church. Unlike Matthew Lewis, who responded to
Udolpho
with his own explicit brand of Gothic in
The Monk
(1796), she avoids graphic descriptions of horror. 24 But Emily
is
warned by the nun who offers to accompany her that âin the east aisle, which [she] must pass, is a newly opened graveâ where a friar of the convent has been buried on the preceding evening, and that she must âhold the light to the groundâ to ensure that she does not âstumble over the loose earthâ. This, in the chill and silence of the aisles, with moonlight streaming through a distant Gothic window, Emily does â but not without a fleeting perception of âa shadow gliding between the pillarsâ, which she immediately rationalizes as her âfancyâ deceiving her. Radcliffe thus achieves suspense and a shudder in employing this disturbing Gothic vestige, while imbuing her Catholic heroine with Protestant enlightenment. Emily has insisted on unmediated privacy for her âmelancholy tendernessâ and resisted superstition in trying circumstances.
This was a technique for introducing apprehensions of the supernatural which late-eighteeth-century custodians of Enlightenment virtue could applaud, as can be seen from William Enfieldâs comment in the
Monthly Review
:
Without introducing into her narrative any thing really supernatural, Mrs Radcliffe has contrived to produce as powerful an effect as if the invisible world had been obedient to her magic spell; the reader experiences in perfection the strange luxury of artificial terror, without being obliged for a moment to hoodwink his reason, or yield to the weakness of superstitious credulity.
For all that, Enfield does exaggerate in stating that the reader is not âobliged
for a moment
to hoodwink his reasonâ. Readers soon find that the explanations of apparently supernatural events are frequently withheld for many chapters, and âthe strange luxury of artificial terrorâ in fact depends on this device. Like Emily herself, we work through the âmysteriesâ which give rise to fanciful and fearful thoughts and feelings, to a comprehension of the true state of affairs in which all is explained and reason reigns.
Radcliffeâs further stroke of invention in this respect is her close linking of Emilyâs late-eighteenth-century consciousness to landscape and architecture perceived in the picturesque and sublime modes. Utilizing a rich aesthetic lexicon, 25 she presents her scenes as a series of painterly subjects. These are described in sweeping, physical detail, often after the manner of the seventeenth-century painters Salvator Rosa, Claude Gelée (Lorrain) and Nicolas Poussin. Sometimes âpurely sublimeâ barren rocky outcrops or the darkness of tall woods seem âthe very haunt of bandittiâ and awaken âterrific images in [Emilyâs] mindâ. At others, âsublimeâ views of the Pyrenees, âexhibiting awful formsâ and âtremendous precipicesâ but softened by thevariety of woods, pastures or rustic dwellings at the margins, or the hazy luminosity of early morning or late afternoon, are inspirational, calling forth the âenthusiasmâ of Emily the poet. Yet again, beautiful and wild garden scenes at La Vallée or Chateau-le-Blanc, heightened by obscurity and chiaroscuro, produce melancholy or a âthrilling aweâ; while charming valleys and plains, offset by the savage texture of surrounding mountains, are seen as âbeauty sleeping in the lap of horrorâ. What may strike readers as overly frequent scenic descriptions can be seen on closer inspection to be cumulatively essential not only to the illusion of a past reality â France and Italy in the year 1584 â but also to the smooth incorporation of uncanny and seemingly supernatural or unnatural elements in the narrative. For example, the powerful and lengthy description of the approach to
Udolpho
with his own explicit brand of Gothic in
The Monk
(1796), she avoids graphic descriptions of horror. 24 But Emily
is
warned by the nun who offers to accompany her that âin the east aisle, which [she] must pass, is a newly opened graveâ where a friar of the convent has been buried on the preceding evening, and that she must âhold the light to the groundâ to ensure that she does not âstumble over the loose earthâ. This, in the chill and silence of the aisles, with moonlight streaming through a distant Gothic window, Emily does â but not without a fleeting perception of âa shadow gliding between the pillarsâ, which she immediately rationalizes as her âfancyâ deceiving her. Radcliffe thus achieves suspense and a shudder in employing this disturbing Gothic vestige, while imbuing her Catholic heroine with Protestant enlightenment. Emily has insisted on unmediated privacy for her âmelancholy tendernessâ and resisted superstition in trying circumstances.
This was a technique for introducing apprehensions of the supernatural which late-eighteeth-century custodians of Enlightenment virtue could applaud, as can be seen from William Enfieldâs comment in the
Monthly Review
:
Without introducing into her narrative any thing really supernatural, Mrs Radcliffe has contrived to produce as powerful an effect as if the invisible world had been obedient to her magic spell; the reader experiences in perfection the strange luxury of artificial terror, without being obliged for a moment to hoodwink his reason, or yield to the weakness of superstitious credulity.
For all that, Enfield does exaggerate in stating that the reader is not âobliged
for a moment
to hoodwink his reasonâ. Readers soon find that the explanations of apparently supernatural events are frequently withheld for many chapters, and âthe strange luxury of artificial terrorâ in fact depends on this device. Like Emily herself, we work through the âmysteriesâ which give rise to fanciful and fearful thoughts and feelings, to a comprehension of the true state of affairs in which all is explained and reason reigns.
Radcliffeâs further stroke of invention in this respect is her close linking of Emilyâs late-eighteenth-century consciousness to landscape and architecture perceived in the picturesque and sublime modes. Utilizing a rich aesthetic lexicon, 25 she presents her scenes as a series of painterly subjects. These are described in sweeping, physical detail, often after the manner of the seventeenth-century painters Salvator Rosa, Claude Gelée (Lorrain) and Nicolas Poussin. Sometimes âpurely sublimeâ barren rocky outcrops or the darkness of tall woods seem âthe very haunt of bandittiâ and awaken âterrific images in [Emilyâs] mindâ. At others, âsublimeâ views of the Pyrenees, âexhibiting awful formsâ and âtremendous precipicesâ but softened by thevariety of woods, pastures or rustic dwellings at the margins, or the hazy luminosity of early morning or late afternoon, are inspirational, calling forth the âenthusiasmâ of Emily the poet. Yet again, beautiful and wild garden scenes at La Vallée or Chateau-le-Blanc, heightened by obscurity and chiaroscuro, produce melancholy or a âthrilling aweâ; while charming valleys and plains, offset by the savage texture of surrounding mountains, are seen as âbeauty sleeping in the lap of horrorâ. What may strike readers as overly frequent scenic descriptions can be seen on closer inspection to be cumulatively essential not only to the illusion of a past reality â France and Italy in the year 1584 â but also to the smooth incorporation of uncanny and seemingly supernatural or unnatural elements in the narrative. For example, the powerful and lengthy description of the approach to