Anne Radcliffe

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Anne Radcliffe

• The Italian

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Anne Radcliffe

• A bestselling author
• Combined three successful trends
• The fantastic
• Travel literature
• Landscape painting through words
• Had never seen Italy. Based her representation on
  landscape painting and travel literature
• Widely influential
• Byron in his representation of Venice. Ruskin.
  James.
• Many poets borrowed poetic phrases and techinques
  fron her
• Most Romantic travellers saw Italy through the
  lens of her descriptions

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The Italian A Gothic Romance

• Gothic
• Sublime circumstances Terror and suspense (but,
  on the whole, only isolated episodes)
• Persecution of innocent victims (E. and V.).
• Mock-medieval setting, ruins
• Imprisonment, claustrophobic situations
• Seemingly Supernatural events
• Villains, Mysterious, satanic characters

• Romance
• Improbable situations
• Flat characters (types)
• The victimized innocent girl
• The villain
• Poetic prose
• Emotion, fantasy
• Disguises, Mistaken identities, Recognitions
  (anagnoresis), Coincidences
• Mysteries, suspense

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Typical Plot

• Coleridges parody A Baron or Baroness ignorant
  of their Birth, and in some dependent situation
  a Castle or a Rock a Sepulchre at some
  distance from the Rock Deserted Rooms
  Underground Passages Pictures a Ghost, so
  believed or a written record blood on it! A
  wonderful Cut-throat (Letter to Wordsworth)
• Leslie Fiedler Girl escapes and is caught,
  escapes and is caught like a nightmare from
  which it is impossible to wake (Love and Death
  in American Literature)
• Model Angelica in Orlando Furioso

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Importance of Landscape

• Stands in awe of nature, perceived as powerful
  and mysterious
• Landscape is the protagonist of the romance
• Human figures, as suggested by Gilpin or in
  Salvator Rosas paintings, complete the scenery
  but to not dominate it.
• Most human figures static. Do not develop
• Plots too intricate to remain impressed
• Her landscapes correspond to the taste of the day
• Models Rosa, Claude, Poussin, Richard Wolson
• Aesthetic canons of the Sublime, the Picturesque
  and the Beautiful

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Nicolas Poussin
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Claude Lorrain
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Travel Narrative

• 2/3 of the text, on the road, away from home
• Abduction, flights, pursuits
• Substitutes the dynamics of travel / escape to
  the dynamics of courtship of the realistic
  tradition.
• A device to send maidens on distant and exciting
  journeys without offending the proprieties
  (Moers, 126). A feminine substitute for the
  picaresque.
• masculine picaresque vs feminine picturesque)
• Gilpins picturesque travel in pursuit of an
  object becomes in Radcliffe pursuit of a sexual
  object.. A metaphor.
• A picturesque and pictorial travel Characters
  make their way from canvas to canvas. Cinematic
  technique.

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Word painting

• Most important feature Ut pictura poesis.
  Imitation of painting with words. Landscape is
  the principal character of the novel
• Imitates landscape painters (vedutismo) Poussin,
  Claude Lorrain, Salvator Rosa
• Called the Salvator Rosa of British novelists
• Creates a marvellous Italy (without having seen
  it) from paintings, theatre backdrops and travel
  books --the Italy the Romantic poets and future
  writers will describe
• Direct line RadcliffeByronRuskinJames.
• Puts Gilpins theories into practice.

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Italian Clichés in Ann Radcliffes The Italian

• Love story
• Music
• Italy as source of horrifying otherness
• The Italy of Early modern theatre.
• Fearful but sublime circumstances (manifestations
  of the alien nature of Italy)
• Italy as land of the physical Sublime The Italy
  of Eighteenth cent. Painting
• Sublime settings (ruins, mountains)
• Italy and the picturesque
• Picturesque common people, scenery, and
  circumstances Srcadic stmospheres.

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Italy as source of horrifying otherness

• Machiavellian characters
• Schedoni
• Spalatro
• The marchesa
• Forces of oppression and containment
• convent discipline,
• Inquisition,
• patriarchal families
• Intrigues, poison

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Italy as Land of the Sublime and the Picturesque

• Sublime settings
• ruins,
• Mountains
• The Vesuvius
• Sublime circumstances (manifestations of the
  alien nature of Italy)
• Picturesque common people, scenery, and
  circumstances
• Music

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The Love Story

• Falling in love in church (like Petrarch with
  Laura) Ch. 1,p.9
• Love at first sight ("amor che a cor gentil ratto
  s'apprende")
• Window / garden scene scene.Ellena pronounces his
  name p.17 Ch. II, p. 34
• Cf. Romeo and Juliet
• Love access to Paradise Ch. II, p. 35.
• V. is like a knight of chivalry ch. 11, 141)
• Meeting again in convent (ch. 11, 139)

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Italian Clichés in Ann Radcliffes The Italian

• Love story
• Music
• Italy as source of horrifying otherness
• The Italy of Early modern theatre.
• Fearful but sublime circumstances (manifestations
  of the alien nature of Italy)
• Italy as land of the physical Sublime The Italy
  of Eighteenth cent. Painting
• Sublime settings (ruins, mountains)
• Italy and the picturesque
• Picturesque common people, scenery, and
  circumstances Srcadic stmospheres.