J.S. Le Fanu, Tè verde, con testo a fronte

Green Tea, the opening story of the collection In a Glass Darkly (1872), is one of the best supernatural tales by Sheridan Le Fanu, commonly regarded as the exemplary practitioner of the Victorian ghost story, as well as an influential author in the Anglo-Irish Gothic tradition. The tale is a dark exploration of the existential terrors generated by the Calvinist obsession with guilt, damnation and retribution. This is most obviously manifest in the fascination with and anxiety about the figure of the Doppelgänger. Here the split psyche takes the form of a demonic, persecutory monkey haunting the unfortunate Anglican Reverend Jennings, driving him to insanity and finally to suicide. The tale presages the work of Freud in that the pursuing, glowing-eyed simian demon, represented as the devil incarnate, may be viewed as the projection of the minister’s dark drives and possibly of his unconscious animosity against religion. However, through Dr. Hesselius, the contemporary medical establishment is critiqued. The doctor, an acolyte of Swedenborg’s mystic and occult teachings, attending the “case” of the clergyman, sees his possession as the result of the opening of the inner eye brought about by his over indulgence in the stimulant green tea. Yet, in spite of his intuition and knowledge of science, he will not be able to save his patient whose suicide he finally attributes to a form of hereditary suicidal mania. The volume contains the Italian translation of Le Fanu’s tale, edited with footnotes, biographical and bibliographical notes and an introduction.