CONTEXT SLIDE

What is the Female Gothic? It sounds like it should be a fairly easily answered question, and indeed the attempt has been made and refuted upon the past and current stage of the literary world. What we do know is that it participates in the Gothic genre, described as a sort of “medieval revival” rooted in the dark tones created by the aesthetic world of a “counterfeit medievalism” (Greenblatt 577).  Steven Greenblatt, editor of the Norton Anthology of English Literature, tells us that the growing popularity of the Gothic in the late eighteenth century “gave Romantic-period writers and readers a way to describe the terrifying experiences in ancient castles and ruined abbeys…” and that “In the long run Gothic became a label for macabre, mysterious, supernatural, and terrifying, especially the pleasurably terrifying, in literature generally” (Greenblatt 577). Some important names in the Female Gothic include, Mary Shelly, Anne Radcliffe, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Emily Bronte, and of the Gothic in general, Horace Walpole, Matthew Lewis, Lord Byron. The Female Gothic is however a more contemporary concept, utilising feminist literary criticism to form and categorize discourses otherwise overlooked in the Gothic texts by traditionally “patriarchal society”.

SLIDE: THE GOTHIC WHAT?

I want to focus most on that first word, Female – from what I’ve discerned the Female Gothic is more like an approach to reading or understanding the body of Gothic literature in relation to current feminist values, and the emergence (or I suppose you could say recognition) of those values in Gothic texts.

The appearance of the idiom “Female Gothic” is found not in the far removed past but rather in the literary criticism of Ellen Moers ’work Literary Women, published in 1976. In the section of her book focused specifically on the Female Gothic Moers suggests that it “is easily defined: [as] The work that women writers have done in the literary mode that, since the eighteenth century, we have called the Gothic” (Botting & Townsend, 123). She does admit that the Gothic itself is not as easily defined, “except that it has to do with fear,” and  further suggesting that “In Gothic writings fantasy predominates over reality, the strange over the commonplace and the supernatural over the natural” (Botting & Townsend, 123). And so at first glance you ask yourself with sarcastic inflection, “Great, that was helpful, but of what significance is this to the Gothic genre?” Moers inferences manage to reconcile the position of the female as author and character within the Gothic and establish a new discourse which has changed the way it is received today.

Through her examinations of Mary Shelly, Mary Wollstonecraft, Emily Bronte and others, Moers provides a new jumping point for feminist discourse in Gothic literature. With the help of a few critical essays on the implications of Moers’ work and some inferences drawn from TS Eliot and Michael Foucault, we can see the emergence of the Female Gothic criticism in the 20^th century and its timeless quality in application to these late romantic period (Gothic) texts and in the continuation of Gothic Studies today.

SLIDE: THE EXORCISIM OF ELLEN MOERS

Casting out the demons which initially posited the Female Gothic as trashy horror erotica, such as the conservative and patriarchal Victorian social norms, it has been liberated through the feminist critical lens of Ellen Moers and others. One Such critic states “The advantages of hitching the Gothic’s wagon to feminism’s star by way of Female Gothic were many…doing so was essential to ‘rescuing’ the reputation of such women writers as Ann Radcliffe from critics who found her ‘childish fantasies’, ‘gently spooky fiction’ and ‘concern for external circumstance’ lacking the ‘deeper implications’ available in the work of such male writers as Mathew Lewis” (Fitzgerald 1). Thanks to Moers the Female Gothic can almost be placed as a sub genre of Gothic literature, focusing specifically on female authors, their works, and as the approach of feminist critical theory to gothic texts. In her article, Female Gothic and the Institutionalization of Gothic Studies, Lauren Fitzgerald makes the claim “Moers has a place not only in the history of Gothic criticism but also in the Gothic tradition, as much, really, as Radcliffe…Moers’ discussion of Female Gothic is not only a lens through which to view the tradition of Gothic texts she mapped but also part of this tradition and therefore part of our object of study” (Fitzgerald 8-9).

SLIDE: ELIOTONIAN IMPLICATIONS

To help recognize the significance of the effects Moers has had upon Gothic literature I want to consider what TS Eliot says in “Tradition and the Individual Talent” regarding the effects of incorporating new works into an existing canon. Eliot claims “what happens when a new work …is created is something that happens simultaneously to all the works of art which preceded it. The existing monuments form an ideal order among themselves, which is modified with the introduction of the new work among them… after the supervention of novelty, the whole existing order must be… altered; and so the relations, proportions, values of each work of art toward the whole are readjusted” (Leitch 1093). Like the introduction of new art, the introduction of Moers’ “Female Gothic” works to adjust the understanding and value of particular texts, helping the discourse of re-humanizing the woman find its place amongst the Gothic texts.

A particular feature in the Female Gothic texts, such as Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho, is the issue of propriety i.e. the ownership of self and of material possession. Moers’ work has made possible this very discourse of propriety and rekindled the life of these texts casting the author’s as the woman’s rights advocates that they are though having been neglected as such for so long.

SLIDE: FRANKENSTEIN… & FOUCAULDIAN FECUNDITY

Whilst mentioning the discourses made accessible via Moers we may indulge the inclination to relate her effects on literature to what Michel Foucault states about the initiation of discursive practices and the author as function. First however let’s look at another example of discourse reared by Moers in considering Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

In Literary Women she claims “The versatility of Mary Shelley’s myth is due to the brilliance of her mind and the range of her learning, as well as to the influence of the circle in which she moved as a young writer. But Frankenstein was most original in its dramatization of dangerous oppositions through the struggle of a creator with monstrous creation. The sources of this Gothic conception, which still has power to ‘curdle the blood, and quicken the beatings of the heart,’ were surely the anxieties of a woman who, as a daughter, mistress, and mother, was a bearer of death” (Botting & Townsend 130). Unique to the Female Gothic Shelley provides us with neither a text which has no dominant female character nor one who functions outside the oppressive patriarchal norms of society at the time. Instead Shelley produces a text testifying to a fundamentally female experience – the myth, as Moers calls it, is the birth myth, and a discourse particularly categorized by the female author.

SLIDE: FRANKENSTEIN… & FOUCAULDIAN FECUNDITY

Foucault also seems to be aware of the overlooked role of woman in the Gothic when in his essay, What Is An Author? he states “Ann Radcliffe did not simply write The Mysteries of Udolpho and a few other novels, but also made possible the appearance of Gothic romances at the beginning of the nineteenth century. To this extent her function as an author exceeds the limits of her work” (Leitch 1632). Radcliffe, among other eighteenth century writers, is placed in the category of “initiators of discursive practices” by Foucault, which he suggests “not only make possible a certain number of analogies that could be adopted by future texts, but also as importantly, they also made possible a certain number of differences. They cleared a space for the introduction of elements other than their own which, nevertheless remain within the field of discourse they initiated” (Leitch 1632). Though all ‘good art” partakes in this form of existence the texts of the Female Gothic authors can specifically be seen to house and proffer their respective discourses which have been extrapolated over time.

Ellen Moers stands as an interesting example in the face of this discursive function in Gothic literature as both applying and categorizing the discourses of the Gothic texts but also redefining them at the same time. Foucault sees the author as function rather than an individual or ‘civil status’ attached to a name. He states “in this sense, the function of an author is to characterize the existence, circulation, and operation of certain discourses within a society” (Leitch 1628). Thus we can see Moers’ work on the Female Gothic has become a tool, as Eliotonian tradition implies, one which redefines these works in question while also categorizing and raising new points of discourse in the Gothic texts.

SLIDE: WOLLSTONECRAFT FOUNDATIONS

It would be fairly irresponsible to talk about the Female Gothic without including the influence of writers such as Mary Wollstonecraft, mother to Mary Shelley. Wollstonecraft can be seen as a progenitor of the growth and movement of modern feminism with her publication of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman which “inserts an analysis of the relations between the sexes into a wholesale revolutionary attack on hereditary privilege of all sorts – birth, wealth, rank, and gender” (Leitch 582). Though focusing predominantly on a woman’s right to education, Wollstonecraft argues against the traditional classification of women as weaker, lesser human beings, and incapable of participating in the discourses available only to the privileged patriarchs of society. She states “the great misfortune is this, that… [women] acquire manners before morals, and a knowledge of life before they have, from reflection, any acquaintance with the grand ideal outline of human nature. The consequence is natural; satisfied with common nature, they become a prey to prejudices, and taking all their opinions on credit, they blindly submit to authority” (Leitch 590). Thus we see Wollstonecraft proffering an argument for women to repossess their minds, bodies, and nature as something other than subservient. She also says, “Women are, therefore, to be considered either as moral beings, or so weak that they must be entirely subjected to the superior faculties of men” (Leitch 591), though obviously she supports the former. Without the initiation of such a discourse as Wollstonecraft provides, texts like The Mysteries of Udolpho, published only two years later in 1794, may not have been made possible. Likewise we can infer that Wollstonecraft’s influence on modern feminism has also made possible the works of feminist theorists such as Moers and others.

SLIDE: REACHING BEYOND THE GRAVE

In a sense we can see the Female Gothic to be more than merely a critical view on the Gothic texts, but also as a culmination of literary progress through the ages. In seeing the emergence of the discourses aforementioned in such novels as Radcliffe’s and Shelley’s we can deduce that the growth or improvement of the literary community and form of the novel from Defoe and Richardson to those of Haywood, Fielding, and Johnson, have made possible the revolutionary discourses of the Female Gothic. Likewise the Female Gothic’s production of implications of critical theory have aided in how we receive these texts today. In their article Female Gothic: Now and Then Andrew Smith and Diana Wallace reaffirm this claim saying “Moers’ analysis of Female Gothic… was extremely influential. It not only engendered a body of critical work which focused on the ways in which the Female Gothic articulated women’s dissatisfactions with patriarchal society… but placed the Gothic at the centre of the female tradition” (Smith & Wallace 1). Sadly it took about 250 years to fully realize the value of the Female Gothic articulated by Moers’ inclusion of the female authors, their works and characters, and the application of feminist theory to the text.

Okay – that’s it for now
Cheers
-Matt

Works cited:

Eliot, Thomas Sterns. Tradition and the Individual Talent. 1919. Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch et al. Norton & Company, Inc. 2001.

Wollstonecraft, Mary. A Vindication of the Rights of woman. 1792. Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch et al. Norton & Company, Inc. 2001.

Fitzgerald, Lauren: Female Gothic and the Institutionalization of Gothic Studies
Gothic Studies (6:1) [May 2004]

Foucault, Michel. What Is An Author? 1969. Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch et al. Norton & Company, Inc. 2001.

Moers, Ellen. Female Gothic. 1976. Gothic: Critical Concepts in Literary and Cultural Studies. Ed. Fred Botting, Dale Townshend. Routledge. 2004.

Smith, Andrew; Wallace, Diana: “The Female Gothic: Then and Now”
Gothic Studies (6:1) May 2004, 1-0_9. (2004)

The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt et. al. Eighth edition, Vol. D. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. 2006.

Conney Keyber

Straight out of the starting gates Henry Fielding’s “Shamela” is a satire at every turn. Before he even makes it off the title page Fielding’s prey’s upon his first victim, parodying “An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews” (under the name Conny Keyber) with Colley Cibber’s autobiography “An Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber.” Though I’m sure there is more depth to the slam, I imagine Fielding is positing an opine of the falsitude of Cibber’s own book and life. From here the satire ‘snowballs’ dragging the obvious Richardson & his text into question, but also casting the critical eye upon politics, religion (or religious factions – Methodists), and society at large, condemning the morality of those who held Pamela upon a pedestal. Playing on the legitimacy that fictional texts often proffered, Fielding offers a series of letters as preface to the work claiming its (Keyber’s text’s) credibility and showering it with praises. Again another jab at Richardson and the alleged self congratulating letters sent to the editor re: Pamela.

Fielding effectively sets up his ‘argument’ against “Pamela” in the letters of two holy men, Rev. Tickletext & Rev. Oliver. The former heralds the story of Pamela as the greatest book to grace the parishes, and humorously so, which at the same time works to ‘defrock’ the minister’s piety – as he seems to be placing more stock in it than the scriptures he has supposedly dedicated his life to. The letter in response (from Rev. Oliver) however is one of far greater censure, essentially calling “Pamela” a wolf in sheep’s clothing stating it is a “misrepresentation of facts, and perversion of truth.”

Maintaining the epistolary form Fielding models Mrs. Shamela Andrews and her situation from that of  Pamela, though of course making slight adjustments to  dis-imbue the idealism of Richardson’s novel. A decent portion of the Fielding’s text follows similar occurrences of the plot from “Pamela,” all the while supplying a character driven by material greed, and an inclination towards vice hidden from her “fool” of a master by her deceitful arts. Fielding however doesn’t merely stop his satiric attack at “Pamela” but uses his text to question Walpole sr. (a non Tory political leader), as well as the Methodist evangelical movement and a society which has been engrossed by the apparent truth of “Pamela” whilst overlooking the major moral gaps. (I’m thinking specifically of the actions of Squire B. and the virtue of Pamela which is taken for granted on this point.)

In class we discussed whether or not Fielding’s “Shamela” was able to stand on its own as a ‘novel’: I think on one hand it has some elements which allow it to function without a requisite reading of “Pamela” but on the other, that there are indeed some things which would be lost without it. Due to the information gathered from the Parsons’ letters the reader can easily deduce the series of letters reproduced are the allegedly true happenings of a work which has been published on pretense. However the satire would lose some of its potency without the reader’s knowledge of the images mirrored in the scenarios of “Shamela” even though a large chunk of the religious & political commentary would be unaffected by this. I doubt that without the success of Richardson’s novel  “Shamela” would have reached near as much popularity as it did. Cleverly, Fielding did take advantage of the book’s popularity and managed while critiquing the absurdity of idealization in “Pamela” he has also sets the ‘stage’ for his text, where upon drawing in a crowd he can proliferate his other marks for satiric attack.

Cheers,
-Matt

As we’ve seen in Haywood’s writing before (and in Pamela), she has a knack for indirectly addressing issues – questioning and critiquing roles such as gender and class. For Haywood, or any author, to directly accuse a gentleman (or the whole range of them) of being solely self-interested in their courting of woman, and that more often than not they will ruin a girl and then leave, they would be at least somewhat accurate (more or less). However, to do this would of course mean certain consequences from the long arm of the hypocritical bourgeois ideology. So I am taking for granted here that a great number of ‘gentlemen’ from that time are continually objectifying wormen for base ends and employing any false hope or  underhanded means (including force) to get what they want.

Okay, this is where I start to make the jump to my inference of Haywood’s social critique, so bare with me. In Anti-Pamela we see Haywood create a character whose closest semblance to innocence and virtue are the exact opposites, that is her feigning of them. Her character, Syrena Tricksy, is portrayed as a manipulative monster, a succubus if you will, who lies, cheats, blackmails – who will stop at nothing to get what she wants from the opposite sex. By these means Syrena both objectifies and exploits her victims, the men who succumb to vanity and inconstancy before her beauty. It is here that I would like to suggest that Haywood is building her ‘heroin’ as an opposite image of Pamela, and further as a corrupt / stereotypical gentleman. That is to say that in order to lay her moral critique upon the shallow intentions of men, or rather the usurping aspects of feigned ‘courtship’,  she must posit this role in a woman to safely pass judgment.In this way we see the judgment passed on the base objectifying qualities of human relations portrayed as getting in “her pants & his wallet”.

In the same instance we can view the position of Syrena as something of a double-edged blade. On the one had she fills the role as outlined above; but on the other hand, classic to Haywood, she also serves to question the authority of the upperclass and gender roles. First though, let’s focus on the questioning of class boundaries provided to the reader in the form of via negativa in “Anti-Pamela”. If we think back to Pamela we are presented with a girl who’s survival is dependant upon her virtue (for without it she would surely cast herself down a well). With her education and strict puritanical disposition Pamela finds a way to transcend the class boundaries and in this fashion imbues herself with a form of power. Likewise, but as I mentioned in a negative frame, we see Syrena presented with form of education and her conforming to an ideology supplied by her mothers malignance. With these tools Syrena places herself in a position of power and authority over numerous men of different classes. Thus we can also see Haywood creating a strong and industrious woman, even though inevitably doomed. (I say inevitably because of what I mentioned earlier about the expectations of social pressure – the sterotypes which bourgoeis ideology demands.)

Turning briefly now to the transcendance of gender roles, which follows closely to my previous two points, we see Syrena imbued with power much in the same way “Fantomina” was. Breaking the classical view that the loss of one’s chastity means the ruination of their life, Syrena is a woman who tosses aside the absurdity of virginity and thrives in a world without restrictions. Of course, as is pinnical to the ideology expoused by Haywood’s culture, just as Fantomina was in the end condemned, so is Syrena likewise exiled but with a far more cruel punishment than a monestary – i.e. Wales (hahaha).

So, in conclusion, if you’re going to do something you might as well do it right. remember:

Cheers
-Matt

The lucky devil

THE LATTER HALF of this article’s title I pose in two part jest; the first being the manipulative cunning of Haywood’s character, and the second the ending Haywood gives to “Fantomina.” I can’t speak for everyone else, and maybe I’m just a helpless romantic, but I was really hoping (if not expecting) the happy ending where the “young lady of distinguished birth” successfully snares her man and tames his “Luxurious wishes.” Initially I was quite impressed by her curiosity and the fervour with which she pursued her answer and man, Mr. Handsomepleasure. I will admit that truly I was undone upon reading the lines “In fine she was undone; and he gain’d a Victory, so highly rapturous, that had he known over whom, scarce could he have triumphed more” (Haywood, 46). It was up until this point that I assumed the text would keep with that classic virtue chastity as she pursued the “gratification of an innocent curiosity” (Haywood, 42). But alas this is not the case and not only does the narrator transcend (or I suppose transgress depending on how you read it) this seeming stale virtue held upon a pedestal of double standard, but at the same time transcends both her gender and the class structure itself.

I found it rather interesting that in order for her to speak to a man in a “free and unrestrained manner” (Haywood 43), she had to pretend to be of a lower class. It seems to me that Haywood is weaving social critique into all aspects of her story, and in this instance suggesting that there is excessive limitation and regulation placed on the conduct of the upper class, and in particular women. For the greater portion of this text we find a cunning woman hatching plans and gaining power through manipulation and lies, which I had thought were to be employed for the greater good of Beauplaisir and remedying his nature of infidelity. Well, it won’t be the first time I was wrong, nor will it be the last.

At any rate, via this “love maze” we are introduced to the double standard that is held in society; where women are held to one standard and the men another. All of her plotting, scheming and manipulating are issued for the protection of her reputation, whereas Beauplaisir and other men are free to ‘enjoy’ several mistresses and not so much as break a sweat with worry over such things. We see her explicitly dismiss the feminine virtue saying, “She had Discernment to foresee, and avoid all those ills which might attend the loss of her Reputation, but was wholly blind to those of the Ruin of her Virtue; and having managed her Affairs so as to secure the one, grew perfectly easy with the Remembrance, she had forfeited the other” (Haywood, 49). By means of this forfeiture, and the characters awareness of it, Haywood lays the critical eye upon the norms of society dictated to women, suggesting it is a hollow and passé ‘virtue.’

Before I attempt to draw a conclusion I want briefly to mention roles of ‘power’ in this story. Bollocks to the double standard virtue, chastity. She would be labelled forsaken if anyone found out she was ‘loose’ about her virtues, sleeping with men out of wedlock – but secretly she courts one particular man in disguise of one already forsaken (in societies eyes) and if she actually had obtained her man in the end she really wouldn’t have even transgressed this social virtue (at least not with the consequences as potent as they become). We witness her in control of the games she plays, the trap she lays, getting what she wants. Conversely Mr. Handsomepleasure is portrayed as weak, being played like a fiddle by this Fantomina, continually succumbing to his vices of promiscuity (which quite hypocritically society embraces & proffers) and if he were held to the same test as the opposite sex would be condemned. If held to a uniform standard his downfall would be in his presumptuous laying of what he thinks to be several different women; his continual return to an uncontrollably lustful disposition; lecherous. In this love maze our Fantomina goes about laying a trap for Beauplaisir and for the greater duration of the text succeeds in making him hers via this manipulation, Haywood openly adorning the ‘heroin’ with the power in the relationship, and the power to transcend stale social imperatives.

Well then, this brings us to the end of her story, as we know she gives birth, is rejected by the man she has deceived, forsaken by her mother, and thus sent to the convent. I suppose there are a couple of ways you could take the ending of her story; either that Haywood is showing the reader what not to do, and giving us the consequences of said actions, or in a grimmer light, that some of the claimed virtues of society are outdated, that women have the right to assume power to overthrow these stale niceties (that they should be stronger and more thoughtful), but that ultimately society is aimed to make the woman submissive and docile. Consequently for those who do try to break the class and gender barrier in this sorry view of Haywood, that life’s a bitch and then you get sent to the nunnery, alone & forsaken.

Well I hope that made sense, my attempt at proof reading only tacked on about another 400 words, I’ll have to come back to it again after class and check everything over.

Cheers, and thanks for reading,
-Matt

I certainly look forward to the seminar on protestant work ethic tomorrow in hopes that it will bring a nice polished sheen to some of my currently hazy thoughts (good luck Hayley).

Well I hope that makes sense, a bit of a last minute post, but I wanted to get the idea written down before I forgot it. I look forward to any comments queries or criticism.

Cheers,

Matt

pretty spiffy kicks, check it out at: http://dc-mrg.english.ucsb.edu/WarnerTeach/E232/

Okay, here it goes:

“I had great Reason to consider it as a Determination of Heaven, that in this desolate Place, and in this desolate Manner I should end my Life;” (Defoe 47)

From the first few pages & persisting throughout the text Crusoe is prophesied as a man destined to misery. The tale opens with Crusoe’s father prophetically warning his son of the inevitable sorrow he will encounter if he continues to transgress the will of god and his family. When I first encountered this statement followed by Crusoe’s apparent need to find his place on the seas, I anticipated that classic modernist theme of working against the patriarchal structures and gaining knowledge of “the other.” Well it certainly wasn’t the case; his story essentially taking the exact opposite course.

Starting in the “middle station” of life Crusoe rejects his place in it and essentially lands himself in the lowest station of life through his misfortune, bringing upon himself much toil and suffering. This has been one of the dominant threads I have followed through the story: witnessing time and time again as Crusoe pulls himself up to some semblance of a comforting, if not easy, manner of living and then decides to jump back in a boat and sail to his misfortune.

Furthermore the idea of a hierarchical social system seems to persist through the tale, either present in his minds narrative, civilization at large, and god. It seems to me that Defoe is asserting a deterministic natural order to the world he presents and that his character, Robinson Crusoe, tries to live outside of the boundaries provided by said order and thus pays the price, forsaken by humanity.

A particular characteristic of Crusoe that I find interesting is his intensely rational and philosophically inquisitive nature throughout the majority of his trials (aside from the terror or sorrow stricken moments he describes along the way). I mention this now in conjunction with the role of god and religion in the text, particularly because of during (or maybe shortly after) his illness where he rationally comes to the conclusion that god, the creator and controller of our world, must exist and must have some purpose for his current state of affairs. I also found it interesting that Crusoe’s removal or dismissal of god essentially caused him great grief, plunging him deeper into a despairing world and further that his delusion (as I think Defoe intends it to be seen) of self reliance imprisons his spirits for nearly two years as a castaway. Reinforcing this, as Crusoe finds his way to god we see him explicitly stating that he finds himself more at ease and able to find joy in life again, “That he could fully make up to me, the Deficiencies of my Solitary State, and the want of Humane Society by his Presence, and the Communication of his Grace to my Soul, supporting, comforting, and encouraging me to depend upon his Providence here, and hope for his Eternal Presence hereafter. It was now that I began sensibly to feel how much more happy this Life I now led was…” (Defoe 82). Though the Providence of god never truly dissuades Crusoe of “a wandering life” it does however change him giving him the sensibility to recognize and appreciate the comforts of life typically taken for granted, leaving the reader with a more humbled and morally adjusted man.

There you have it, my first real blog post and my initial “two cents worth” on some dominate issues in Robinson Crusoe. I have to admit I was hesitant about this novel at first but am pleased to have found it to be rather engaging and interesting. I look forward to your comments and exploring some of these issues more fully in class.

Cheers,
Matt Cornfield

Oh, and I should also mention: The blog title, “Cries of the dead” is actually the title of a song from Chad VanGaalen’s album, “Soft Airplane.” I thought it somewhat appropriate seeing as how all the authors we will be covering are presently deceased.

Cheers & happy blogging,
Matt Cornfield