176
The detection of anticipations of a series of gothic novelists after
Radcliffe has been manifested by the canons of critical tradition either of
past or present. The cornerstone of a new genre once again, like her
predecessors, Aphra Behn, Frances Burney and Maria Edgeworth, was laid
by Ann Radcliffe in the completion of the sub-genres of novel in the field of
gothic. Encyclopaedia Britannica under the entry of Ann Radcliffe states:
...the most representative of English Gothic novelists. She stands apart in her ability to infuse scenes of terror and suspense with an aura of romantic sensibility.
Like other pioneers, Radcliff, on the one hand, worked on the
possibilities of her innovation as a fully-shaped work and, on the other hand,
left the inviting gates of succession ajar for the future daring authors whose
literary tastes resembled that of hers. Her Mysteries of Udolpho gained a
reputation higher than the author herself which later on made writers and
critics call and know her by her work, to the extent that a book with the title
of The Mistress of Udolpho was published on the author’s life by Rictor
Norton.
The popular and critical acclaim of The Mysteries of Udolpho established Ann Radcliffe as one of the most successful novelists of the eighteenth century.1 177
History has proven that Radcliffe was no less a cause in preparation of
the ground for Jane Austen and Mary Shelley though both these two writers
may have far outshone Radcliffe in their creation of more complicated plots
and sophisticated characterization. Judicious criticism and sound
consciences must never underestimate the attempts one had shown in the
initiation of any intellectual movement. The risks of rejection by the public,
condemnation of the critics and refusal of the publishers had been taken by
those who had come forth with new ideas. Beside her innovative style of
gothic novel, Radcliffe introduced a new approach to the field of literary
description for the first time. The term ‘touristic literature’ is coined with
Radcliffe.
Radcliffe was the first to put tourism at the service and centre of the Romantic novel. In her work the gothic novel incorporates and is in turn transformed by the narrative conventions of the “old” romances and the vocabulary, socio-aesthetic assumptions, and descriptive techniques of Early-Romantic poetry and late eighteenth-century tour books.2
Her works were influential on many later writers, including Jane
Austen, the Bronte sisters, Edgar Allan Poe, John Keats, Lord Byron,
Charles Dickens and Henry James; however, some contemporary critics
insist on dismissing Radcliffe entirely; either they have dignified themselves 178 so highly that they do not vouchsafe a glance at her; or at most, give her an incidental consideration as a minor writer; or they might have misunderstood the author’s modest confession:
And if the weak hand that has recorded this tale, has, by its scenes, beguiled the mourner of one hour of sorrow, or, by its moral, taught him to sustain it –the effort, however humble, has not been in vain, nor is the writer unrewarded.3
This chapter will try to focus on those aspects of her life and works
which anticipated other writers and their novels.
1. Ann Radcliffe; A Life
In 1883 Christina Rossetti abandoned her efforts at a biography of Ann Radcliffe because the material was too meagre to make such a project feasible. Subsequent biographers have been frightened off by Rossetti’s estimation that the material was insufficient for the purpose,...4
Ann Radcliffe’s works supersedes her life. Gothic rumours are in
abundance about her personal life: It is said that she had gone mad as a result
of her dreadful imagination: It is said that she had been confined to an
asylum: It is said that she had been captured as a spy in Paris: It is said that
she ate raw pork chops before retiring to stimulate nightmares for her
novels: It was said that several times she was falsely rumoured to be dead in 179 her life time. These are all uncertain estimations of or attributions given to
her real life in order to make it match with her fictional one. But what is
certain is that Radcliff, at the age of twenty three, has been happily married
to a husband who inspired her with confidence to write.
Fortunately Ann Radcliffe was nurtured by a literary husband, who encouraged her to employ her leisure time in writing. No doubt they saw themselves as literary establishment. 5
Ann did not have any child and it might have resulted in her
immediate determination to work with full time at her disposal and being
categorised among prolific novelists; however, the grief of childlessness has
been scattered throughout the works. Radcliffe could imagine the pain she
would encounter at her old age by the time that she was still in her thirties
when she was writing The Mysteries of Udolpho.
… she has several children, who are all dancing on the green yonder, as merry as grasshoppers –and long may they be so! I hope to die among them, monsieur. I am old now, and cannot expect to live long, but there is some comfort in dying surrounded by one’s children.’ ‘My good friend.’ said St Aubert, while his voice trembled, ‘I hope you will long live surrounded by them.’6
Ann Ward, the only child of the family, was born in 1764 in London
not to a wealthy family of privilege but of middle class. She was still a child
when the family relocated to Bath. Her parents worked hard to support 180 themselves and their child. She is believed to have attended a school run by
Harriet and Sophia Lee, who were innovators in the development and writing of Gothic drama and fiction. The impact, the school left on Ann, was immense.
The sisters Harriet, Sophia and Ann Lee, following their father’s death in 1781, opened a school at Bath for some 70 daughters of the gentry. To supplement their income, Sophia and Harriet Lee each wrote several novels, dramas and translations... dealt with such Gothic subjects as the relationship between science and supernatural... The Recess was said to be one of Ann Radcliffe’s favourite novels.7
2. Ann Radcliffe; Historical Background
Any attempt to analyse Radcliffe’s creative character and her Gothic
creations would seem incomplete without a close survey of the French
Revolution, as there is seemingly an intermingled destiny between these
two. The initial spark of the French Revolution fell in Europe from the
American Revolution which led to defeat of Britain and resulted in
Declaration of Independence in 1776. A decade later, the French, who had
backed American Revolution, became the victim of the same social and
political radical upheaval in 1790s. During the French Revolution, France
was to suffer fundamental changes in its social and governmental structure 181
which was accompanied by brutal executions, bloodshed and terror. The
period is also called the Reign of Terror, The Terror or la Terreur in French
language. Guillotine, by which thousands of ‘enemies of the revolution’
were beheaded, had become the national symbol of France.
The sharp rise in number of the Terror’s victims began in October: precisely at the moment when the situation was improving. The phenomenon was very clear in Paris: almost 200 guillotined at the end of 1793.... The guillotine simultaneously wiped out the ancien regime and the first years of the Revolution.8
Fear had penetrated all layers of man’s life and famine had reigned side by side with terror. It had filled the affairs of all classes from their bread
and butter up to their art and literature.
Paris was the scene of daily excitement, a permanent meeting-place. From the economic viewpoint, nothing was conducive to calm: bread had never been so dear, there were large numbers of unemployed, whose ranks were swollen by a population which rural poverty had recently driven to the capital.9 182
Gothic stories had become the taste of the town. Gothic, nourished on
fear, could be the literary form which sprouted out of dark side of
romanticism in order to cope with the literary fashion of the French
Revolution.
The 1790s can be called the decade of Gothic fiction. It was the period when the greatest number of Gothic works were produced and consumed. Terror was the order of the day. Gothic stories littered literary magazines, there-and four-volume novels filled the shelves of circulating libraries and, in their cheap card covers, found their way into servants’ quarters as well as drawing rooms.10
Botting in his book Gothic, investigates the relationship between the
political and the private lives of the people of the then England. He believed
that Terror Gothic novel produced had ‘an over-whelming political
significance in the period’.
The decade of the French Revolution saw the most violent of challenges of monarchical order ... there is a significant overlap in literary and political metaphors of fear and anxiety:...11
183
3. Ann Radcliffe; Her Works and Anticipations
Ann Radcliffe 1. The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne 1789 2. A Sicilian Romance 1790 3. The Romance of the Forest 1791 4. The Mysteries of Udolpho 1794 5. The Italian 1797 6. Gaston de Blondeville 1826
In Ann’s time, novels were thought to be trash, but she mysteriously
dragged the new genre out of its base placement and elevated it into a higher
literary form with an incomparable supernatural power of deities and
goddesses, because of which she was named ‘the mighty magician’ similar
to Pythoness of Apollo, ‘brought up and nourished in the sacred cavern’.
Though all of them are ingenious ladies, yet they are too frequently whining and frisking in novels, till our girls’ head turn wild with impossible adventures; and now and then are tainted with democracy. Not so the mighty magician of The Mysteries of Udolpho, bred and nourished by the Florentine muses in their secret solitary caverns, amid the paler shrines of Gothic superstition, and in all dreariness of enchantment; a poetess whom Ariosto would with rapture have acknowledged as, La Nudrita Damigella Trivulzia al sacro speco.12
The gothic terror mixed with delicacy of female imagination made her
publisher, Thomas Mathias, liken her to the horrifying goddess of Apollo, 184
Pythoness. In Greek mythology, Pythoness is priestess of Apollo who is imagined to have special powers derived from the devil. Resultantly,
Radcliffe raised novel from the level of low reading to a respectable status and gathered many imitators and readers around her works.
Being the first novel, the plot of The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne was simple. In her first two romances, Ann Radcliffe was learning her art.
This is especially true of The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne (1789), which
‘is not just short, but thin’.13
Published anonymously in 1789, The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne: A Highland Story is unsophisticated work of an inexperienced author. ... no specific time is assigned to the action. But the use of such medievalisms as knights, clans, castles, tournaments, and feudal pomp suggests the Middle Ages. ... as an example of the “historical-Gothic,”... Radcliffe, however, seems to have known little about Scotland, and perhaps even less about the Middle Ages.14
The novel tells the story of two clans, those belonging to the Castles
of Athlin and Dunbayne. It begins by relating that Malcolm, the Baron of
Dunbayne, murdered the Earl of Athlin. The Earl’s son, Osbert, is driven by
a passionate desire to avenge his father’s murder. Despite the entreaties of
his mother, Matilda, to conquer his passion and abandon his quest of
revenge, Osbert launches an attack on Malcolm with the help of Alleyn, a 185 noble and virtuous peasant. Alleyn is in love with Osbert’s sister, Mary, a virtuous and delicate lady whom he desires to impress. The attack on
Malcolm’s castle fails, and both Alleyn and Osbert are taken captive as prisoners of war. Alleyn, however, manages to escape. Malcolm’s passion for destroying Osbert is supplanted by a passion to possess the beautiful
Mary, and he sends men to kidnap her. Alleyn, on his way back to Athlin,
intervenes and after much fainting on the part of Mary, manages to rescue
her. Mary, after recovering from the excessive fainting fits, falls in love with
Alleyn, despite their class differences. Upon confiding in her mother, she is urged to forget her love. Malcolm, angry at Alleyn’s escape and the thwarted attempt to kidnap Mary, demands a ransom for the release of Osbert; he will release the Earl only if he is allowed to marry Mary. Both Alleyn and
Matilda are distressed by such news. Osbert, meanwhile, has found comfort in the fellow prisoners of the Baroness Louisa, Malcolm’s sister-in-law by way of his elder (and now deceased) brother, the former Baron, and her daughter Laura. Laura and Osbert fall in love. After many complications,
Osbert is able to escape the restraints of Malcolm whom he eventually challenges. Malcolm is then killed in the ensuing battle. Before he dies,
Malcolm confesses to Louisa that her son, whom she had thought dead, was really alive. Malcolm had hidden him away with a peasant family in order to 186 procure the title for himself. Laura and Osbert prepare to wed, but Mary and
Alleyn are both unhappy. It is then miraculously discovered the Alleyn is in fact Philip, Louisa’s long-lost son. He is recognized by his mother by a strawberry mark on his skin. This makes Alleyn the rightful Baron of
Dunbayne. The novel ends with the double wedding of Laura and Osbert, and Mary and Alleyn.
In A Sicilian Romance Radcliffe began to forge the unique mixture of
the psychology of terror and poetic description that would make her the
great exemplar of the Gothic novel, and the idol of the Romantics.
Radcliffe’s second novel, A Sicilian Romance, was first published in 1790, almost exactly a year after the release of her first. Clara McIntyre reports that this second attempt was more widely and favorably noticed by the reviewers of the day… it is a “more polished work and indicates a firmer grasp of Mrs. Radcliffe’s abilities.”15
This early novel explores the cavernous landscapes and labyrinthine
passages of Sicily's castles and convents to reveal the shameful secrets of its
all-powerful aristocracy. Julia and Emilia Mazzini live secluded in an
ancient mansion near the Straits of Messina. After their father's return to the
island a neglected part of the house is haunted by a series of mysterious
sights and sounds. The origin of these haunting is only discovered after a 187 series of breathless pursuits through dreamlike pastoral landscapes. When
revelation finally comes, it forces the heroines to challenge the united forces
of religious and patriarchal authority.
The first volume The Romance of the Forest was published anonymously in its first edition. It is set in a Roman Catholic Europe of wild passions and towering landscapes.
Published in 1791, The Romance of the Forest was highly popular with the reading public, and widely praised by the literary reviewers of the day. In the twentieth century, The Romance of the Forest is still very readable, and is generally regarded as Ann Radcliffe’s first major novel.16
La Motte and his wife, escaping his gambling debts in Paris, are
captured by bandits in a primeval forest but are spared their lives in return
for protecting a beautiful girl, Adeline. She has been imprisoned by her
father, after refusing to join a nunnery, but the bandits hired to kill her have
baulked at their task. The new family find refuge in a ruined Abbey, where
Adeline stumbles across a mystery, and when its owner, the Marquis, returns
the plot thickens in typical gothic style. Marquis falls for Adeline's beauty.
Meanwhile, Adeline meets a charming young man, Theodore, and they both
start to love each other greatly. This opposition, along with the surprising
plot twists, mainly constructs this piece. Although the Critical Review saw it 188 as her finest work, it is not generally regarded in the same league as The
Italian and The Mysteries of Udolpho, however The Romance of the Forest was hugely popular in its day and remains in print after over two hundred years. It is the subject of much critical discussion, particularly in its
treatment of femininity and its role and influence in the gothic tradition
Radcliffe did so much to invent.
The most famous work of Ann Radcliffe is her Udolpho. The three
consecutive works cited above which were published in three years made
Radcliffe competent enough to sit on the greatest of all her works for three
years to accomplish. She is largely known for this masterpiece of Gothic
novel. Many great names had commented on the prominence of Radcliffe’s
masterpiece. It was so believed that no other person could create such a
work except for Radcliffe herself.
The publication of The Mysteries of Udolpho in 1794 established her reputation, not just in Britain, but also in Europe… Coleridge’s notice in the Critical Review of 1798 is typical: ‘In reviewing the Mysteries of Udolpho, he hazarded an opinion, that, if a better production could appear, it must come only from the pen of Mrs. Radcliffe…17
The novel opens with a character sketch of Emily St Aubert, who is
the only child of a landed rural family whose fortunes are now in decline. 189
Emily and her father share an especially close bond, due to their shared appreciation for nature. After her mother's death from a serious illness,
Emily and her father grow even closer. She accompanies him on a trip to
Switzerland, where they encounter Valancourt, a handsome man who also feels an almost mystical kinship with the natural world. Emily and
Valancourt quickly fall in love.
Emily's father succumbs to a long illness. Emily, now orphaned, is sent to live with her aunt, Madame Cheron (later known as Madame
Montoni), who shares none of her interests and shows her little affection.
Madame Cheron marries Montoni, the villain of the story. Montoni brings
Madame Montoni and Emily to Udolpho (therefore separating Emily from her suitor Valancourt), in which Montoni threatens Madame with violence in order to force her to sign over her properties in Toulouse, which upon her death, will go to Emily. The novel is full of frightening scenes, seemingly supernatural but ultimately ordinary events happen within the castle and in the end, Emily discovers the secret of Montoni's power and triumphs over him, taking control of her property and reuniting herself with Valancourt.
Her Mysteries of Udolpho found such a firm ground for Ann
Radcliffe’s literary career that this novel became the first of its own kind and 190 preserved its role as a precursor for many other literary imitators either of her immediate contemporaries or much later famous generations of novelists.
Matthew Lewis, the writer of The Monk, alluded to it in his private letter to his mother on 18th of May 1794 as: “The Mysteries of Udolpho, which is in my opinion one of the most interesting books that ever have been published.”18 Lewis is indebted to Radcliffe so much so that his Monk is
believed to be a copy which turned out to be more beautiful than the
original: “He outdid Mrs. Radcliffe, and in the same way he outdid every
writer from whom he borrowed.”19 These two renowned names in Gothic
novel seemed to have been communicating through their literary works.
Lewis had been reading The Mysteries of Udolpho just prior to writing The Monk,... Radcliffe read The Monk and was so horrified that in 1797 she produced The Italian, which in many respects is a reworking of material from The Monk,...20
Mary Shelley stands second to Lewis in whose works Gothic tradition was well anticipated. She constructed science fiction on the foundation of gothic novel. The scientifically-oriented gothic novel of Shelley could be the seen as the modern version of Ann’s early old gothic form of eighteenth century which was matured and developed to meet the needs and the 191 requirements of the new age, nineteenth century, in which approximation to science was considered a social prestige. Scientific imaginations of the age
could produce other names and works such as Darwin in natural science or
20,000 Leagues under the Sea by Jules Verne a novel, written in 1870, which foretold with uncanny accuracy the inventions and advanced technology of the 20th century or Journey to the Centre of the Earth from the same author.
As early as the 1790s, Ann Radcliffe firmly set the Gothic in one of the ways it would go ever after:... But what are we to make of the next major turning of the Gothic tradition that a woman brought about, a generation later? Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, in 1818, made the Gothic novel over into what today we call science fiction.21
Shelley extensively read gothic novel. The impact of Radcliffe’s
imaginative work of gothic on Shelley has not escaped unseen due to its
major role in the formation of Shelley’s early perspective of the genre. It is
so recorded:
Like many young women of her age, she particularly enjoyed the relatively new genre of Gothic literature: Before the age of twenty, she read Beckford’s Vathek (1787), Radcliffe’s Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), and Monk Lewis’s Tales of Terror (1799).22 192
From a historical point, though not mentioned directly, Radcliffe, as a
pioneer in the field of gothic novel, prepared the ground for Mary Shelley.
Critics have detected the tread of tradition in both great gothic works. Their
very gothic essence is similar in kind and degree.
According to Hazlitt, Ann Radcliffe had mastered “the art of freezing the blood”: “harrowing up the soul with imaginary horrors, and making the flesh creep and the nerves thrill.” And Mary Shelley said she intended Frankenstein to be the kind of ghost story that would “curdle the blood, and quicken the beating s of the heart.”23
Sir Walter Scott was an admirer of literary competence of Ann
Radcliffe. He observed her supremacy over her other equals both in form
and content. He believed that her works are above other literary works and
they are as tragedies compared with melodramas. He intentionally put her
name among all other male-authors to depict his sharp distinction: “Mrs.
Radcliffe surpassed Walpole. Lewis and Maturin have alone come near Mrs.
Radcliffe.”24
Sir Walter Scott, as a critic of Radcliffe, examined her works thoroughly. In his, Biographical and Critical Sketches, ‘written for the purpose of serving as prefaces to a Collection called Ballantyne’s Novelist’s
Library’, Scott devotes a chapter to Ann Radcliffe in the conclusion of 193
which he anticipates the imminent birth of new school, genre or style in
which she least resembles her predecessors.
It may be true, that Mrs Radcliffe rather walks in fairy-land than in the region of realities, and that she has neither displayed the command of the human passions, nor the insight into the human heart, nor the observation of life and manners, which recommend other authors in the same line. But she has taken the lead in a line of composition, appealing to those powerful and general sources of interest, a latent sense of supernatural awe, and curiosity concerning whatever is hidden and mysterious:... it is at least certain, that she has never been excelled or even equalled.25
Her imagination was rich. She could fancy scenes not seen, fears not
felt, pains not suffered and loves not lived. This capacity created a capacious
resourcefulness capable of attracting many critics, commentators and literary
pursuers. The Mysteries of Udolpho has been regarded as the manifestation
of ‘probable impossibilities’.
... Mrs Radcliffe knew as well how to copy nature, as when to indulge imagination. The towers of Udolpho are undefined, boundless, and wreathed in mist and obscurity; the ruins of Hardwick are as fully and boldly painted, but with more exactness of outline, and perhaps less warmth and magnificence of colouring. It is singular, that though Mrs Radcliffe’s beautiful descriptions of foreign scenery, composed solely from the materials afforded by travellers, collected and embodied by her own genius, were 194
marked in particular degree with characteristics of fancy- portraits;26
The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), published much prior to Austen’s
Northanger Abbey (1817), not only played an important role in its
composition but it had been explicitly mentioned in this work for several
times. Udolpho was examined from different angles and more than twenty times its name and author’s were repeated in the work. In Austen’s novel
Catherine is exposed to General Tilney’s family and a love between her and
Henry, Tilney’s son, developed throughout the novel; however, Udolpho stood as the token of taste as well as the subject of communication for different classes, generations and genders.
“Dear creature! How much I am obliged to you; and when you have finished Udolpho, we will read the Italian together; and I have made out a list of ten or twelve more of the same kind for you.” P 24. “It is not like Udolpho at all; but yet I think it is very entertaining.” P 26. “It is so odd to me, that you should never have read Udolpho before; but I suppose Mrs. Morland objects to novels.” P 26. “No, Indeed; I should not. I do not pretend to say that I was not very much pleased with him; but while I have Udolpho to read, I feel as if nobody could make me miserable.” P 26. “Have you ever read Udolpho, Mr. Thorpe?” “Udolpho! Oh, Lord! Not I; I never read novels; I have something else to do.” P 32. 195
“I think you must like Udolpho, if you were to read it; it is so very interesting.” P 33. “Udolpho was written by Mrs. Radcliffe,” said Catherine, with some hesitation, from the fear of mortifying him. P 33. ...Catherine was then left to the luxury of a raised, restless, and frightened imagination over the pages of Udolpho, lost from all worldly concerns of dressing and dinner, incapable of soothing Mrs Allen’s fears on the delay of an expected dressmaker,... P35. In spite of Udolpho and the dressmaker, however, the party from Pulteney-street reached the upper rooms in very good time. P 36. “... Oh, that we had such weather here as they had at Udolpho, or at least in Tuscany and the South of France! –the night that poor St. Aubin died! –such beautiful weather!” P 63. On the other hand, the delight of exploring and edifice like Udolpho, as her fancy represented Blaize Castle to be, was such a counterpoise of good,... P 66. “ I am very glad to hear it, indeed; and now I shall never be ashamed of liking Udolpho myself. But I really thought before, young men despised novels amazingly.” P 85. “Oh no, I only mean what I have read about. It always puts me in mind of the country that Emily and her father travelled through, in the ‘Mysteries of Udolpho.’ But you never read novels, I dare say?” P 85. “The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid. I have read all Mrs. Radcliffe’s works, and most of them with great pleasure. The ‘Mysteries of Udolpho,’ when I had once begun it, I could not lay down again; -I remember finishing it in two days –my hair standing on end the whole time.” P 85. “...You are more nice than wise. Come, Miss Morland, let us leave him to meditate over our faults in the utmost propriety of 196
diction, while we praise Udolpho in whatever terms we like the best. It is a most interesting work. You are fond of that kind of reading?” P 86. “Not very good, I am afraid. But now, really do not you think Udolpho the nicest book in the world?” P 86.
Udolpho constituted the subject upon which the main dialogues of the
novel took place. They praised, satirized, symbolized, read and discussed
Udolpho. The above quoted parts may seem long, but they reveal the scale
of influence that a writer may have on her fellow-novelists. Almost all
characters in the novel, even the narrator herself, either commented on or
referred to Udolpho. The multiplicity of the reference to a single work in one
of the early works of Austen, before the major ones such as Pride and
Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility, is a sign of the greatness of its impact
on her. Among the three prominent women novelists who are very much
relevant to the subject of this research, Ann Radcliffe, left an especial impact
on Jane Austen.
If Radcliffe is taken as the third of Austen’s three important mentors, together with Burney and Edgeworth, she is, like the others, at once source, involuntary collaborator and target on an extensive, coherent rewriting. The literary relationship which emerges between Austen and Radcliffe is by no means obvious, at least to modern readers, who often take Austen for the champion of modernity.27 197
Marilyn Butler in the preface to Northanger Abbey states that even
though Austen may seem to have been infatuated with modern setting, she
also, like Ann, respected village life of England and their unwritten customs.
Austen sympathised with ancient life and its style.
Gothic novel matures in her hands. Set in the mid-eighteenth century
against the dramatic lush backdrop of the Bay of Naples, The Italian is a tale
of passion, deceit, abduction, and the horrors of the inquisition. In one of the
most powerful Gothic tales ever written, Mrs. Radcliffe, the unrivalled
master of the genre, skilfully combines traditional elements of danger,
romance and the supernatural with her abiding interest in history and
considerable ability to paint poetic images of sublime landscape.
The popular and critical acclaim of The Mysteries of Udolpho established Ann Radcliffe as one of the most successful novelists of the eighteenth century. And Matthew Lewis, with the bold violence and sensuality of The Monk, broadened the subject matter of the Gothic romance, heightened the complexity of its interpretation of life, and stimulated even more interest in an already popular genre. Thus, by 1797, the public was surely looking forward to the release of Radcliffe’s next novel, and George Robinson was willing to pay her 800 for the right to publish it. Although The Italian, or the Confessional of the Black Penitents seems never to have achieved quite the popularity of The Mysteries of Udolpho, it was indeed successful with the reading public, and even more so with the critics.28 198
A young nobleman of Naples, Vincentio di Vivaldi, meets a beautiful
damsel Ellena Rosalba, with whom he falls in love and whom he intends to
marry. Vincentio's mother, the Marchesa (It. for "marchioness"), being
against the match and goaded by the mysterious monk Schedoni, orders
Schedoni to kidnap Ellena. Vincentio nearly marries Ellena, but both are
arrested and separated by Schedoni's subordinates before the nuptial
ceremony is completed. Schedoni then travels to assassinate the girl, but
suddenly discovers that she is in fact his own daughter. Schedoni's plans
change radically and he hides Ellena in a safe place. Meanwhile, Vincentio,
transported into a prison of Inquisition, struggles to disprove false charges
against him. Schedoni appears at the trial, and after several unexpected
revelations Vincentio is acquitted. Following a complex twist in the plot,
Ellena is revealed to be Schedoni's niece, rather than his daughter; thus they
are still of the same family. Her real father, Schedoni's brother is dead. It
turns out that Schedoni descends from an old and noble family, and therefore
Ellena becomes an eligible match for Vincentio. The novel ends with a
happy marriage between the two, and the villains — the Marchesa,
Schedoni, Spalatro, and Nicola — all dead.
Gaston de Blondeville is described as a "drawn out and sometimes
rambling, the plot lacking in impetus" but is notable as being the last novel 199 to be both written (circa 1802) and published (in 1826, posthumously) by
Mrs Radcliffe. The book is noteworthy for its detailed descriptions of locations. It is so much believed that the book has not been even written by
Ann herself, rather by her husband.
To what extent was Ann Radcliffe ‘the author’ of Gaston de Blondeville? ... [It] possesses not a single hallmark of the author’s hand. My own impression is that the narrative was joint effort between husband and wife.29
Set in the 13th century court of England's King Henry III the novel
centres around the wedding of the title character. The wedding is interrupted
by a merchant who claims to have been wronged by Gaston, in that Gaston
murdered his kinsman. Henry is forced to hold a trial to determine the validity of the claims. The plot is further complicated by the machinations of an abbot who tries to suppress the truth and by ghosts who want to expose the truth.
In addition to Northanger Abbey, Radcliffe’s influence on Jane
Austen can be detected in her other major works, Sense and Sensibility
(1811) and Pride and Prejudice (1813). Radcliffe’s approach to the issues of feeling, sense, sensibility, pride and prejudice has been openly mentioned in 200 different parts of her work through diverse mouthpieces, which received similar treatments by Austen.
The suffering of others, whoever they might be, called forth her ready compassion, which dissipated at once every obscuring cloud to goodness that passion or prejudice might have raised in her mind... Above all, my dear Emily, said he, do not indulge in the pride of fine feeling, the romantic error of amiable minds. Those who really possess sensibility, ought early to be taught that it is a dangerous quality, which is continually extracting the excess of misery or delight from every surrounding circumstances. ...30
Ann Radcliffe’s ideas on extreme sentiment, its dangers and the ways
to control it definitely influenced Jane Austen, in her writing to a degree that
she named her novels in this way.
Furthermore, emotions, perception, feelings, love and sensibility
proposed and emphasized by Radcliffe paved the way for Romantic
Movement in England. In her unique understanding of gothic novel, she
engaged herself with the analysis of the psychology of fear and horror, not
attempted before. In fact, Radcliffe’s works have transitional value from
rationalities of Neo-classicism to psychological indulgence of Romanticism. 201
She should be resumed as the one who kindled and lit the lamp of love
and fear in the remaining cold and old castles of ration and reason, inherited
from classics.
Scott himself, with his habitual generosity, would have hailed his own predecessor in Mrs. Radcliffe. “The praise may be claimed for Mrs. Radcliffe of having been the first to introduce into her prose fictions a beautiful fanciful tone of natural description and impressive narrative, which had hitherto been exclusively applied in poetry. ... Mrs Radcliffe has a title to be considered the first poetess of romantic fiction.”31
As a predecessor of Romanticism, Radcliffe played an important role.
Romantic movement, which has been seen as the topmost of man’s
intellectual achievement, was a gradual process that took more that a
hundred years to ripen. Crucial steps had been taken in the break from
tradition.
During the eighteenth century the novel had been found capable of carrying the full weight of tragedy and the full breadth of comedy, but it was not until near the end of the period that it was brought completely into touch with romance. Various isolated attempts had been made,... but they were seldom followed up... It was left for Mrs Radcliffe to fill a three-volume novel with romance of a quality... She differed from her predecessors in the romantic way chiefly in having a delicately-strung nervous system,...32 202
Wuthering Heights is generally perceived as a late Romantic work.
Academically, when it comes to the best romantic novels of all times,
readers and critics often agree that there can be no better example of the
school and genre than Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, a romance novel
about destructive passion, obsessive attraction and in abundance with gothic
elements. Thus, the similarity in the names of Heathcliff and Radcliffe might
not be accidental. Wuthering Heights may not have been classified among
gothic novels, but it has certainly inherited gothic elements embedded in its
very structure.
In the hands of Ann Radcliffe and her numerous imitators, Gothic became a powerful form for shaping female experience and fantasies, a form that not only ‘unleashed the imagination, but also made it possible to show women acting boldly on their own behalf, with fortitude and courage... In Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte both modernises and domesticates Gothic.33
A simple critical probe of comparison between Emily Bronte and Ann
Radcliffe would reveal that Emily had in mind not only to name her main
character after her but to follow Ann in depicting filial affinities, cruelties,
imprisonment, flight, love, mysterious characters, vengeance, inheritance,
destruction and appreciation of nature as well. As in Gothic tradition, in 203
Wuthering Heights privacies are disturbed and love breaks through the temporal and spatial boundaries.
Radcliffe’s influence on English Romantic Movement is undeniable.
Great romantic literary figures such as Austen, Thackeray, Scott,
Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, Byron, Bronte sisters have been
listed by critics who have been influenced by her for which she has been dubbed ‘The Queen of the Gothic Romance’.
Ann Radcliffe’s most important fictional influence was upon Sir Walter Scott, and through him, Dickens and Thackeray – and through them, the mainstream of... Ann Radcliffe fascinated even the creators of modern realism. William Makepeace Thackeray admired both Ann Radcliffe and Mary Ann Radcliffe,..34
Her fame was so wide and her role so broad that the real reasons for
this should receive much scholarly attention. At the beginning of this
chapter, it was mentioned that the scarcity of the materials on Radcliffe’s life
frightened Christina Rossetti and this was quoted by Rictor Norton in his
book, Mistress of Udolpho. This chapter finds its end by the advice given by
Virginia Woolf to any scholar of Radcliffe, the piece of advice which might
have been followed by Rictor and better to be heeded by any researcher of
hers. 204
By collecting a large number of contemporary and nineteenth- century opinions, Deborah Rogers shows the huge popularity Radcliffe enjoyed at her time, thereby explain why she could not be ignored by the poets of her generation and, even less, by those of the following generations. In this cultural biography, Rictor Norton leads us to understand that if a writer who was considered ignorant and “wanting education” could in fact write one of the most successful best-sellers of all times, it was not merely by chance or by lucky intuition. Both scholars follow the lines pointed out by Virginia Woolf, who suggested looking for an explanation for Radcliffe’s enormous success in the taste that had made it possible.35
205
NOTES
1 Robert Princeton Reno. The Gothic Visions of Ann Radcliffe and Matthew
G. Lewis. (Michigan: Michigan State University, 1976) 155.
2 George Dekker. The Fictions of Romantic Tourism: Radcliffe, Scott, and
Mary Shelley. (California: Stanford University Press, 2005) 71.
3 Ann Ward Radcliffe. The Mysteries of Udolpho. (Philadelphia: J. B. Smith
& Co., 1859) 205.
4 Rictor Norton. Mistress of Udolpho: The Life of Ann Radcliffe. (London:
Leicester University Press, 1999) VII.
5 Ibid., 65.
6 Ann Ward Radcliffe. The Mysteries of Udolpho. (Philadelphia: J. B. Smith
& Co., 1859) 48.
7 Rictor Norton. Gothic Readings: The First Wave, 1764-1840. (London:
Continuum, 2000) 13.
8 François Furet. The French Revolution 1770-1814. (London: Blackwell
Publishing, 1996) 138 & 139.
9 Ibid., 66.
10 Fred Botting. Gothic. (NY: Routledge, 1996) 40.
11 Ibid. 206
12 Robert Miles. Ann Radcliffe: The Great Enchantress. (Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 1995) 16 & 17.
13 Ibid., 73.
14 Robert Princeton Reno. The Gothic Visions of Ann Radcliffe and Matthew
G. Lewis. (Michigan: Michigan State University, 1976) 11.
15 Ibid., 25 & 26.
16 Ibid., 39.
17 Robert Miles. Ann Radcliffe: The Great Enchantress. (Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 1995) 24.
18 Rictor Norton. Gothic Readings: The First Wave, 1764-1840. (London:
Continuum, 2000) 117.
19 Matthew Lewis. The monk. (Dover: Dover Publications, Inc., 2003) V.
20 Ibid., xiii-xiv.
21 Ellen Moers. ‘Female Gothic’. George Levine and U. C. Knoepflmacher. eds. The Endurance of Frankenstein: Essays on Mary Shelley's Novel.
(California: University of California, 1982) 79.
22 Mary Shelley. Frankenstein. (New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 2005)
xx. 207
23 Ellen Moers. ‘Female Gothic’. George Levine and U. C. Knoepflmacher. eds. The Endurance of Frankenstein: Essays on Mary Shelley's Novel.
(California: University of California, 1982) 78.
24 Sir Walter Scott, J. W. Lake. The Poetical Works of Sir Walter Scott: With a Sketch of His Life. (Philadelphia: Cowperthwait & Co., 1888) xxii.
25 Sir Walter Scott. Prose Works: Biographical Memoirs of Eminent
Novelists, and Other Distinguished Persons. III Volumes (London:
Whittaker and Co., 1834) Volume I, 388 & 9.
26 Ibid., 383.
27 Jane Austen. Northanger Abbey. (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 2003) xxxi.
28 Robert Princeton Reno. The Gothic visions of Ann Radcliffe and Matthew
G. Lewis. (Michigan: Michigan State University, 1976) 155.
29 Rictor Norton. Mistress of Udolpho: The Life of Ann Radcliffe. (London:
Leicester University Press, 1999) 95.
30 Ann Ward Radcliffe. The Mysteries of Udolpho. (Philadelphia: J. B. Smith
& Co., 1859) 51&75.
31 Sir Walter Scott. Prose Works: Biographical Memoirs of Eminent
Novelists, and Other Distinguished Persons. III Volumes (London:
Whittaker and Co., 1834) Volume I, 341-2. 208
32 Joyce Marjorie Sanxter Tompkins. Ann Radcliffe and Her Influence on
Later Writers. (NY: Arno Press Inc., 1980) 19-20.
33 Lyn Pykett. Emily Bronte. (New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1989) 24.
34 Rictor Norton. Mistress of Udolpho: The Life of Ann Radcliffe. (London:
Leicester University Press, 1999) 254-5.
35 Beatrice Battaglia. ‘The Pieces of Poetry in Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho. Lilla Marie and Crisafulli. eds. Romantic Women Poets: Genre and Gender. (Netherlands: Rodopi B. V., 2007) 137-8.