Sepulchrave
| Lord Sepulchrave | |
|---|---|
| Gormenghast character | |
| First appearance | Titus Groan |
| Last appearance | Titus Groan |
| Created by | Mervyn Peake |
| Information | |
| Gender | Male |
| Title | Earl of Groan |
| Spouse(s) | Gertrude |
| Children | Fuchsia Groan, Titus Groan |
| Relatives | Cora and Clarice Groan (sisters) |
Sepulchrave, Earl of Groan is a character in Mervyn Peake's novels Titus Groan .
Sepulchrave is the 76th Earl of Groan and Lord of Gormenghast, the gigantic, isolate citadel-state which forms the setting/otherworld for the Titus Groan novels of Mervyn Peake.
He is father to Titus Groan and Fuchsia Groan, brother to Cora and Clarice Groan, and estranged husband to the Countess Gertrude.
He is afflicted by an intense melancholia that leaves him psychologically paralyzed for most of the novel. The movements of his every waking hour are dictated by the “immemorial rites set down in the books of the lore of Groan”, a canon of meaningless, endlessly cross-referenced and encoded ritual that forms the foundation of the decaying Gormenghast society.
This lore is interpreted for Sepulchrave by his Master of Ritual, Sourdust, who meets him at a lavish breakfast every morning; a breakfast that is never eaten and which is left to waste. Sepulchrave has no appetite and is moved by no emotion other than weary and unrelenting depression. However, his frozen heart is mildly stirred at the outset of 'Titus Groan' by the news of the birth of his son.
The only relief afforded to Sepulchrave from his misery is literature. He is variously described as having a powerful but listless intellect. His imbecile sisters Cora and Clarice remark; “He’s very clever but he learns it all from books.” His sanctuary or fortress of solitude is the Library, a building in Gormenghast to which he retires every night after his ceremonial duties have been discharged and in which he remains reading until the small hours of the morning. The Library is located in the shadow of the Tower of Flints, the heart of Gormenghast and a Dark Tower that comes to dominate Sepulchrave's mind. His melancholia infects the very air of the library; ‘imparting its illness on either side.’ He reads of every subject but he is drawn particularly to poetry. Fragments of the fictional poets that he reads allow Peake to exercise his considerable poetic gifts within the novel.
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