Abstract
The objective of this thesis is to understand some aspects of the thought of Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909) and the science of criminal anthropology and criminology. Lombroso has been acknowledged as
one of the founding fathers of criminology - and the introduction of scientific studies on crime and the criminal. By drawing inspiration from the tradition of Bakhtinian literary and cultural analysis, this thesis suggests that Lombroso s criminal anthropology and later criminology introduced a scientific
literature into academia that allowed and still allows the reader to view the world in a specific way which can neither be reduced to form nor ideology. This thesis will argue that criminal anthropology
might be understood as a form-shaping ideology which could be seen in the meta-literary framework and historical tradition of what Bakhtin has called grotesque realism. In other words, Lombroso s
thought might be seen as a scientific, late nineteenth century expression of the narrative and aesthetical tradition of grotesque realism. This is a grotesque realism which in the late romantic period was given an onus on the existence of doubles and the potentially dangerous and conflicting natures of Man,
society and reality. By drawing inspiration from the tradition of Bakhtinian literary and cultural analysis, this thesis suggests that Lombroso s criminal anthropology and later criminology
introduced a scientific literature into academia that allowed and still allows the reader to view the world in a specific way which can neither be reduced to form nor ideology. This thesis will argue
that criminal anthropology might be understood as a form-shaping ideology which could be seen in the meta-literary framework and historical tradition of what Bakhtin has called grotesque realism. In other words, Lombroso s thought might be seen as a scientific, late nineteenth century expression of the
narrative and aesthetical tradition of grotesque realism. This is a grotesque realism which in the late romantic period was given an onus on the existence of doubles and the potentially dangerous and
conflicting natures of Man, society and reality. This thesis suggests that his ideas are best considered dialogically, and the conceptual categories of the criminal types became ever more heterogeneous.
Furthermore, that their openess of structure and ambiguity and their affinity to the gothic imagination might be said to be important aspects of their force and growing success.
I have provided a brief general outline of the development of criminological historiographical narration and representations of Lombroso and his science in modern historiography. Secondly, I
briefly considered the relationship between the rise of criminal anthropology, the rise of gothic literature and the similarities etween the form-shaping ideology of Lombroso s narratives to romantic
grotesque realism. Thirdly, I examined Lombroso s creation myth on the born criminal and its relation to the gothic imagination. the rise of criminal anthropology, the rise of gothic literature and
the similarities between the form-shaping ideology of Lombroso s narratives to romantic grotesque realism. Fourthly, I give a short summary of Lombroso s The Anarchists. Following, I argue that The
Anarchists most likely was written in the aftermath of Caserio s murder of the French President Sadi Carnot, and was written to try to influence governmental policies towards anarchist violence.
However, as opposed to the predominant view found in the current secondary literature my claim is that The Anarchists was not written in support of governmental repression of the anarchist movement.
Rather, I maintain that Lombroso, at the time The Anarchists was written, was not only sympathetic towards what he understood as the anarchist critique of the social condition, but moreover that The
Anarchists should largely be read as an apologia for the Italian socialist and anarchist movement and being in the tradition of political gothic. I have especially stressed Lombroso s scientific views and their relationship to romanticism his understanding of the man of genius and criminal through passion in particular. I have also advanced the view that Lombroso s understanding of the nature of the criminal through passion may have come from the inspiration of reading the work of Dostoevsky.
This thesis holds that gothic fiction might be seen as allegorising the change on how to view the tropes of crime that one later sees develops in the nineteenth century in the science of Lombroso
among others. The 18th and 19th centuries saw the rise of gothic literature and they saw the rise of the sciences on the tropes of crime. In Italy, the second half of the 19th century saw both the rise of Italian gothic fiction as it did the rise of the School of Criminal Anthropology. I have argued that the gothic
narrative, with its focus on the mysteries and horrors of the double might be seen as a medium - both partaking in and providing legitimacy to the claims of Lombroso s science, just as it may have been part of, or one aspect of why Lombroso s claims of the existence of criminal types made sense to an
19th century audience. Furthermore, the gothic aspect may be why the idea of criminal types made sense to those who denounced his science, and why it still makes sense to some researchers within the
discipline of criminology. Moreover, I claim that the form-shaping ideology of the gothic imagination is also present among those later perspectives, often very critical to Lombroso s science. This latter
point exemplified by suggesting a relationship between Lombroso s reseach into spiritistic phenomena and the later criminological historiographical and theoretical traditions.