Chapter 5 - Marie Corelli and the neuron

Summary

In stark contrast to Robert Louis Stevenson, Bram Stoker, and H. G. Wells, who used romances and Gothic novels to dramatize disturbing, atheistic consequences of cerebral localization, Marie Corelli’s bestselling romances creatively envisioned the miraculous possibilities opened up by improved understanding of human brain function. For Corelli, the transcendent potential of neuroscience hinged on the capacity of human nerve cells to receive, store, and conduct electricity, a topic that was the focus of lively scientific inquiry during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In her 1918 novel Young Diana, for instance, the eponymous heroine gains youth, health, and immortality by suffusing her neurons with electricity. After eccentric scientist Féodor Dimitrius immerses Diana in a bath of radioactive fluid for four days, she transforms from an aging spinster into a ravishing, immortal goddess. In the wake of her metamorphosis, Diana gloats: “A goddess – a goddess! … Young with a youth that shall not change – alive with a life that shall not die! Out of the fire and the air I have absorbed the essence of all beauty and power!” While these plot elements fall within the realm of science fiction, The Young Diana, like Corelli’s earlier compositions, remains firmly rooted in the romance tradition. This example thus demonstrates how Corelli reinvigorated the romance form by liberally intermixing elements of fin-de-siècle neuroscience. In so doing, she aimed to reconcile scientific materialism with the imaginative spirituality she viewed as the core of the romance, thereby providing world-weary readers with spiritual solace and renewed vigor. The above example also suggests how Corelli promoted and popularized aspects of cerebral localization theory – such as the controversial neuron doctrine – in the service of the heterodox religious philosophy laid out in her novels. But in order for Corelli’s unique fusion of science and spirituality to succeed, she had to willfully misunderstand certain tenets of localization, including how neurons actually work. It is unclear whether Corelli’s misinterpretation of neuron doctrine stemmed from her lack of scientific education, from the general lack of scientific consensus about neuronal function, or from a selective reading of scientific and pseudoscientific articles on the functions of the brain. In any case, Corelli’s fiction, like that of Grant Allen, demonstrates that even apparent champions of cerebral localization could not fully embrace the latest neurological developments – at least not without some adaptation or revision of neurological ideas themselves. This chapter will explore the curious means by which one woman’s revision of neuron doctrine helped her readers make a tenuous, temporary peace with the latest neurological developments.