Proto-Spiritualist Masculinities in Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Captain of the ‘Pole-Star’
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThis chapter offers a very promising reading of Conan Doyle’s short story in light of late Victorian relationships between spiritualism and masculinity. The interpretation of the story is itself sound and the chapter is well-written, but it could go much further to develop its own original angle on the topic, particularly in light of previous scholarship (see below).
The research used so far is excellent, while connections between the critical framework in the first section of the chapter and the textual analysis from page 4 onwards are worth making much stronger. The latter 2/3rd of the chapter is conducted predominately through discussion of the story with little application of that framework. As a result, the argument isn’t coming through as compellingly as it could do. For example, contrast between the rational, sceptical Ray and the flawed, romantic Craigie is an obvious point and one which has been made in previous scholarship. You are right that the story’s interests in the spiritual and the masculine are closely intertwined but you can develop why that intertwining is significant for the cultural contexts of spiritualism, empire, and masculinity by tying your discussion back to your framework, deepening your analysis of the text and contexts.
For example, take another look at your conclusion paragraph – you draw discussion of the story to a close, but you don’t point out the significance of your findings for the cultural contexts with which you began. Work on your key idea of ‘Proto-spiritualist masculinities’ – I thought this was a great concept, in your title, but you don’t use it or explain it or even mention it again. I recommend you do! (If the ‘proto’ prefix in your title alludes to Conan Doyle’s later obsession with Spiritualism, you could make a bit more of this story’s significance for his later life and career, though I know you’ve not got room for everything).
I think you could take the comparison between the two central characters further in terms of masculinity. Captain Craigie may be too flawed to be the British Imperial masculine ideal, but Dr Ray isn’t that ideal either (as you point out, for all his doctorly training he is entirely unequipped to understand or tackle the Arctic. Perhaps the Arctic even requires a manly yet ‘fey’ sort of masculinity?). In some places, the captain is presented as supremely masculine; you might consider the speech he gives to the crew when they are stuck in the ice and Dr Ray’s palpable admiration.
The chapter requires some additional research to address gaps in scholarship around Conan Doyle and masculinity (notably Diana Barsham, Conan Doyle and the Meaning of Masculinity) and around ‘Captain of the Pole-Star’. Demonstrate awareness of the arguments of previous articles on this story, which include Terry Thompson, ‘Appropriating Frankenstein in Doyle’s The Captain of the Polestar,’ in South Carolina Review; Barbara Roden’s ‘Fiery Passions and Icy Realms: ‘The Captain of the Pole-Star’ and Wuthering Heights, in ACD: The Journal of the Arthur Conan Doyle Society; Dana Martin Batory, ‘The Rime of the Polestar’, in Riverside Quarterly; and there are others. Relating your chapter to these studies will help you distinguish your argument from them and make clearer your chapter’s original contribution. The latter two are particularly important because you refer to Wuthering Heights and Lyrical Ballads yourself.
The Arctic environment also seems important to your discussion in places and Shane Mccorristine’s The Spectral Arctic might help you here as well as Conan Doyle’s own writings – his ship’s log and magazine articles may be worth looking at. They are held in the ACD Encyclopedia.
Author Response
Hello and thank you for the notes. I've addressed them by summarizing the two major trends in the following ways:
1) Utilized more existing scholarship. I have sourced every article mentioned by Reviewer 2 and incorporated them into the paper throughout, adding 5-6 new sources. This fleshes out existing scholarship on Arthur Conan Doyle and masculinity and acknowledges the less readily digitized work on this story better than the first draft. I have added references to Barsham, Thompson, Rodan, Wynne, McCorristine, and Batory, with Barsham’s book being the most significant addition throughout.
2) Adjusted my framework to emphasize spiritualist masculinity more consistently. Addressing the comment about extending my framework more significantly into the latter half of the paper, I’ve made edits to extend the analysis to focus on how spiritualist masculinity specifically was invested in achieving the ideal balance of rationality and spirituality, so that the two male characters are placed into greater conversation with spiritualism itself. Prior to this, the masculinity/ghost connection was a bit broader and I hope this tightens things up.
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThis article makes an original contribution to scholarship in this area through a convincing analysis of a lesser-known ghost story by Arthur Conan Doyle, “Captain of the ‘Pole-Star,’” as representative of broader cultural trends in the spiritualist movement, most notably how the movement negotiated cultural definitions of masculinity. Since the preponderance of scholarship on spiritualism has focused on how female mediumship empowered women within the paradigms of the “passive” domestic ideal of femininity, this article helps to address a significant gap in studies of gender in the history of spiritualism.
The article effectively and succinctly situates Conan Doyle’s short story within a complex network of intersecting historical, biographical, and literary contexts: the gendered history of spiritualism, the mid-century development of scientific rationalism, the evolution of Conan Doyle’s own spiritualist beliefs, Conan Doyle’s detective fiction, the themes of late-Victorian Imperial Gothic fiction, and the continuing influence of literary Romanticism on Victorian Gothic fiction. Through a careful review of relevant scholarship on each of these topics, the author uses the opening sections of the article to lay the groundwork for the thesis: Conan Doyle’s story foreshadows a developing “masculine binary” (144) in the gendering of the spiritualist movement, a trend toward defining “masculine spiritualism” as rooted in either scientific rationality or emotional spirituality (140-143). Close reading of the story convincingly posits the two lead characters, Dr. Ray and Captain Craigie, as representatives of these competing masculinities, while the ghost acts as a disruptive force that complicates and subverts both extremes of masculine identity. The author interprets Ray as a precursor of late-century psychical researchers who moved spiritualism from the feminized space of domestic seances to the “masculine” realm of ostensibly empirical scientific investigation, whereas Craigie represents a holdover from “a more emotional past” (323) typified in the Romantic Byronic heroes of early and mid-nineteenth-century Gothic literature. The author concludes with the argument that the unresolved nature of the ghost at the end of the story suggests the insufficient nature of the two extremes as opposed to the possible benefits of balancing “rational masculinity” with “spiritual masculinity” (436-437), an interpretation that reflects a coinciding transformation in Conan Doyle’s own attitudes towards spiritualism from intense skepticism to more open-minded curiosity.
The article is well-researched, coherently organized, and effectively argued in eloquent prose. I have no significant suggestions for revision.
Author Response
Thank you for the notes!
