early 20th century. He is best known for his influential supernatural, fantasy, and horror fiction. His ...

. Machen was inspired to write ''The Great God Pan'' by his experiences at the ruins of a pagan temple in Wales. What would become the first chapter of the novella was published in the magazine ''The Whirlwind'' in 1890. Machen later extended ''The Great God Pan'' and it was published as a book alongside another story, "The Inmost Light", in 1894. The novella begins with an experiment to allow a woman named Mary to see the supernatural world. This is followed by an account of a series of mysterious happenings and deaths over many years surrounding a woman named Helen Vaughan. At the end, the heroes confront Helen and force her to kill herself. She undergoes a series of unearthly transformations before dying and she is revealed to be a supernatural entity. On publication, it was widely denounced by the press as degenerate and horrific because of its implied sexual content, and the novella hurt Machen's reputation as an author. Beginning in the 1920s, Machen's work was critically re-evaluated and ''The Great God Pan'' has since garnered a reputation as a classic of horror.

Literary critics Literary criticism (or literary studies) is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical analysis, philosophical discussion of literature' ...

have noted the influence of other nineteenth-century authors on ''The Great God Pan'' and offered differing opinions on whether or not it can be considered an example of

Gothic fiction Gothic fiction, sometimes called Gothic horror in the 20th century, is a loose literary aesthetic of fear and haunting. The name is a reference to Gothic architecture of the European Middle Ages, which was characteristic of the settings of e ...

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...

. The novella has influenced the work of horror writers such as Bram Stoker, H. P. Lovecraft, and Stephen King, and has been adapted for the stage twice.

Plot

Clarke agrees, somewhat unwillingly, to bear witness to a strange experiment performed by his friend, Dr. Raymond. The ultimate goal of the doctor is to open the mind of a patient so that they may experience the spiritual world, an experience he notes the ancients called "seeing the great god Pan". He performs the experiment, which involves minor brain surgery, on a young woman named Mary. She awakens from the operation awed and terrified but quickly becomes "a hopeless idiot". Years later, Clarke learns of a beautiful but sinister girl named Helen Vaughan, who is reported to have caused a series of mysterious happenings in her town. She spends much of her time in the woods near her house, and takes other children on prolonged twilight rambles in the countryside that disturb the parents of the town. One day, a young boy stumbles across her "playing on the grass with a 'strange naked man,"; the boy becomes hysterical and later, after seeing a

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

statue of a

satyr In Greek mythology, a satyr ( grc-gre, σάτυρος, sátyros, ), also known as a silenus or ''silenos'' ( grc-gre, σειληνός ), is a male nature spirit with ears and a tail resembling those of a horse, as well as a permanent, exa ...

's head, becomes permanently

feeble-minded The term feeble-minded was used from the late 19th century in Europe, the United States and Australasia for disorders later referred to as illnesses or deficiencies of the mind. At the time, ''mental deficiency'' encompassed all degrees of educa ...

. Helen also forms an unusually close friendship with a neighbour girl, Rachel, whom she leads several times into the woods. On one occasion Rachel returns home distraught, half-naked and rambling. Shortly after an explanation to her mother that is unrevealed to the reader, Rachel returns to the woods and disappears forever. Clarke relates these events in a book he is writing entitled ''Memoirs to Prove the Existence of the

Devil A devil is the personification of evil as it is conceived in various cultures and religious traditions. It is seen as the objectification of a hostile and destructive force. Jeffrey Burton Russell states that the different conceptions of ...

''. Years later, Villiers happens across his old friend Herbert, who has become a vagrant since they last met. When asked how he has fallen so low, Herbert replies that he has been "corrupted body and soul" by his wife. After some investigation with Clarke and another character, Austin, it is revealed that Helen was Herbert's wife, and that a well-to-do man died "of fright, of sheer, awful terror" after seeing something in Herbert and Helen's home. Herbert is later found dead. Helen disappears for some time; according to rumour, she spent the time taking part in disturbing orgies somewhere in the Americas. She eventually returns to London under the pseudonym Mrs. Beaumont. Soon afterwards, a group of stable, happy men in London commit suicide; the last person known to have been in the presence of each of them was Mrs. Beaumont, whom they are implied to have slept with. Villiers and Clarke, each learning of Mrs. Beaumont's true identity, band together and confront Helen in her house with a noose. They tell her that she must kill herself, or they will expose her. Helen has a very abnormal death, transforming between human and beast, male and female, and dividing and reuniting, before turning into a jelly-like substance and finally dying. A fragment of a document covers the remains of a pillar honouring the Celtic god

Nodens *''Nodens'' or *''Nodons'' ( reconstructed from the dative ''Nodenti'' or ''Nodonti'') is a Celtic healing god worshipped in Ancient Britain. Although no physical depiction of him has survived, votive plaques found in a shrine at Lydney Park ...

. The Latin inscription on the column reads, "To the great god Nodens (the god of the Great Deep or Abyss), Flavius Senilis has erected this pillar on account of the marriage which he saw beneath the shade." The document says that historians are puzzled as to what the inscription refers to. A letter from Dr. Raymond to Clarke reveals that Helen was the child of Mary, who died shortly after her daughter's birth. In the letter, Raymond informs Clarke that Mary became pregnant after his experiment caused her to see the god Pan, implying that Pan fathered Helen.

Background

Machen's lifelong fascination with occultism began after he read an article on

alchemy Alchemy (from Arabic: ''al-kīmiyā''; from Ancient Greek: χυμεία, ''khumeía'') is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscientific tradition that was historically practiced in China, India, the Muslim world, ...

in an edition of

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...

's periodical '' Household Words'' belonging to his father, a clergyman. In his 1922 autobiography, ''Far Off Things'', Machen wrote that ''The Great God Pan'' was inspired by the times he visited the

Usk Usk ( cy, Brynbuga) is a town and community in Monmouthshire, Wales, northeast of Newport. It is located on the River Usk, which is spanned by an arched stone bridge at the western entrance to the town. Usk Castle, above the town, overlooks th ...

, a Welsh river, and the Welsh towns of Caerleon on the Usk and

Caerwent Caerwent ( cy, Caer-went) is a village and community in Monmouthshire, Wales. It is located about five miles west of Chepstow and 11 miles east of Newport. It was founded by the Romans as the market town of ''Venta Silurum'', an important sett ...

as a boy; all of these places had been settled by the Romans. He wrote that "strange relics" were frequently found at Caerwent from the ruined temple of "

, god of the depths". In writing the novella, he tried to "pass on the vague, indefinable sense of awe and mystery and terror that ehad received" while visiting those ruins. Machen felt that he had "transliterated he feelingclumsily" in ''The Great God Pan'', elaborating: "I translated awe, at worst awfulness, into evil; again, I say, one dreams with fire and works in clay." Dennis Denisoff said that Machen's decision to make Helen Vaughan the child of a Welsh woman and a pagan figure "parallels Machen's own authorial self-identity as one arising from not only his Welsh ancestry but also pagan myth." What is now the first chapter of the novella was published in 1890 in a magazine called ''The Whirlwind'', while what is now the third chapter of the book was published in the same magazine the following year as a standalone short story called "The City of Resurrections". Machen only viewed the two works as connected after they were finished. Once he decided the two stories were connected, Machen wrote the rest of ''The Great God Pan'' in a single evening save for its final chapter. Machen did not think of an ending for the tale for months, and in that time believed that the novella would remain unfinished forever. The last chapter was completed in June 1891. Machen sent the novella to the publisher Blackwood, who rejected it, deeming it a clever story that "shrink ..from the central idea." It was accepted by John Lane and published in 1894. When published as a book, ''The Great God Pan'' was accompanied by another Machen tale called "The Inmost Light" which also features a

mad scientist The mad scientist (also mad doctor or mad professor) is a stock character of a scientist who is perceived as " mad, bad and dangerous to know" or " insane" owing to a combination of unusual or unsettling personality traits and the unabashedly a ...

and elements of

. The book's cover was illustrated by

Aubrey Beardsley Aubrey Vincent Beardsley (21 August 187216 March 1898) was an English illustrator and author. His black ink drawings were influenced by Japanese woodcuts, and depicted the grotesque, the decadent, and the erotic. He was a leading figure in the ...

Analysis

Genre

Joe Sommerlad of ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publish ...

'' views ''The Great God Pan'' as a work of Gothic horror. According to ''

The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction ''The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction'' (SFE) is an English language reference work on science fiction, first published in 1979. It has won the Hugo, Locus and British SF Awards. Two print editions appeared in 1979 and 1993. A third, continu ...

'', the story is "typical of Victorian cience fictionhorror at about the time cience fictionwas beginning to shed its Gothic elements into a separate Horror/fantasy genre." Aaron Worth writes that ''The Great God Pan'' superficially resembles science fiction due to its depiction of Dr. Raymond as a mad scientist, but it cannot be seen as an example of the genre as it posits that occultism is superior to science. The novella has been classified as

Decadent The word decadence, which at first meant simply "decline" in an abstract sense, is now most often used to refer to a perceived decay in standards, morals, dignity, religious faith, honor, discipline, or skill at governing among the members of ...

literature as well, as it features hallmarks of the genre such as "occultism, paganism, non-mainstream eroticism, sexual diversity, the '' femme fatale'', violent and strange deaths, and the simultaneous investment in and disavowal of bourgeois identities." ''Pan'' has also been described as

fantasy literature Fantasy literature is literature set in an imaginary universe, often but not always without any locations, events, or people from the real world. Magic, the supernatural and magical creatures are common in many of these imaginary worlds. Fa ...

and as a

cautionary tale A cautionary tale is a tale told in folklore to warn its listener of a danger. There are three essential parts to a cautionary tale, though they can be introduced in a large variety of ways. First, a taboo or prohibition is stated: some act, lo ...

against men mistreating women the way that Raymond mistreated Mary.

Influences

Pan was an ancient Greek god, primarily worshipped in Arcadia, who was associated with shepherds and their flocks and with nature. He was believed to lurk in caves, mountains, and other lonely, isolated locations. In some stories, he inflicted his enemies with sudden terror (i.e., ''

panic Panic is a sudden sensation of fear, which is so strong as to dominate or prevent reason and logical thinking, replacing it with overwhelming feelings of anxiety and frantic agitation consistent with an animalistic fight-or-flight reactio ...

''). The phrase, "the great God Pan" comes from an ancient Greek folktale recorded in

Plutarch Plutarch (; grc-gre, Πλούταρχος, ''Ploútarchos''; ; – after AD 119) was a Greek Middle Platonist philosopher, historian, biographer, essayist, and priest at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. He is known primarily for hi ...

's ''De defectu oraculorum'' (''On the Decline of Oracles''), which claims that a Greek sailor near the island of

Paxi Paxos ( gr, Παξός) is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea, lying just south of Corfu. As a group with the nearby island of Antipaxos and adjoining islets, it is also called by the plural form Paxi or Paxoi ( gr, Παξοί, pronounced in Engl ...

during the reign of

Emperor Tiberius Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus (; 16 November 42 BC – 16 March AD 37) was the second Roman emperor. He reigned from AD 14 until 37, succeeding his stepfather, the first Roman emperor Augustus. Tiberius was born in Rome in 42 BC. His father ...

(ruled 14–37 AD) heard a voice cry out, "When you are arrived at Palodes, take care to make it known that the great God Pan is dead." Early Christian commentaries suggested that this event occurred at the same time as the death of Christ and that the "death" of Pan represented the transition from a pagan to a Christian world. This story had particular resonance with Victorian literary audiences. In 1844, Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote her poem "The Dead Pan", an adaption of Plutarch's story which insisted that proper

Christian literature Christian literature is the literary aspect of Christian media, and it constitutes a huge body of extremely varied writing. Scripture While falling within the strict definition of literature, the Bible is not generally considered literature. Ho ...

should abandon

Greek mythology A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the origin and nature of the world, the lives and activities ...

, with each stanza ending in the words "Pan, Pan is dead." As a member of the

Decadent movement The Decadent movement (Fr. ''décadence'', “decay”) was a late-19th-century artistic and literary movement, centered in Western Europe, that followed an aesthetic ideology of excess and artificiality. The Decadent movement first flourishe ...

, Machen sought to subvert traditional themes and transgress literary boundaries, an agenda which made Pan a particularly appealing figure. The title of ''The Great God Pan'' appears to have been specifically derived from Browning's later poem "A Musical Instrument" (1862), in which the first line of every stanza ends with the words "the great god Pan". Machen's use of Pan in the novella may have also been influenced by

Robert Louis Stevenson Robert Louis Stevenson (born Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson; 13 November 1850 – 3 December 1894) was a Scottish novelist, essayist, poet and travel writer. He is best known for works such as ''Treasure Island'', ''Strange Case of Dr Jekyll a ...

's essay " Pan's Pipes" (1878) and Algernon Charles Swinburne's poem " A Nympholept" (1894), in which Pan is portrayed as the "emblem of the delicious combination of ecstasy and terror." In a review of the novella for '' Black Gate'', Matthew David Surridge hypothesized that Machen took inspiration from

Mary Shelley Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (; ; 30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851) was an English novelist who wrote the Gothic novel '' Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'' (1818), which is considered an early example of science fiction. She also ...

's ''

Frankenstein ''Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'' is an 1818 novel written by English author Mary Shelley. ''Frankenstein'' tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific ...

'' (1818) in his portrayal of Dr. Raymond as a mad scientist akin to

Victor Frankenstein Victor Frankenstein is a fictional character and the main protagonist and title character in Mary Shelley's 1818 novel, ''Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus''.. He is an Italian-Swiss scientist (born in Naples, Italy) who, after studyin ...

. The works of Robert Louis Stevenson, especially his 1886 novella ''

Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde ''Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde'' is a 1886 Gothic novella by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson. It follows Gabriel John Utterson, a London-based legal practitioner who investigates a series of strange occurrences between his old ...

'', were among Machen's most significant influences when writing ''The Great God Pan''. Critic John Gawsworth also sees Machen's novella as reminiscent of the horror stories of

Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wid ...

and Sheridan Le Fanu. Aaron Worth noted similitude between the death of Helen Vaughan and the theories of alchemist Thomas Vaughan, who is the character's namesake and Helen's disintegration recalls the alchemical concept of the prima materia. John C. Tibbetts observes similarities between Helen Vaughan and Ayesha, the sexually liberated demonic priestess from H. Rider Haggard's '' She: A History of Adventure'' (1886). Machen wrote that several critics felt that

Joris-Karl Huysmans Charles-Marie-Georges Huysmans (, ; 5 February 1848 – 12 May 1907) was a French novelist and art critic who published his works as Joris-Karl Huysmans (, variably abbreviated as J. K. or J.-K.). He is most famous for the novel '' À rebour ...

's novels ''

À rebours ''À rebours'' (; translated ''Against Nature'' or ''Against the Grain'') is an 1884 novel by the French writer Joris-Karl Huysmans. The narrative centers on a single character: Jean des Esseintes, an eccentric, reclusive, ailing aesthete. The ...

'' (1884) and '' Là-bas'' (1891) had inspired ''The Great God Pan'', though he did not read either book until after ''Pan'' was published. Upon reading the two novels, Machen concluded that "my critics had not read them either."

Religious themes

The novella is characteristic of a late nineteenth-century interest in paganism in general and Pan in particular that is found in the works of

Florence Farr Florence Beatrice Emery (''née'' Farr; 7 July 1860 – 29 April 1917) was a British West End leading actress, composer and director. She was also a women's rights activist, journalist, educator, singer, novelist, and leader of the occult ...

and

Kenneth Grahame Kenneth Grahame ( ; 8 March 1859 – 6 July 1932) was a British writer born in Edinburgh, Scotland. He is most famous for ''The Wind in the Willows'' (1908), a classic of children's literature, as well as '' The Reluctant Dragon''. Both books w ...

. According to the British scholar of modern literature

Roger Luckhurst Roger Luckhurst is a British writer and academic. He is professor in modern and contemporary literature in the Department of English, Theatre, and Creative Writing at Birkbeck, University of London and was distinguished visiting professor at Colu ...

, Raymond expresses a typical

Neoplatonist Neoplatonism is a strand of Platonic philosophy that emerged in the 3rd century AD against the background of Hellenistic philosophy and religion. The term does not encapsulate a set of ideas as much as a chain of thinkers. But there are some id ...

view of reality in which the true object of study is the revelation of a "higher, hidden spiritual world". He is therefore "an occultist rather than a materialist scientist." Neoplatonism is also commonly regarded as the last school of pagan philosophy and Raymond's views therefore relate back to the recurring theme of the death of Pan. Author Theodora Goss sees ''The Great God Pan'' as equating paganism with irrationality and what

Carl Jung Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Jung's work has been influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, phi ...

would call the collective unconscious. Literary critic Kostas Boyiopoulos reads the story from a Judeo-Christian perspective, arguing that Helen Vaughan embodies a "female version of an antichrist", a perversion of Jesus, as well as the figure of

Lilith Lilith ( ; he, לִילִית, Līlīṯ) is a female figure in Mesopotamian and Judaic mythology, alternatively the first wife of Adam and supposedly the primordial she-demon. Lilith is cited as having been "banished" from the Garden of Ed ...

from Judaic myth, with Helen's mother Mary being a "direct analogy of the biblical Virgin Mary". ''Black Gates'' Matthew David Surridge believes that the story associates paganism with sex and

femininity Femininity (also called womanliness) is a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles generally associated with women and girls. Femininity can be understood as socially constructed, and there is also some evidence that some behaviors considered f ...

, while portraying Helen as a female

Antichrist In Christian eschatology, the Antichrist refers to people prophesied by the Bible to oppose Jesus Christ and substitute themselves in Christ's place before the Second Coming. The term Antichrist (including one plural form)1 John ; . 2 John . ...

, a view shared by James Goho in ''Journeys into Darkness: Critical Essays on Gothic Horror'' (2014). Surridge adds "from another perspective: elenis the undoing of progress. Rather than proceeding from paganism to

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...

, as orthodox Victorian belief imagined the progress of history, she is a reversal of time, the revenge of the atavistic." In keeping with this idea, Surridge sees Mary's name as a reference to

Mary, mother of Jesus Mary; arc, ܡܪܝܡ, translit=Mariam; ar, مريم, translit=Maryam; grc, Μαρία, translit=María; la, Maria; cop, Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ, translit=Maria was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother of ...

and Helen's name as a reference to the pagan figure Helen of Troy. Goho interprets the story as Machen's warning against the abandonment of "true religion" and the embrace of paganism. At one point in the novella, a Latin creed is recited: "''Et Diabolus Incarnatus Est. Et Homo Factus Est.''" ("And the Devil was made incarnate. And was made man.") Luckhurst identifies this as a blasphemous rewriting of the Nicene Creed, an early Christian creed which includes the line: "By the power of the Holy Spirit he

esus Esus, Hesus, or Aisus was a Brittonic and Gaulish god known from two monumental statues and a line in Lucan's '' Bellum civile''. Name T. F. O'Rahilly derives the theonym ''Esus'', as well as ''Aoibheall'', ''Éibhleann'', ''Aoife'', and ...

became

incarnate Incarnation literally means ''embodied in flesh'' or ''taking on flesh''. It refers to the conception and the embodiment of a deity or spirit in some earthly form or the appearance of a god as a human. If capitalized, it is the union of divinit ...

from the Virgin Mary, and was made man." Goho writes that the portrayal of Pan in the novella draws on the mythology of

Lucifer Lucifer is one of various figures in folklore associated with the planet Venus. The entity's name was subsequently absorbed into Christianity as a name for the devil. Modern scholarship generally translates the term in the relevant Bible passa ...

and depictions of Pan as "the fetish for evil and suffering and the danger and dread of the wilderness," rather than depictions of Pan as a playful and harmless god. Surridge sees the book's references to Satan and Nodens as implying that Satan, Nodens and Pan are the same being, while Goho connects the novella to the fact that early Christians associated Pan with the devil.

Critical reception

''The Great God Pan'' implied sexuality caused a scandal upon its original release and hurt Machen's reputation as an author. Reviewing the novella for the magazine ''Literary News'',

Richard Henry Stoddard Richard Henry Stoddard (July 2, 1825May 12, 1903) was an American critic and poet. Biography Richard Henry Stoddard was born on July 2, 1825, in Hingham, Massachusetts. His father, a sea-captain, was wrecked and lost on one of his voyages while R ...

criticised the story as "too morbid to be the production of a healthy mind". The art critic Harry Quilter's review of the book, titled "The Gospel of Intensity", and published in ''

The Contemporary Review ''The Contemporary Review'' is a British biannual, formerly quarterly, magazine. It has an uncertain future as of 2013. History The magazine was established in 1866 by Alexander Strahan and a group of intellectuals anxious to promote intellig ...

'' in June 1895, was even more harsh. Quilter declared: "The Great God Pan' is, I have no hesitation in saying, a perfectly abominable story, in which the author has spared no endeavour to suggest loathsomeness and horror which he describes as beyond the reach of words."Harry Quilter, "The Gospel of Intensity", in Colavito, ed. ''A Hideous Bit of Morbidity: An Anthology of Horror Criticism from the Enlightenment to World War I''. Jefferson,NC: McFarland, 2008. (p. 230-254). Quilter warned that Machen's books were a dangerous threat to the entire British public and that they would destroy readers' sanities and senses of morality. Quilter went on to attack the story's publisher, John Lane, as well as Machen himself: "Why should he be allowed, for the sake of a few miserable pounds, to cast into our midst these monstrous creations of his diseased brain?" Quilter added that works of fiction like Machen's should be unanimously condemned by literary critics and newspapers: "If the Press was so disposed it could stamp out such art and fiction in a few months: And that disposition must be acquired, must even be enforced." He was particularly harsh in his denunciation of sexual ambiguity and polymorphous androgyny in the book. He expressed revulsion at Machen's description of Helen's sex changing immediately before her death and concluded his review with a comment of distaste regarding the "nasty little naked figure of dubious sex and humanity with which Mr. Aubrey Beardsley has prefaced the story". A positive appraisal of the novella came from Oscar Wilde, who called it " un succès fou." Machen's literary reputation was re-evaluated in the 1920s and ''The Great God Pan'' has since attained the reputation of a horror masterpiece. In "

Supernatural Horror in Literature "Supernatural Horror in Literature" is a 28,000 word essay by American writer H. P. Lovecraft, surveying the development and achievements of horror fiction as the field stood in the 1920s and 30s. The essay was researched and written between Nove ...

" (1926; revised 1933), H. P. Lovecraft praised the story, saying: "No one could begin to describe the cumulative suspense and ultimate horror with which every paragraph abounds"; he added that "the sensitive reader" reaches the end with "an appreciative shudder". Lovecraft also noted, however, that "melodrama is undeniably present, and coincidence is stretched to a length which appears absurd upon analysis".

Bennett Cerf Bennett Alfred Cerf (May 25, 1898 – August 27, 1971) was an American writer, publisher, and co-founder of the American publishing firm Random House. Cerf was also known for his own compilations of jokes and puns, for regular personal appearanc ...

described the story as a "masterpiece".

Brian Stableford Brian Michael Stableford (born 25 July 1948) is a British academic, critic and science fiction writer who has published more than 70 novels. His earlier books were published under the name Brian M. Stableford, but more recent ones have dropped ...

stated that ''The Great God Pan'' is "the archetypal Decadent horror story" and described the story as "highly original".Stableford, Brian, (1998). "Machen, Arthur (Llewellyn)". ''St. James Guide to Horror, Ghost and Gothic Writers'', ed.

David Pringle David Pringle (born 1 March 1950) is a Scottish science fiction editor and critic. Pringle served as the editor of '' Foundation'', an academic journal, from 1980 to 1986, during which time he became one of the prime movers of the collective whi ...

. London: St. James Press. . Stephen King referred to it as "one of the best horror stories ever written. Maybe the best in the English language."King, Stephen,
Self-Interview
", 10:50 am, September 4, 2008. StephenKing.com. Retrieved April 24, 2017.] ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'' Elizabeth Hand deemed it "one of the greatest supernatural tales ever written". ''Black Gate'' Matthew David Surridge said that ''The Great God Pan'' is "a fascinating, troubling story, and, for all its influence, not like much else than I can think of. It's not simple, and yet it's effective, more so than can easily be explained." Some commentary on ''The Great God Pan'' has focused on its portrayal of women. Surridge sees the novella as expressing a fear of women even though the ultimate source of horror in the story is a male deity. ''The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction'' says that Helen's "metamorphosis...remains one of the most dramatically horrible and misogynistic in fiction". Helen never speaks in the book; according to Victoria Margree and Bryony Randall in ''Victorian Gothic: An Edinburgh Companion'', "The silence of the central female character is part of the text's misogyny, but also part of its narrative effect." Margree and Randall also view Helen's fate as a punishment for her sexual impropriety. Dennis Denisoff connects Machen's tendency to make his empowered female characters "sexually monstrous" to his criticisms of authors who discussed the subject of

women's rights Women's rights are the rights and entitlements claimed for women and girls worldwide. They formed the basis for the women's rights movement in the 19th century and the feminist movements during the 20th and 21st centuries. In some countries, ...

. James Machin defends Machen and ''The Great God Pan'' from charges from misogyny on the grounds that the male protagonist of Machen's story " The Novel of the White Powder" (1895) disintegrates in a manner reminiscent of Helen Vaughan and on the grounds that Machen married Amy Hogg, a woman who defied the sexual boundaries of her time.

Adaptations

A pair of parodies of ''Pan'' were published in 1895 – Arthur Rickett's "A Yellow Creeper" and Arthur Sykes's "The Great Pan-Demon". Both suggest that Machen is an author of "limited imagination," with the latter depicting him as a mad scientist unleashing degenerate literature on an unsuspecting public. ''The Great God Pan'' was brought to the stage in 2008 by the WildClaw Theatre Company in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. It was adapted and directed by WildClaw artistic director Charley Sherman. The novella ''Helen's Story'' (2013) by Rosanne Rabinowitz retells the story of ''The Great God Pan'' from Helen Vaughan's point of view. ''Helen's Story'' was written from a feminist perspective and nominated for a

Shirley Jackson Award The Shirley Jackson Awards are literary awards named after Shirley Jackson in recognition of her legacy in writing. These awards for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror and the dark fantastic are presented a ...

. ''The Great God Pan'' was adapted into a chamber opera by composer Ross Crean. Unusually for a composer, Crean wrote the opera's libretto himself. A recording of the work was released in 2017. The production saw its world premiere by Chicago Fringe Opera in 2018. According to the ''

Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television a ...

'' John von Rhein, Chicago Fringe Opera's staging of ''The Great God Pan'' portrays Helen Vaughan as both a symbol of

gender equality Gender equality, also known as sexual equality or equality of the sexes, is the state of equal ease of access to resources and opportunities regardless of gender, including economic participation and decision-making; and the state of valuing d ...

and an evil ''femme fatale''.

Legacy

''Black Gate'' Matthew David Surridge said that ''The Great God Pan'' influenced Bram Stoker's '' Dracula'' (1897) as both works feature "an introductory sequence featuring a horrified Englishman in a non-English setting; then a variety of seemingly-unconnected events in London, the metropole at the heart of Empire; then the discovery that all those events are in fact inspired by one malign and supernatural intelligence, that the rational contemporary capital is threatened by the irrational and archaic; then an equivocal conclusion. The fear of sex, women, foreignness." John C. Tibbetts notes that both Helen Vaughan in ''The Great God Pan'' and

Lucy Westenra Lucy Westenra is a fictional character in the 1897 novel ''Dracula'' by Bram Stoker. The 19-year-old daughter of a wealthy family, she is Mina Murray's best friend and Count Dracula's first English victim. She subsequently transforms into a vam ...

in ''Dracula'' are "demon women of voracious and malignant sexuality". Theodora Goss also notes similarities between the death of Helen Vaughan in Machen's novella and Lucy's death in ''Dracula''. Tibbetts also notes that Machen's portrayal of Helen Vaughan as demonic and hyper-sexual may have influenced a similar character, The Woman of Songs, in Richard Marsh's '' The Beetle'' (1897). ''The Great God Pan'' was highly influential on the circle of writers around H. P. Lovecraft. The structure of Machen's story influenced the structure of Lovecraft's "

The Call of Cthulhu "The Call of Cthulhu" is a short story by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written in the summer of 1926, it was first published in the pulp magazine ''Weird Tales'' in February 1928. Inspiration The first seed of the story's first chapter '' ...

" (1928). ''Pan''s depiction of a monstrous half-human hybrid inspired the plot of Lovecraft's "

The Dunwich Horror "The Dunwich Horror" is a horror novella by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written in 1928, it was first published in the April 1929 issue of '' Weird Tales'' (pp. 481–508). It takes place in Dunwich, a fictional town in Massachusett ...

" (1929), which refers to Machen's novella by name. According to Lovecraft scholar

Robert M. Price Robert McNair Price (born July 7, 1954) is an American New Testament scholar. His most notable stance is arguing in favor of the Christ myth theorythe claim that a historical Jesus did not exist. Price is the author of a number of books on bi ...

, "The Dunwich Horror' is in every sense an homage to Machen and even a pastiche. There is little in Lovecraft's wonderful story that does not come directly out of Machen's fiction." ''Pan'' also inspired Lovecraft to create his character

who appears most prominently in ''

The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath ''The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath'' is a novella by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. Begun probably in the autumn of 1926, the draft was completed on January 22, 1927 and it remained unrevised and unpublished in his lifetime. It is both the l ...

'' (1943). Clark Ashton Smith was inspired by ''The Great God Pan'' to write his story "The Nameless Offspring" (1931), which also features a monstrous child born of a human and a supernatural entity. It has been suggested that

Michael Arlen Michael Arlen (16 November 1895 – 23 June 1956), born Dikran Kouyoumdjian ( hy, Տիգրան Գոյումճեան), was a British essayist, short story writer, novelist, playwright, and scriptwriter of Armenian origin, who had his greatest s ...

's novel ''Hell! Said the Duchess'' (1934) is a parody of ''The Great God Pan'', as Arlen was influenced by Machen's work. ''The Great God Pan'' influenced

Peter Straub Peter may refer to: People * List of people named Peter, a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * Peter (given name) ** Saint Peter (died 60s), apostle of Jesus, leader of the early Christian Church * Peter (surname), a sur ...

's novel '' Ghost Story'' (1979) in its depiction of a shapeshifting monster who terrifies those it encounters. Straub himself frequently credited ''The Great God Pan'' as having been a major influence on his work. According to film historians Keith McDonald and Roger Clark, Mexican film director Guillermo del Toro's portrayal of the faun in his 2006 dark fantasy film ''

Pan's Labyrinth ''Pan's Labyrinth'' ( es, El laberinto del fauno, lit=The Labyrinth of the Faun, links=no) is a 2006 dark fantasy horror film written, directed and co-produced by Guillermo del Toro. A Spanish-Mexican(78% Spanish production, 22% Mexican productio ...

'' was inspired by the "ambivalent and possibly dangerous" portrayals of Pan in late Victorian and early Edwardian novels, including Machen's ''The Great God Pan'' and ''Pan's Garden'' (1912) by

Algernon Blackwood Algernon Henry Blackwood, CBE (14 March 1869 – 10 December 1951) was an English broadcasting narrator, journalist, novelist and short story writer, and among the most prolific ghost story writers in the history of the genre. The literary cri ...

. Del Toro deliberately chose to imitate the darker, more sinister fauns of Machen and Blackwood rather than the "sweetly domesticated figure" of Mr. Tumnus from

C. S. Lewis Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963) was a British writer and Anglican lay theologian. He held academic positions in English literature at both Oxford University (Magdalen College, 1925–1954) and Cambridge Univers ...

's '' The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe'' (1950). The original title of the film in Spanish is ''El Laberinto del Fauno'' (''The Labyrinth of the Faun''), but the English title ''Pan's Labyrinth'' emphasizes the connection between del Toro's film and the body of late nineteenth-century writings about Pan, including ''The Great God Pan''. Stephen King wrote that his novella '' N.'' from his story collection '' Just After Sunset'' (2008) is "a riff on Arthur Machen's ''The Great God Pan''.... Mine isn't anywhere near sgood s the original but I loved the chance to put neurotic behavior—obsessive/compulsive disorder—together with the idea of a monster-filled macroverse." King has also cited Machen's novella as an influence on his novel '' Revival'' (2014). Similar to ''Pan'', ''Revival'' features an experiment on a young woman's brain which allows her to see into another world. Josh Malerman said ''The Great God Pan'' partly inspired his novel '' Bird Box'' (2014).

References

Bibliography

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External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Great God Pan, The 1894 British novels 1894 fantasy novels 1894 science fiction novels Anglo-Welsh novels British fantasy novels British Gothic novels British horror novels British novels adapted into plays British science fiction novels British speculative fiction novellas Decadent literature Fiction about shapeshifting Greek and Roman deities in fiction Novels adapted into operas Novels set in London Obscenity controversies in literature Pan (god) Religion in science fiction Science fantasy novels Science fiction horror novels Fiction about suicide Fiction about the Devil Victorian novels Welsh horror fiction Works by Arthur Machen Works originally published in British magazines