Between two worlds and between the lines : a reading of the supernatural in James Hogg's fiction.

I examine James Hogg's portrayal of the supernatural in The Shepherd's Calendar, The Three Perils of Man, The Three Perils of Woman, and The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner. To do so, I use terminology from Charles Taylor's A Secular Age to explain how Hogg negotiates between the enchanted world of Ettrick Forest and the disenchanted world of Enlightenment Edinburgh. Because Hogg is between these two worlds and presents a porous receptivity of the supernatural to a buffered, Enlightenment audience, the sub-texts and complex narrative layers are particularly revelatory of Hogg's messages. In his fiction, Hogg often undermines the attempts of implied Enlightenment readers to explain away, categorize, or moralize the presence of the supernatural. Instead, he emphasizes the importance of a permeating supernatural realm that is just as real as the material world but is finally unable to be systematized and controlled.