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54 THE CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF
FIG. 3
Laurence Housman’s
illustration for
Clemence Housman’s
The Were-Wolf.
the usual state of consciousness. This spatialization of subjectivity as
an internal–external, depth–surface or conscious–unconscious construct
has been one of the most powerful and enduring legacies of the
romantic period, as the perennial figure of the werewolf can testify.
Werewolf literature has oscillated between such ‘sociological’ and
‘psychological’ representations of the werewolf. As early as 1850, Mrs
Catherine Crowe (one of the pioneers of the nineteenth-century passion
for occult phenomena) identified ‘various shades and degrees of
lycanthropy’. 34 ‘In some cases,’ she wrote, ‘the lycanthrope declares
that he has the power of transforming himself into a wolf, in which
disguise — his tastes corresponding to his form — he delights in feeding
on human flesh. … In other instances there was no transformation.’ 35
The literally transforming werewolf was generally an example of the
externalized grotesque, its monstrosity deriving from its perceived