A Sicilian Romance by Ann Radcliffe Tutorial Notes PDF

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Summary

Notes from the course's two-hour seminar on the Gothic novel A Sicilian Romance by Ann Radcliffe. It discusses the novel's main Gothic themes using the extracts from the text as evidence while linking these ideas back to the historical and literary context....

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Ann Radcliffe’s A Sicilian Romance Tutorial Oxford Dictionary defines Gothic as … 1. Pertaining to the Goths or their language (from 1611) a. Invaders from Germany 2. Formerly used in extended sense, now expressed by TEUTONIC or GERMANIC (from 1647) 3. Belonging to the Middle Ages ((from 1710); hence a style of architecture, characters by the pointed arch (from 1660) 4. Barbarous, rude, uncouth, savage (from 1695) 5. A kind of written script and thus the typeface based on it (from 1660) Later takes on some meanings we would recognise - Genre of fiction, characterised by suspenseful and sensation plots “Gothic romance” – Walter Scott, Lives of the Novelist (1825), ‘Walpole’ - First use of the term to describe what Radcliffe is doing o Something that we don’t believe could happen, but people would have believed at the time - Radcliffe does not do that o Always comes back to the real world Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto i(1765)  First writer to use term ‘Gothic’ o Means the term in the Germanic sense o Characters are Germanic, set in Italy o Medieval, supernatural is real o Tyrannical patriarch  Those writers inspired by Walpole henceforth considered ‘Gothic’ Clare Reeve, The Old English Baron (1778)  Modifying Walpole o Attempting to make it more believable, less sensational o Set in England o Like Radcliffe: can always be explained by reality The Sublime 

Burkean sublime (1757) o Triggered by vastness and obscurity o Locates it in nature o Associates it with feelings of fear/apprehension  Contrasted to the ‘beautiful’ which is associated with the benign o Analogous to terror  “agreeable horror” o Aesthetic experience  Not the same as going through something terrible

The Beautiful 

Has a social quality o Makes you feel well-disposed/affectionate to your fellow man o Usually smooth, regular, proportionate

The Picturesque

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Gilpin (1792): expressive of that peculiar kind of beauty, which is agreeable in a picture o Role of the reader important

o o o o o

About you constructing a picture yourself Not only about form/composition of landscape Reader connects to the atmosphere and seeks for various effects produced from nature “Eye … most inquisitive after the elegant relics of ancient architecture” (e.g. ruins)  What is good in a picture =/= beautiful things in Burke Sits somewhere in between the beautiful and the sublime

A Sicilian Romance 

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Madam de Menon’s experience of the sublime (p. 104) o Sublime experience leads her directly to Julia  Leads to useful knowledge/insight o Use of sounds then sight  immersive experience  Nature is what leads her to Julia through its echoes  Madame lead on involuntarily o Forms a plot point  Way of bringing Julia back into the narrative  Heighten the emotion of the scene o Neutral, democratic space untouched by patriarchy What is the point of Emilia? o Highlights lack of options to women o Highlight’s Julia’s subversion To what extent is this novel feminist? o Julia reliant on help from others o Ferdinand made a Duke at the time  Has more agency o But Julia still asserts herself and desires despite limited choices  Julia’s behaviour/imagination is never criticised  Gains audience’s sympathy  Goes against patriarchal convention

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Julia at the monastery (p. 116-18) o Switches from Julia’s POV to the narrator  Narrative layers: story within a story  Julia unlikely to have historical knowledge o ‘Pulling back’ moment to engage in wider political critique  Radcliffe perhaps pushing her political views about vices  Priests/noblemen were the oppressors of the French Revolution  Engaging with her contemporary history  Growth of anti-clerical thinking  Do not have much outside information on what her views were o 1790: worst atrocities of the French Rev not happened yet  Starting to see taking away of power from nobility  England still anti-Catholic: exclude from voting, university o “Vast monument of barbarous superstition”  Not Julia’s voice  Seen as decadent, corrupt  The abbot becomes a politicians led by pride/power hungry

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Julia’s escape from the monastery (p. 151-4) o Violent Duke connected to the violent storm  Running from patriarchal structures o Lots of pathetic fallacy to metaphorically represent the action  Yet Julia’s views it positively o ‘Back to the womb’

On the Supernatural 

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Distinction between ‘terror’ and ‘horror’ o The former stems from the unknown o The superior of the two In awe of Shakespeare’s use of the supernatural o Emphasis on the imagination

Female Gothic 

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More than the mere presence of a heroine o Creating a space for women o Female characters not destroyed o Space to access/assert themselves Fleeing from repression o Vs. breaking of taboos o A lot more merciful, less graphic  ‘lighter’ o Less threat of sexual violence  Just wants to marry Julia for money o Will not suffer too terribly Suspicious of the sublime o Does not carry it out to its fullest...