The role of fairies in Arthur Machen’s negative poetics

the short story “Change” (1936) in dialogue with the horror

Abstract

In the short story “Change” (1936), written by Welsh author Arthur Machen, the mythological figure of the fairy embodies evil intentions as it commits cruel acts against human beings, which attributes to the fairy a monstrous condition. The narrative structure of the story presents a set of characteristics that might relate it to what was later denominated horror. Taking this into consideration, this article proposes a dialogue between Machen’s short story and Noël Carroll’s art-horror theory, based on the concept of evil poetics as established by Júlio França and Daniel Silva’s research regarding fear-literature. This dialogue is guided by the following objectives of the study: (1) to historically locate the fear of fairies that emerges in Machen’s negative poetics and (2) to analyze the short story “Change” considering the concept of horror as an evil poetic. This reading of Machen’s story indicates that the art-horror theory is restricted to a set of values associated with scientific rationalism, which repositions the fantastic in the place of fiction, which does not contemplate Machen’s belief in the existence of fairies. The conflict between science and the spiritual realm is illustrated by the short story “Change” through the clash of ideas between two characters narratively situated in opposition regarding the binary pairs English/Welsh identity, culture/nature, skepticism/mysticism.