The Castle Spectre by M.G. Lewis

by Mirco Nasi
(june 2004)

Matthew Gregory Lewis was born in London on 9 July 1775. Guided by his father in choosing a diplomatic career, he attended Westminster School and Christchurch College at Oxford. During this period, he travelled widely, visiting Paris and Weimar in order to improve his knowledge of modern languages. He graduated in 1794 and, in the same year, started working as a minor diplomat in The Hague. During this brief period in the diplomatic service, he composed his best-known romance, The Monk, from which he got his famous nickname. He then won a seat in the House of Commons as a member for Hindon, but, after a few years, he withdrew from political activities and devoted himself to playwriting, with works such as The Castle Spectre, Alfonso King Of Castille, Adelgitha Or The Fruit Of A Single Error, Adelmorn The Outlaw, Rugantino Or The Bravo Of Venice, The Wood Daemon.
His father had vast properties and hudreds of slaves in Jamaica, and, when he died in 1812, Lewis inherited them. In 1815 he embarked for the Caribbean island to visit his estates and, as a firm opposer of slavery, to improve the workers’ conditions. During this journey, he wrote a diary that was published posthumously in 1833 as The Journal of a West Indian Proprietor. He returned to England after four months, but in 1817 decided to undertake a second visit to Jamaica, where he contracted the yellow fever which killed him on board the ship that was taking him back to London on 14 May 1818.
Lewis was an extremely versatile author, capable of passing from farce and comic opera to melodrama and high tragedy. In an age characterized by grey towns and hard conditions of life, he tried to offer his public a way out from the sad routine by way of shocking and supernatural images, haunted castles, extravagant dream sequences and demons in chariots drawn by dragons. His ideas are perfectly represented by a short jingle in his epilogue to Thomas Holcroft’s comedy Knave Or Not?: “That this play may succeed, may the Bard safely boast / Who opens the piece with a Song by a Ghost / But in popular plaudits unbounded he revels / If he follows the Song with a Dance by two Devils… / Give us Lightning and Thunder, Flames, Daggers and Rage / With events that ne’er happened, except on the Stage.” For this reason, many of his plays earned enormous approval but, at the same time, wild attacks from contemporary reviewers. As Jeffrey Cox has asserted, “Lewis was the writer who was most successful in finding a version of tragedy that could win a popular audience”.

The Castle Spectre is a dramatic romance in five acts. It was first performed at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, on 14 December 1797. In a period when very few plays reached ten performances in a season, it was staged forty-seven times before June, when the theatre closed for the summer. The play had a long run also in the following year and remained in the repertoire until the late 1820s, and was revived until the end of the century. It also toured the provincial theatres and went through eleven printed editions from 1798 to 1803. Further evidence of its extraordinary popularity is given by the fact that it crossed the ocean and opened in New York on 1 June 1798. Moreover, it was turned into a prose romance in 1829 by Sarah Wilkinson.
The Castle Spectre was one of the most successful theatrical creations of the day, but also one of the most criticized. In many critics’ opinions, the plot was too contrived, the language lacking in wit, and the characters devoid of originality. Undoubtedly, what made it an extraordinary success were the striking and shocking scenes exploited by Lewis to impress his audience and, above all, the presence of the ghost. In view of Shakespeare’s important precedent, this was not the first time that a spectre had appeared on stage. But, as Jonathan Glance has remarked, “Shakespeare’s ghosts were acceptable because the people in that benighted time believed in them, but in the modern, enlightened eighteen century, such phenomena were ludicrous”. Nor was it the first time a spectre had appeared on stage in a Gothic drama, because James Boaden had exploited such figures only three years before, in his Fontainville Forest. But whereas Boaden’s ghost had glided across the stage only for a few seconds and without being illuminated, Lewis’s spectre was shown in two different scenes, took part in the action, and was surrounded by music and lights in order to underline its presence.
Many judged it a blasphemy to represent the spiritual world, and thought it was scandalous to combine the solemnity of the drama with special effects. Although theatrical managers tried to persuade Lewis to give up his project, he went ahead with it and, after its first performance, accusations raged against his play. The Analytical Review wrote: “for our part, we cannot but regard the success of The Castle Spectre as truly humiliating to the pride of our national taste; and as seeming to demonstrate, that the manly and sublime beauties of the drama must resign their place in the estimations of a british pubblic to stage trick and scenery”. But Lewis also knew that other sections of the public would appreciate his work and, indeed, enthusiastical comments abounded. The Monthly Mirror declared that “if we pass over the necessity of the spectre in this play, we must allow the effect produced by its introduction to be stronger than any thing of the sort that has been hitherto attempted”. The Morning Herald added that “there was literally a magic in The Castle Spectre which recalled every solemn remembrance of the spectator and appealed directly to the heart”.
As a playwright, Lewis was well aware that the numbers of spectators interested in the theatre was increasing enormously, and that many of them were simple workers with a simple desire for relief. Thus he adapted the forms of legitimate drama to these new demands, providing fantastic and shocking effects. In this respect Jeffrey Cox observes that he “closed the gap between high and mass culture”. And this is most visible in The Castle Spectre, which he called a “dramatic romance in five acts”, thus blending the typical structure of high tragedy and the hybrid nature of the romance.

The concluding scene of Lewis’s play neatly summarizes some of the most important elements of Gothic dramaturgy (See Jeffrey N. Cox, ed., Seven Gothic Dramas, pp. 218-20). First of all, the presence of the ghost is central in this passage. This is the second time it has appeared in the play, and now its role is crucial. Thanks to its intervention, Angela may “plunge her dagger in Osmond’s bosom” and stop his threats and cruelty.
Many critics stated that the spectre’s presence had no bearing on the development of the plot and, as The Monthly Mirror said, “there is no necessity for its appearance. The mischief that is done, or prevented, would have been done, or prevented, without it”. Lewis could have concluded his work in a more traditional way, with the heartless villain killed by the brave hero. Instead, he decided to introduce this unexpected scene. For, before his Castle Spectre, the ghost which had crossed the stage were intangible figures, half-hidden in dark corners, while, on the contrary, Lewis accompanied his apparition with music and lights, and gave it an active, crucial role.

Undoubtedly, the decision to offer his public an unexpected Gothic frisson determined the enormous success and the bitter criticism that accompanied the countless performances of the play. Therefore we can assert that what made Lewis’s fortune as a dramatist was his strong desire to find new spectacular solutions, able to remedy the shortcomings of the performance and transform the play into a perfect theatrical machine. This was duly appreciated by The Analytical Review which remarked that “with the united efforts of the actress and the scene painter, the property-man and the fiddler, the ghost has made its way to the public approbation”.
As far as Lewis’s search for novelty and striking effects is concerned, it is interesting to highlight the character of Hassan, an African servant with an innovative dramatic function, that is also a specifically “Gothic” one. Critics immediately accused Lewis of an anachronism, but it seems likely that the playwright simply wanted to increase the play’s exotic effect by introducing a variety of differences from the past, altering characters and dresses, in order to gain the audience, without being interested in historic accuracy. By the same token, he also intended to strenghten the distinctive features of one of the recurrent Gothic figures, the villain. In this light, Hassan is in Osmond’s service because the earl has cruelly snatched him from his family, and, hating the white race that he considers responsible for his sufferences, the black slave refuses to escape only because he is aware of his master’s evil propensity to torture people around him. Lewis exploited this unusual figure to introduce something new and surprising in his play, but also to underline the demoniac instincts of the villain.

Online versions available at:

http://www2.unipr.it/~dsaglia/Lewis/CastleProsp.html

In order to discuss the figure of Osmond as the traditional Gothic villain, full of rage and revenge against everyone, it is important to compare his behaviour and that of the heroine, Angela. During the play Osmond feels no pity for anyone, showing himself disposed to kill his brother and his servants without remorse; he continuously harasses and threatens Angela, but when she discovers that, after stabbing him, he is still alive, she asks the servants to save his life, so that he can “gain time to repent his crimes and errors”. Angela is the perfect heroine, who reacts to her sorrows thanks to her courage, and whose purity leads her to forgive the man who has tormented her for so long. Thanks to this character, Lewis highlights Osmond’s extreme evil and increases the sensations of terror inspired by the villain.
Another similar comparison may be that between Osmond and Percy. The latter is the hero in love with Angela and, as with any other traditional hero, he is ready to risk life and limb to save his beloved. Indeed, he follows Kenric to Osmond’s castle and manages to enter the building, but is discovered and imprisoned. He recovers his freedom only thanks to the comic and humble Motley. Moreover, in the final scene, he arrives only when Angela has already stabbed Osmond: thus he can do nothing but embrace her. The result is that he is more similar to a comic character than a traditional hero. By contrast, his weakness is counterbalanced by Osmond’s strength and self-confidence. Like Percy, he feels a strong passion, but, instead of disguising himself and failing in his attempts, he confronts his enemies directly and only Evelina’s ghost manages to hamper and defeat him. This comparison between the “flat” hero and fascinating villain, as well as the one between Osmond and Angela, is exploited by Lewis to consolidate the stage impact of the gloomy villain, increase the public’s fear and, consequently, the overall success of the drama. From this point of view, Lewis’s decision to replace Percy with the ghost as Angela’s decisive “helper” in the final scene secures a surprising, because unforeseen, end.

It is also important to analyze the possible ideological meanings of The Castle Spectre, which may throw light on the ideological import of many other Gothic dramas. As Jeffrey Cox has remarked, “it is in the 1790s that the Gothic drama truly comes to dominate the theatre”, a period characterized by the political and ideological storminess caused by the French Revolution. Undoubtedly, this was explicitly noted by James Boaden: “the French Revolution had now opened upon the world in all its horrors and the stage, which echoes but the public voice, was now destined to rave about that cage of tyranny, the Bastile, which […] had been besiged by a virtuous populace, and all its dark secrets returned to the light of day and the blessings of freedom”. Echoes of this call for freedom resonate in the last scene of Lewis’s play, as it ends with Angela’s and Reginald’s liberation from Osmond’s castle. Reading the castle as a symbol for the ancien régime, it represents the past that must be subverted, while the flight of the characters from it may stand for the widespread desire to enter “into the world of an open future”. Probably this is also why conservative intellectuals and critics attacked The Castle Spectre and its tendency to subvert the estabilished order of things.
As for the linguistic and physical codes, the final passage presents three distinct semantic fields. The first part of the scene is scattered with lexical elements – such as “surprised”, “speed”, “confusion” and “sudden” – expressive of agitation. These words perfectly show the animated and difficult condition of Osmond and Hassan, who are obliged to hasten because they have discovered that Percy and his men have entered the castle. Osmond, who has never feared anyone and has always faced his sufferings with great courage, even asks his servant to help him. Of course, their movements similarly recall this general hurry, with Hassan entering “hastily” and Osmond “rush[ing] upon Reginald”.

The ghost’s appearance brings about a visible shift to the semantic field of fear. Evelina’s ghost that, at first, “throws herself” between Osmond and Reginald coming out from the darkness, and then “vanishes”. Osmond immediately cries “Horror! What form is this?”, thus voicing his disorientation in front of the spectral figure. Taking advantage og his disorientation, the heroine Angela shouts “Die!” and “plunges her dagger in Osmond’s bosom”, who “groans” and “faints”, and falls “bleeding upon the ground”.
The third major semantic field is that of happiness. Indeed, after Osmond’s has been wounded, Angela embraces Percy and enjoins him to do the same with her father. Friendly and affectionate words are exchanged: Angela calls Percy her “friend”, “guardian angel” and “protector”, while Reginald defines him “the brave Percy”, welcoming him to his heart. But the most significant comment is Angela’s “Oh, moment that o’erpays my sufferings”. These words represent a perfect conclusion to the drama, as they show how many wrongs the poor heroine has undergone and how relieved she feels after her oppressor’s defeat.

To conclude, the final scene of the play clearly reveals that, with the The Castle Spectre, Lewis wrote a successful play that perfectly keyed to the public taste and expectations. The author understood that the new middle classes, as well as the higher layers of the working classes, had a new theatrical taste, new demands, a new world-view, and, above all, a desire for different and new forms of entertainment. Therefore he adapted the forms of high tragedy and the legitimate drama to this situation, providing supernatural images, spectacular effects and comic relief. Contemporary critics belittled his dramatic efforts, and especially The Castle Spectre, yet Lewis effectively succeded in winning the public’s favour through his uncommon abilities as a playwright capable of developing complex yet fascinating plots, carefully choosing expressive words, evoking extremely eloquent gestures, and exploiting striking effects which made the public feel involved in the engaging spectacularity of his dramaturgy.

Bertrand Evans, Gothic Drama from Walpole to Shelley, Berkeley, University of California Press 1947

Jonathan Glance, “‘Fitting the Taste of the Audience like a Glove’: Matthew Lewis’s Supernatural Drama”, online: http://www.litgothic.com/Authors/lewis_essay_jg.html (accessed: 14 June 2004)

Louis F. Peck, A Life of Matthew G. Lewis, Cambridge, Harvard University Press 1961

Paul Ranger, “Terror and pity reign in every breast”: Gothic Drama in the London Patent Theatres, 1750-1820,

London, Society for Theatre Research 1991

Stephen Wischhusen, The Hour of One: Six Gothic Melodramas, London, Gordon Fraser 1975.

THEA : Teaching&Study Aids - Matthew Gregory Lewis *The Castle Spectre* Act V - Scene III. Reading
	by Mirco Nasi (june 2004)
the Author	The Castle Spectre
Matthew Gregory Lewis was born in London on 9 July 1775. Guided by his father in choosing a diplomatic career, he attended Westminster School and Christchurch College at Oxford. During this period, he travelled widely, visiting Paris and Weimar in order to improve his knowledge of modern languages. He graduated in 1794 and, in the same year, started working as a minor diplomat in The Hague. During this brief period in the diplomatic service, he composed his best-known romance, The Monk, from which he got his famous nickname. He then won a seat in the House of Commons as a member for Hindon, but, after a few years, he withdrew from political activities and devoted himself to playwriting, with works such as The Castle Spectre, Alfonso King Of Castille, Adelgitha Or The Fruit Of A Single Error, Adelmorn The Outlaw, Rugantino Or The Bravo Of Venice, The Wood Daemon. His father had vast properties and hudreds of slaves in Jamaica, and, when he died in 1812, Lewis inherited them. In 1815 he embarked for the Caribbean island to visit his estates and, as a firm opposer of slavery, to improve the workers’ conditions. During this journey, he wrote a diary that was published posthumously in 1833 as The Journal of a West Indian Proprietor. He returned to England after four months, but in 1817 decided to undertake a second visit to Jamaica, where he contracted the yellow fever which killed him on board the ship that was taking him back to London on 14 May 1818. Lewis was an extremely versatile author, capable of passing from farce and comic opera to melodrama and high tragedy. In an age characterized by grey towns and hard conditions of life, he tried to offer his public a way out from the sad routine by way of shocking and supernatural images, haunted castles, extravagant dream sequences and demons in chariots drawn by dragons. His ideas are perfectly represented by a short jingle in his epilogue to Thomas Holcroft’s comedy Knave Or Not?: “That this play may succeed, may the Bard safely boast / Who opens the piece with a Song by a Ghost / But in popular plaudits unbounded he revels / If he follows the Song with a Dance by two Devils… / Give us Lightning and Thunder, Flames, Daggers and Rage / With events that ne’er happened, except on the Stage.” For this reason, many of his plays earned enormous approval but, at the same time, wild attacks from contemporary reviewers. As Jeffrey Cox has asserted, “Lewis was the writer who was most successful in finding a version of tragedy that could win a popular audience”.	The Castle Spectre is a dramatic romance in five acts. It was first performed at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, on 14 December 1797. In a period when very few plays reached ten performances in a season, it was staged forty-seven times before June, when the theatre closed for the summer. The play had a long run also in the following year and remained in the repertoire until the late 1820s, and was revived until the end of the century. It also toured the provincial theatres and went through eleven printed editions from 1798 to 1803. Further evidence of its extraordinary popularity is given by the fact that it crossed the ocean and opened in New York on 1 June 1798. Moreover, it was turned into a prose romance in 1829 by Sarah Wilkinson. The Castle Spectre was one of the most successful theatrical creations of the day, but also one of the most criticized. In many critics’ opinions, the plot was too contrived, the language lacking in wit, and the characters devoid of originality. Undoubtedly, what made it an extraordinary success were the striking and shocking scenes exploited by Lewis to impress his audience and, above all, the presence of the ghost. In view of Shakespeare’s important precedent, this was not the first time that a spectre had appeared on stage. But, as Jonathan Glance has remarked, “Shakespeare’s ghosts were acceptable because the people in that benighted time believed in them, but in the modern, enlightened eighteen century, such phenomena were ludicrous”. Nor was it the first time a spectre had appeared on stage in a Gothic drama, because James Boaden had exploited such figures only three years before, in his Fontainville Forest. But whereas Boaden’s ghost had glided across the stage only for a few seconds and without being illuminated, Lewis’s spectre was shown in two different scenes, took part in the action, and was surrounded by music and lights in order to underline its presence. Many judged it a blasphemy to represent the spiritual world, and thought it was scandalous to combine the solemnity of the drama with special effects. Although theatrical managers tried to persuade Lewis to give up his project, he went ahead with it and, after its first performance, accusations raged against his play. The Analytical Review wrote: “for our part, we cannot but regard the success of The Castle Spectre as truly humiliating to the pride of our national taste; and as seeming to demonstrate, that the manly and sublime beauties of the drama must resign their place in the estimations of a british pubblic to stage trick and scenery”. But Lewis also knew that other sections of the public would appreciate his work and, indeed, enthusiastical comments abounded. The Monthly Mirror declared that “if we pass over the necessity of the spectre in this play, we must allow the effect produced by its introduction to be stronger than any thing of the sort that has been hitherto attempted”. The Morning Herald added that “there was literally a magic in The Castle Spectre which recalled every solemn remembrance of the spectator and appealed directly to the heart”. As a playwright, Lewis was well aware that the numbers of spectators interested in the theatre was increasing enormously, and that many of them were simple workers with a simple desire for relief. Thus he adapted the forms of legitimate drama to these new demands, providing fantastic and shocking effects. In this respect Jeffrey Cox observes that he “closed the gap between high and mass culture”. And this is most visible in The Castle Spectre, which he called a “dramatic romance in five acts”, thus blending the typical structure of high tragedy and the hybrid nature of the romance.
	Analysis
	The concluding scene of Lewis’s play neatly summarizes some of the most important elements of Gothic dramaturgy (See Jeffrey N. Cox, ed., Seven Gothic Dramas, pp. 218-20). First of all, the presence of the ghost is central in this passage. This is the second time it has appeared in the play, and now its role is crucial. Thanks to its intervention, Angela may “plunge her dagger in Osmond’s bosom” and stop his threats and cruelty. Many critics stated that the spectre’s presence had no bearing on the development of the plot and, as The Monthly Mirror said, “there is no necessity for its appearance. The mischief that is done, or prevented, would have been done, or prevented, without it”. Lewis could have concluded his work in a more traditional way, with the heartless villain killed by the brave hero. Instead, he decided to introduce this unexpected scene. For, before his Castle Spectre, the ghost which had crossed the stage were intangible figures, half-hidden in dark corners, while, on the contrary, Lewis accompanied his apparition with music and lights, and gave it an active, crucial role.
Undoubtedly, the decision to offer his public an unexpected Gothic frisson determined the enormous success and the bitter criticism that accompanied the countless performances of the play. Therefore we can assert that what made Lewis’s fortune as a dramatist was his strong desire to find new spectacular solutions, able to remedy the shortcomings of the performance and transform the play into a perfect theatrical machine. This was duly appreciated by The Analytical Review which remarked that “with the united efforts of the actress and the scene painter, the property-man and the fiddler, the ghost has made its way to the public approbation”. As far as Lewis’s search for novelty and striking effects is concerned, it is interesting to highlight the character of Hassan, an African servant with an innovative dramatic function, that is also a specifically “Gothic” one. Critics immediately accused Lewis of an anachronism, but it seems likely that the playwright simply wanted to increase the play’s exotic effect by introducing a variety of differences from the past, altering characters and dresses, in order to gain the audience, without being interested in historic accuracy. By the same token, he also intended to strenghten the distinctive features of one of the recurrent Gothic figures, the villain. In this light, Hassan is in Osmond’s service because the earl has cruelly snatched him from his family, and, hating the white race that he considers responsible for his sufferences, the black slave refuses to escape only because he is aware of his master’s evil propensity to torture people around him. Lewis exploited this unusual figure to introduce something new and surprising in his play, but also to underline the demoniac instincts of the villain.	Online versions available at: http://www2.unipr.it/~dsaglia/Lewis/CastleProsp.html
In order to discuss the figure of Osmond as the traditional Gothic villain, full of rage and revenge against everyone, it is important to compare his behaviour and that of the heroine, Angela. During the play Osmond feels no pity for anyone, showing himself disposed to kill his brother and his servants without remorse; he continuously harasses and threatens Angela, but when she discovers that, after stabbing him, he is still alive, she asks the servants to save his life, so that he can “gain time to repent his crimes and errors”. Angela is the perfect heroine, who reacts to her sorrows thanks to her courage, and whose purity leads her to forgive the man who has tormented her for so long. Thanks to this character, Lewis highlights Osmond’s extreme evil and increases the sensations of terror inspired by the villain. Another similar comparison may be that between Osmond and Percy. The latter is the hero in love with Angela and, as with any other traditional hero, he is ready to risk life and limb to save his beloved. Indeed, he follows Kenric to Osmond’s castle and manages to enter the building, but is discovered and imprisoned. He recovers his freedom only thanks to the comic and humble Motley. Moreover, in the final scene, he arrives only when Angela has already stabbed Osmond: thus he can do nothing but embrace her. The result is that he is more similar to a comic character than a traditional hero. By contrast, his weakness is counterbalanced by Osmond’s strength and self-confidence. Like Percy, he feels a strong passion, but, instead of disguising himself and failing in his attempts, he confronts his enemies directly and only Evelina’s ghost manages to hamper and defeat him. This comparison between the “flat” hero and fascinating villain, as well as the one between Osmond and Angela, is exploited by Lewis to consolidate the stage impact of the gloomy villain, increase the public’s fear and, consequently, the overall success of the drama. From this point of view, Lewis’s decision to replace Percy with the ghost as Angela’s decisive “helper” in the final scene secures a surprising, because unforeseen, end.	It is also important to analyze the possible ideological meanings of The Castle Spectre, which may throw light on the ideological import of many other Gothic dramas. As Jeffrey Cox has remarked, “it is in the 1790s that the Gothic drama truly comes to dominate the theatre”, a period characterized by the political and ideological storminess caused by the French Revolution. Undoubtedly, this was explicitly noted by James Boaden: “the French Revolution had now opened upon the world in all its horrors and the stage, which echoes but the public voice, was now destined to rave about that cage of tyranny, the Bastile, which […] had been besiged by a virtuous populace, and all its dark secrets returned to the light of day and the blessings of freedom”. Echoes of this call for freedom resonate in the last scene of Lewis’s play, as it ends with Angela’s and Reginald’s liberation from Osmond’s castle. Reading the castle as a symbol for the ancien régime, it represents the past that must be subverted, while the flight of the characters from it may stand for the widespread desire to enter “into the world of an open future”. Probably this is also why conservative intellectuals and critics attacked The Castle Spectre and its tendency to subvert the estabilished order of things. As for the linguistic and physical codes, the final passage presents three distinct semantic fields. The first part of the scene is scattered with lexical elements – such as “surprised”, “speed”, “confusion” and “sudden” – expressive of agitation. These words perfectly show the animated and difficult condition of Osmond and Hassan, who are obliged to hasten because they have discovered that Percy and his men have entered the castle. Osmond, who has never feared anyone and has always faced his sufferings with great courage, even asks his servant to help him. Of course, their movements similarly recall this general hurry, with Hassan entering “hastily” and Osmond “rush[ing] upon Reginald”.
The ghost’s appearance brings about a visible shift to the semantic field of fear. Evelina’s ghost that, at first, “throws herself” between Osmond and Reginald coming out from the darkness, and then “vanishes”. Osmond immediately cries “Horror! What form is this?”, thus voicing his disorientation in front of the spectral figure. Taking advantage og his disorientation, the heroine Angela shouts “Die!” and “plunges her dagger in Osmond’s bosom”, who “groans” and “faints”, and falls “bleeding upon the ground”. The third major semantic field is that of happiness. Indeed, after Osmond’s has been wounded, Angela embraces Percy and enjoins him to do the same with her father. Friendly and affectionate words are exchanged: Angela calls Percy her “friend”, “guardian angel” and “protector”, while Reginald defines him “the brave Percy”, welcoming him to his heart. But the most significant comment is Angela’s “Oh, moment that o’erpays my sufferings”. These words represent a perfect conclusion to the drama, as they show how many wrongs the poor heroine has undergone and how relieved she feels after her oppressor’s defeat.	To conclude, the final scene of the play clearly reveals that, with the The Castle Spectre, Lewis wrote a successful play that perfectly keyed to the public taste and expectations. The author understood that the new middle classes, as well as the higher layers of the working classes, had a new theatrical taste, new demands, a new world-view, and, above all, a desire for different and new forms of entertainment. Therefore he adapted the forms of high tragedy and the legitimate drama to this situation, providing supernatural images, spectacular effects and comic relief. Contemporary critics belittled his dramatic efforts, and especially The Castle Spectre, yet Lewis effectively succeded in winning the public’s favour through his uncommon abilities as a playwright capable of developing complex yet fascinating plots, carefully choosing expressive words, evoking extremely eloquent gestures, and exploiting striking effects which made the public feel involved in the engaging spectacularity of his dramaturgy.