THE GOTHIC VISIONS OF ANN RADCLIFFE
AND MATTHEW G. LEWIS

Dissertation for the Degree of Ph. D.
MICHIGAN. STATE UNIVERSITI’.
ROBERT PRINCETON RENO
1976

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ABSTRACT

THE GOTHIC VISIONS OF ANN RADCLIFFE
AND MATTHEW G. LEWIS

BY

Robert Princeton Reno

The Gothic romance was the most popular form of
fiction in England between 1790 and 1820. But until re-
cently, this narrative form has attracted little critical
analysis, and it is still not fully understood. As the
two most successful Gothic writers, Ann Radcliffe and
Matthew G. Lewis have been closely associated in the
history of literature, and their works have been presumed
to share significant similarities. But again, these
supposed similarities have never been carefully expli-
cated, and the common assumption that each writer borrowed
from and attempted to imitate the other is largely mis-
leading. The purpose of this dissertation is first to
examine in detail the themes and concerns of Radcliffe's

five Gothic romances, and of Lewis's The Monk. The dis-

 

sertation then goes on to establish the precise nature of

l

Robert Princeton Reno

the intellectual exchange which emerges from The Mysteries

 

of Udolpho and The Italian, and their relationship to The

 

 

Monk. Close critical readings of these novels, and a con-

 

sideration of the previous scholarship on the Gothic ro-
mance provide a fuller understanding of the literary
achievement of Ann Radcliffe and Matthew Lewis, and a
greater insight into the contribution of Gothic narrative
to the development of the novel through the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries.

Chapter One focuses on Radcliffe's struggle to mold
her material into an interesting and meaningful narrative

form. While her first romance, The Castles of Athlin and

 

Dunbayne, is largely unsuccessful, it provides an important
link between Radcliffe‘s later novels and the Gothic ro-
mances of such earlier writers as Horace Walpole, Clara

Reeve, and Sophia Lee. In A Sicilian Romance, Radcliffe

 

eliminates many of the weaknesses of her first attempt, and
introduces a concern with the private, interpersonal con-
flicts between a heroine and villain which were to dominate

Gothic fiction through the following decades. The Romance

 

of the Forest, which is Radcliffe's first successful novel,

 

presents an interesting and sometimes charming account of

2

Robert Princeton Reno

Adeline's encounter with a lascivious marquis. Radcliffe
begins in this work to form her villain into a character
of some depth and complexity.

Chapter Two examines Radcliffe's most pOpular novel,

The Mysteries of Udolpho. In this romance, Radcliffe

 

carries her preoccupation with the Gothic heroine to its
furtherest extreme by allowing Emily to dominate the action
from beginning to end. The greatest achievement of Udolpho
is the representation of Emily's almost solipsistic view of
the world around her. The greatest disappointment arises
from Radcliffe's imperviousness to her heroine's failure
to gain in maturity or wisdom as a result of her unusual
experiences.

The third chapter analyzes the three spheres of

action and belief which converge in The Monk. The chapter

 

argues that Lewis was inspired rather than influenced by

The Mysteries of Udolpho, and shows that The Monk can be

 

 

viewed more accurately as a continuation of Radcliffe's
work than as an imitation of her existent form. Lewis's
more radical and pessimistic vision is discussed, and

Ambrosio's violent career is interpreted as embodying an

Robert Princeton Reno

implicit criticism of Radcliffe's presentation of good and

evil.

Centering on The Italian, Chapter Four explicates

 

Radcliffe's response to Lewis's criticism of her vision.
While Radcliffe concedes in The Italian that the evil of
this world may be stronger, more pervasive, and more de-
structive than she had implied in The Mysteries of Udolpho,
she refuses to relinquish her essential optimism. Father
Schedoni is her only fully realized hero-villain, and her
most successful character creation. But he is destroyed
in the end, as Radcliffe continues to assert that most
people of goodness and virtue can hope to survive their

encounters with evil and depravity.

THE GOTHIC VISIONS OF ANN RADCLIFFE

AND MATTHEW G. LEWIS

BY

Robert Princeton Reno

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of English

1976

This work is dedicated to
Robert and Mary Ellen Reno,

and to Sandy.

ii

ACKNOWLE DGMENTS

I wish to thank the members of my committee,
Professor Uphaus and Professor Meiners, for their advice
during the researching and writing of this dissertation.
I also want to express my particular appreciation to the
chairman of my committee, Professor Howard Anderson, for

his guidance and assistance through many months of study.

iii

INTRODUCTION . . .

CHAPTER ONE: ANN RADCLIFFE'S FIRST NOVELS:

TABLE OF CONTENTS

A STRUGGLE FOR FORM. . . . . . . . . . .

CHAPTER TWO: THE MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO: A

 

TENTATIVE PERFECTION . . . . . . . . . .

CHAPTER THREE: THE MONK: A CHALLENGE TO THE FORM

CHAPTER FOUR: THE

ITALIAN: A STRUGGLE TO

 

THE FINAL FORM .

CONCLUSION . . . .

NOTES 0 O O O O O O

BIBLIOGRAPHY . . .

iv

RESPOND:

Page

11

58

98

155

210

214

228

INTRODUCTION

To the extent that any literary genre or narrative
form can be said to have had a definite beginning, the
source of the Gothic novel can be tracedtx>Horace Walpole's

The Castle of Otranto, first published in 1764. Although

 

Otranto was very well-received, few writers over the next
quarter-century attempted to duplicate Walpole's achievement.

Clara Reeve's The Old English Baron (1778), Sophia Lee's The

 

Recess (1785), and William Beckford's Vathek (1786) are al-
most literally the only novels even partially in the Gothic

vein to be published between The Castle of Otranto and Ann

 

Radcliffe's The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne, which was

 

issued in 1789. In Spite of its clear emulation of Walpolefis
manner, Radcliffe's first novel caused little interest, and

her second attempt, A Sicilian Romance (1790), was only

 

slightly more successful. The Romance of the Forest (1791),

 

however, was highly and almost universally praised,l and
this reception seems to have convinced the writers of the
day that they could indeed adapt Walpole's eccentric form

to their own novels.

Over the following three decades, dozens of Gothic
romances were published, and to these were added scores of
Gothic stories released in the form of chapbooks, magazine
fiction, and dramatic stage productions. But out of this
great flood of Gothic literature, only a handful of titles

have endured, including most prominently The Mysteries of

 

Udolpho (1794), The Monk (1796), The Italian (1797), Frank-

 

enstein (1818), and Melmoth the Wanderer (1820). While the

 

majority of the titles may have been quickly forgotten, how-
ever, the influence of the Gothic impulse has remained vital.
The Byronic hero is a natural extension of Lewis's and Rad-
cliffe's unnatural hero-villains, and the works of such
writers as the Brontes, Dickens, Poe, and Melville in the
nineteenth century show the effects of the Gothic novel in
varying degrees. In the twentieth century, the tradition
continues not only in the formulaic Gothic romance which
holds a vigorous position in pOpular literature, but also

in such novels as Faulkner's Sanctuary, Fowles's The Col-

 

lector, and Nabokov's Lolita (in which a latter day hero-
villain pursues his heroine over the highways in an "old
and weak Melmoth").

As the undisputed masters of the Gothic romance,

Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823) and Matthew G. Lewis (1775-1818)

were the most popular British novelists of the last decade
of the eighteenth century. While they undoubtedly read each
other's novels, it is very unlikely that they ever met, and
they seem to have had little in common beyond the success

of their Gothic romances. Lewis was open, loquacious, and
even insistently sociable, but Radcliffe was shy, modest,
and retiring. Lewis began to write at an early age, and he

worked with an enthusiasm that is apparent in The Monk as

 

well as in his letters. Radcliffe's career, however, did
not begin until after her marriage in 1787, when she was
"encouraged to her writing--urged to it, in fact--by her
husband."2 As the son of a wealthy government official,
Lewis was widely known in society, and as the author of The
Mgnk, he expanded his acquaintance to friendships with such
writers as Scott and Byron. At his death, he left behind
a large number of letters, and anecdotes of his life surface
repeatedly in the books of his contemporaries. But Radcliffe
consciously avoided social and literary circles, and she
passed on no letters, notes, diaries, or other chronicle of
her life or of her activities as a novelist.3

Because of this almost total lack of information

about Radcliffe's biography, and particularly about her

views on literature, her early novels take on a greater

significance than the importance which they would ordinarily
have as the first attempts of an author who later became
famous. "Mrs. Radcliffe's development was steady," as
Bonamy Dobrée has observed,4 and she possessed the rare
ability to improve with each new novel that she published.
For this reason, when all five of her romances are viewed
together, they reveal in an unusually clear manner an
author's struggle to mold her material into its most effec-
tive form. Thus, her first three novels deserve to be
studied not so much for their own merits (although The

Romance of the Forest is a good novel), but because they

 

provide a helpful and interesting introduction to the

debate which later emerges from The Mysteries of Udolpho

 

and The Italian, and their relationship to The Monk.

 

 

As the Gothic romance develops through the 1790's,

the proposition which is introduced in The Castles of

 

Athlin and Dunbayne is repeated many times and in many ways:

 

while it is better, in a moral sense, to be good and kind
and virtuous, the forces of evil are often powerful, fre-
quently fascinating, and sometimes even attractive. The
discussion of morality in the Gothic romance centers not in
the glorious victory of good over evil, but rather in the

extended periods of oppression during which the virtuous

must attempt to protect against the tortures and persecu-
tions to which they are subjected by a villain who is able
and effective in spite of, or perhaps because of, his de-
pravity. Gothic fiction, then, is decidedly not an heroic
genre, and once this is understood, a number of themes and
conventions can be explicated with greater clarity. The
Gothic hero, for instance, is curiously but almost invar-
iably impotent in his attempts first to protect the heroine,
and failing that, to rescue her from persecution. Although
his goodness and virtue are reinforced by a bold impetuosity
and a fearless determination, he is consistently outmaneu-
vered, outfought, and overshadowed by the older, stronger,
and more experienced villain. In view of his almost total
ineffectiveness, it soon becomes apparent that the hero in
the Gothic romance is not to be understood as a chivalric
champion; his primary function is rather to serve as a man
with whom the heroine may appropriately fall in love,
usually before her trials begin, and ultimately marry after
her suffering has run its course. Almost as if to save him
the embarrassment of repeated defeats, the hero is typically
isolated from the principal action through long sections of
the novel. Osbert and Alleyn are imprisoned in Radcliffe's

first romance, and Vivaldi is arrested by the Inquisition

in her last. Hippolitus, the hero of A Sicilian Romance,

 

is seriously wounded early in the narrative, and both Theo—

dore in The Romance of the Forest and Valancourt in Udolpho

 

are ordered to their regiments at crucial periods. In 332
HQEE! Raymond is incapacitated for several months as a re-
sult of his encounter with the Bleeding Nun, and a long
series of minor and coincidental develOpments keeps Lorenzo
from acting in time to save Antonia.

Once the hero has been removed from the action, the
heroine and the villain are essentially alone and free to
play out their roles without interruption. Both Radcliffe
and Lewis are skilled at surrounding their heroines with an
oppressive sense of desolation—-Emily is boarded with Mon-
toni and his crude companions at Udolpho; Antonia's mother
is dead and her aunt's return has been inexplicably delayed.
Indeed, this feeling of desolation can become so pervasive
that the heroine and the villain often seem to be the only
occupants of an otherwise empty world. In this isolation,
the importance of their struggle moves beyond the familiar
and the expected until it has expanded finally to metaphys-
ical proportions: their meeting is not simply an antago-
nistic encounter between two people, but rather an encounter

between the very embodiments of good and evil.5 Without

exception, the heroine, in whom violent Opposition would be
unthinkable, is young, beautiful, chaste, and entirely de—
fenseless. The villain is older and much more experienced,
mysterious and often depraved, powerful and cruelly in-
genious. Given the greater strength and ability of the
villain, the central problem which the Gothic novelist
faces is to work out, in a convincing manner, the eventual
salvation of the heroine. Or in broader terms, the ques-
tion posed in Gothic literature can be rendered as follows:
How will the struggle between good and evil be resolved in
this world when the forces of evil are more powerful, more
ingenious, and in every way more effective than those of
good?

With each new novel, Radcliffe works to refine both
this question and her answer to it. But she arrives at
essentially the same conclusions in each of her five ro-
mances. First, her heroines believe firmly in the efficacy
of goodness and virtue. This belief, however, draws its
meaning, its validity, primarily from a religious faith,
while the Gothic romance is concerned almost totally with
this world. Thus the heroine's repeated assertion that God
will protect the innocent seems irrelevant at best, and

deluded at worst, for innocent people do indeed suffer in

Gothic fiction, sometimes even to the point of a tortured
death. A second and much more original, meaningful, and
interesting contention centers on the nature of evil, and
asserts that it is inherently and unavoidably self-
destructive. While official agencies, such as the Court

of Paris in The Romance of the Forest and the Inquisition

 

in The Italian, sometime preside over the villain's final
demise, he almost always initiates his own downfall by
attempting too much, by allowing his passions to rule his
reason, or by failing to account for every eventuality. In
view of this belief that evil, no matter how superior, will
eventually cause its own destruction, the heroine's best
and, indeed, only weapons are patience, forbearance, and
endurance. As the representative of goodness and virtue,
the heroine must gird herself with fortitude, and attempt
simply to outlast the barrage of threat, menace, and even
torture that is hurled against her.

All of Radcliffe's heroines survive their days and
weeks of persecution, and all are said to live happily ever
after at the end of their stories. But the villains also
inflict considerable pain and cause great trauma before
they finally overreach their own designs. Innocent women

are imprisoned for years in both The Castles of Athlin and

 

Dunbayne and A Sicilian Romance. Virtuous people are mur-

 

dered in The Romance of the Forest, The Mysteries of

 

Udolpho, and The Italian. Thus the final question of the

 

Gothic romance, and the question that Radcliffe is never
able to answer completely, asks how much the good people of
this world can endure before their pain and persecution
render their long-delayed victory over evil hollow and
meaningless. Ambrosio's dramatic descent into sin in The

Monk is a strong indication that Lewis agreed with Rad-

 

cliffe's contention that evil is inherently self-destructive.

But other events of The Monk seem to imply that Lewis had

 

doubts about some aspects of Radcliffe's position as it

emerges from The Mysteries of Udolpho. The presentation of

 

Ambrosio as a hero-villain, for instance, seems to question
just how separate good and evil really are. And the great
and violent suffering which pervades the novel seems to
suggest that evil can cause considerably more damage before
burning itself out than Radcliffe had supposed. Most tra-
gically, the deaths of Elvira and especially Antonia cast

a heavy shadow on the ability of good to withstand the on-
slaught of evil in the meantime. ‘The sense of confidence

and achievement which pervades The Mysteries of Udolpho

 

suggests that Radcliffe felt, at the time, that she had

10

finally brought her material to its fullest and most mean-

ingful expression. But Lewis's view in The Monk is more

 

drastic. And his vision was sufficiently disturbing to
bring Radcliffe to re-examine the position of Udolpho, and
to attempt to respond to Lewis's implicit challenge in The
Italian, which is both her most carefully argued romance,

and the last that she ever published.

CHAPTER ONE
ANN RADCLIFFE'S FIRST NOVELS:

A STRUGGLE FOR FORM

Published anonymously in 1789, The Castles of Athlin

 

and Dunbayne: A Highland Story is the unsophisticated work
of an inexperienced author. The setting of this tale is
described only as "the north-east coast of Scotland, in the
most romantic part of the Highlands,"1 and 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. The Castles of Athlin and Dun-
bgygg_can therefore be seen as a descendant of The Castle

of Otranto, or as an example of the "Historical-Gothic,"

 

as D. P. Varma calls it.2 Radcliffe, however, seems to have
known little about Scotland, and perhaps even less about the
Middle Ages. Thus, her attempt "to blend," in Horace
Walpole's words, "the two kinds of romance, the ancient

with the modern,"3 is limited to only the broadest of

strokes needed to suggest a romantic time and place. But

11

12

even with this vagueness, Radcliffe's decision to write her

first novel in the style of Otranto shows that she was aware
of and apparently attracted to the Gothic romance at a time

when it was only a rough and ill-defined mode of fiction.

The central conflict of The Castles of Athlin and

 

Dunbayne is rooted in the death of the Earl of Athlin, who
was killed by a neighboring chief twelve years before the
opening time of the narrative. The clans of Athlin and
Dunbayne had been in diSpute over their boundaries for some
time, and although the Earl was slain in battle after being
trapped by a "curious finesse," as Radcliffe describes it
(p. 3), his death is treated by both author and characters
as a heinous murder, rather than as the misfortune of war.
Feeling that her strength at arms was insufficient to avenge
her husband's death, Matilda, the Countess of Athlin, con-
fined herself to her castle, and concentrated on raising
her young children. But when Osbert reaches the age of
nineteen, he is so outraged by accounts of his father's
ignoble death that he determines to seek revenge at any
cost. With this decision, the action begins, and the men
loyal to Athlin swear by their swords "never to quit the
cause in which they now engaged, till the life of their

enemy had paid the debt of justice and of revenge" (p. 17).

13

Through this background, Osbert is identified as
the apparent hero of the novel, but with the progress of
the plot, a peasant named Alleyn becomes so active and im-
portant that he must be seen as sharing in the role of hero.
Young, chaste, and beautiful, Osbert's sister, Mary, is
singled out as the heroine, and as the first in a long line
of young women who are threatened and pursued through Rad-
cliffe's next four novels. Finally, Malcolm, Baron of Dun-
bayne, is labelled clearly as the villain, and as the man
who will afflict Osbert, Mary, and Alleyn with the cruelest
of tortures that he can devise. Unlike such later villains
as Ambrosio and Schedoni, however, Malcolm is thoroughly
one-dimensional in his evil, and possesses no redeeming
characteristics, with the possible exception of his death-
bed contrition. Indeed, good and evil in Radcliffe's first
novel are almost as surely separate as are the castles of
the title. Athlin is the shelter of the good and the vir-
tuous, and at both the beginning and the end of the romance,
its halls ring with feasting and good cheer. The fallen
Earl is remembered with a loyal respect, and Osbert's deter-
mination to attack Malcolm is greeted with warmth by the
people of his lands. Just a few miles away stands the

castle of Dunbayne, invariably dark and gloomy.

l4

Subterranean passages wind beneath its foundations, and men
and women languish in its dungeons. The master of this
castle is sadistic and tyrannical, and his followers are
cowardly, untrustworthy, and controlled by fear alone.

His lack of kindness and virtue notwithstanding,
Malcolm is an effective military leader, and his soldiers
easily repel Athlin's attack. Osbert, who is a better
orator than warrior, is quickly overcome, captured, and
imprisoned. And although Alleyn fights valiantly in de-
fense of his leader, he is eventually wounded and carried
to a separate dungeon. Meanwhile, Athlin's men suffer such
great and bloody losses that "a small part, only, of the
brave and adventurous band who had engaged in the cause of
justice, and who were driven back from the walls, survived
to carry the dreadful tidings to the countess" (p. 30).

The outcome of this attack is significant, for it reveals
that even this unpolished first novel, Radcliffe had left
behind the heroic ideal which holds that evil is weak in
the face of virtue, and that those who are engaged "in the
cause of justice" will return victorious from every battle.

After Athlin's unsuccessful attack on Dunbayne,
Radcliffe seems a little uncertain of what to do next.

Osbert, her principal hero, has been imprisoned, and

15

Dunbayne's military might has been shown to be far superior
to that of Athlin. Her solution to the immediate problem
of direction is to shift the focus from Osbert to Alleyn,
the brave peasant whose loyalty and ability have earned him
an unofficial position as Osbert's chief lieutenant. Un-
like his noble leader, who continues to languish in prison
for weeks on end, Alleyn manages a quick escape from his
own cell, and happens to be passing through a forest just
in time to rescue Mary from abduction by Malcolm's henchmen.
Mary is greatly impressed by Alleyn's bravery in her de-
fense, and he is no less taken by her beauty, charm, and
modest gratitude. But there is little time for love at
this moment, for Alleyn must think of a way to free Osbert
from his cruel captivity at Dunbayne.

Although Alleyn goes through a great deal of hope-
ful maneuvering, Athlin's army was clearly inferior to
begin with, and is even weaker after its recent defeat.
Thus, the truth is that there is little that Alleyn or
anyone else can do to secure Osbert's release, except to
await word of Malcolm's intentions. For his part, the
Baron is elated over his capture of Osbert, and "racked
imagination for the invention of tortures equal to the

force of his feelings" (p. 37). Instead of confirming his

16

advantage by simply executing Osbert without delay, Malcolm
considers that "the sufferings of suspense are superior to
those of the most terrible evils" (p. 37), and commands
that his victim be permitted to live, but only under close
guard, and in total ignorance of his future destiny. While
the agony of uncertainty does indeed prey on Osbert's mind,
it is clear that Malcolm has already begun to compromise
his power, and as the days and weeks go by, it begins to
seem that he has adopted his plan of suspense not so much
to torture his captive, as to satisfy his own sadistic im-
pulses. When he receives news of Alleyn's escape, however,
the Baron is so infuriated that he issues orders for Os-
bert's immediate execution. But then, with an abruptness
which is a frequent problem in this romance, he recalls his
enduring lust for Mary, and decides privately that he will
spare Osbert's life only if she will agree to become his
wife. In spite of this determination, Malcolm is unable to
resist the temptation to intensify his prisoner's agony by
forcing him to watch the preparations for his execution,
and by waiting until Osbert has fainted at "the remembrance
of his mother, overwhelmed with sorrow" before returning

him to his dungeon and announcing a reprieve (p. 85).

17

After another delay of several weeks, Malcolm halts
a desparate and plainly futile attack on his castle by read-
ing a message to the Countess of Athlin from the ramparts
of Dunbayne: "The Baron Malcolm," he declares, "will ac-
cept no other ransom for the life and the liberty of the
earl, than [Matilda's] beauteous daughter, whom he now sues
to become his wife" (p. 97). After the initial shock of
this pronouncement has passed, each of the principals reacts
in the expected manner: Osbert rejects the proposal with
heated indignation, exclaiming loudly that he would rather
die. Alleyn, who is faced with conditions "which would
bring destruction on the woman he adored, or death to the
friend whom he loved" (p. 99), attempts to maintain the
discreet neutrality appropriate to his low rank. Matilda
assumes that she alone must make the decision for her
children, but Mary keeps her own counsel and decides that
she will sacrifice her own happiness to save her brother's
life. In spite of its predictability, this situation con—
tains a very clear expression of the closed nature of the
Gothic romance, of the almost incestuous relationships
which so frequently envelop its characters:

The critical situation of Matilda can scarcely

be felt in its full extent. Torn by the con-
flict of opposite interests, her brain was the

18

seat of tumult and wild dismay. Which ever
way she looked, destruction closed the View.
The murderer of the husband now sought to
murder the happiness of the daughter. On

the sentence of the mother hung the final

fate of the son. . . . Her mind shrunk from
the idea of uniting her daughter to the mur-
derer of her father. The ferocious character
of Malcolm was alone sufficient to blight for
ever the happiness of the woman whose fate
should be connected with his. To give to the
murderer the child of the murdered, was a
thought too horrid to rest upon. The Countess
rejected with force the baron's offer of ex-
change, when the bleeding figure of her be-
loved son, pale and convulsed in death, started
on her imagination, and stretched her brain
almost to frenzy (pp. 101-103).

Radcliffe seems to revel in the intricacies of familial
interconnections, particularly as they relate to the roles
of victim and persecutor. Although she learns to present
them with greater subtlety, such relationships are impor-
tant to each of Radcliffe's later novels, and indeed, to
Gothic literature in general.

Matilda finds it so difficult to resolve the di-
lemma with which the Baron has presented her that she slips
by default into the tactic of delay. But as it turns out,
this inaction is the most effective plan that could have
been adopted, for with each passing day, Malcolm's control

continues to lessen. First, his sadistic delight in

19

another's suffering has led him to keep Osbert alive
through many weeks, and now his lust for a woman has driven
him to bargain with the enemy over whom he had recently
held such absolute power. Moreover, far worse developments
are soon to befall the Baron as a result of his cruel
treatment of his own people, who become "impatient under
the yoke of tyranny," and anxious to "resume the rights of
nature" (pp. 133-34). As discipline among his men grows
increasingly lax, Malcolm begins to punish even the
slightest inattention with such great severity that his
soldiers eventually find it more expedient to desert than
to face the wrath of their implacable leader. Alleyn had
effected his own release early in the narrative by convinc-
ing his guard to change allegiance, and the alienation
among Malcolm's men is now so pronounced that he is able

to use the same temptation to secure Osbert's long-awaited
escape from Dunbayne. The Baron is "exasperated almost to
madness" when he learns that Osbert has slipped away. But
Athlin rings with joy at his deliverance, and "when the
first transports of the meeting were subsided," reports
Radcliffe, "the Earl presented Alleyn to his family as his

friend and deliverer; whose steady attachment he could

20

never forget, and whose zealous services he could never
repay" (p. 181).

A short time later, however, Osbert has occasion to
question Alleyn about the possession of a bracelet which
contains a miniature of Mary. The young peasant, who is
much too honorable to lie or dissemble, confesses his love
for Osbert's sister, and while the Earl is said to be "con-
cerned" for Alleyn, we are told that "hereditary pride
chilled the warm feelings of friendship and of gratitude"
(p. 195). Over the following days, Osbert repeats his op-
position to Alleyn's love in indignant and finally even
insulting terms. Although his reluctance to allow his
sister to marry a peasant is understandable in the context
of the novel, his rude reaction to the discovery that
Alleyn has dared to look on Mary with affection is simply
too much for his characterization as a hero. Given his
ineptitude as a soldier, his penchant for empty rhetoric,
and especially the fact that he owes his sister's life as
well as his own to Alleyn, his pompous talk of rank and
dignity and fortune costs him the last bit of sympathy
which he may have enjoyed. Indeed, by this point, the
reader may well wish that Malcolm had decapitated the Earl

of Athlin long ago.

21

But the Baron's own destruction is now all but com-
plete. His rage at Osbert's escape leads him to venture
from the protection of Dunbayne for the first time, and to
mount an offensive on Athlin. His enemy is prepared for
this attack, however, and Malcolm's long-practiced cruelty
now turns against him with full force: "The fear of the
Baron," writes Radcliffe,

which had principally operated on the minds of

his people, was now overcome by surprise and

the fear of death; and on the first repulse,

they deserted from the ranks in great numbers,

and fled to the distant hills. In vain the

Baron endeavoured to rally his soldiers, and

keep them to the charge: they yielded to a

stronger impulse than the menaces of their

chief, who was now left with less than half

his numbers (PP. 211-12).
These losses notwithstanding, the Baron's courage remains
unabated, and he continues the fight until he is wounded
gravely in close combat with Osbert. His injury is mortal,
and as his life slips away, he attempts to ease his con-
science by confessing that he has held his wealthy sister-
in-law and her young daughter under guard for the past
fifteen years. In addition, he reveals that the Baroness's

infant son did not die as he had reported so long ago, but

was placed in a peasant's cottage to be raised in obscurity.

22

With these confessions, Malcolm completes his vil-

lainous career, and The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne

 

comes to an awkward hiatus. The Baron's death has resolved
the initial conflict by giving Osbert his revenge, the
Baroness and Laura have been freed at last, and the people
of Dunbayne have been delivered from the rule of the tyrant.
The unhappy love between Alleyn and Mary is the only remain-
ing problem, but any reader who is even slightly familiar
with literary conventions can easily--and rightly--predict
that Alleyn will be revealed as the Baroness's long-lost
son, and thus as a perfectly suitable husband for Osbert's
noble sister. Just as it seems that evil has been purged
from the land, however, Osbert is seriously wounded while
pursuing several strangers through a ruined wing of Athlin,
and Mary is once again carried away by ruffians on horse—
back. Although there is absolutely no indication of who

is behind these latest crimes, Osbert displays the small-
ness of his mind for a final time by allowing his suspi-
cions to rest solely with Alleyn. But when Mary is rescued
for a second time, and again by Alleyn, the culprit is
discovered to be Count de Santmorin, a noble Swiss who has
resided at Athlin since surviving a shipwreck on the nearby

coast.

23

Once he has been unmasked, the Count, whose suit
Mary had politely refused on several occasions, is sin-
cerely contrite, and nearly overcome by "a sense of his
own unworthiness" (p. 263). While the Count's rash at-
tempt to requite his love through abduction may well be
out of character, as E. B. Murray complains,4 it is never-
theless an interesting episode, and perhaps the most
touching incident in the entire novel. The Count's des-
perate display of "the weakness of human nature" (p. 265),
comes as a welcome, if unexpected, relief to the consis—
tently artificial and stylized reactions that have pre-
vailed through the narrative, and even Osbert seems a
little more human as his amazement at the true identity
of this latest villain gives way to apologetic embarrass-
ment at having suspected Alleyn. Although Radcliffe lacks
the sophistication in this first novel to draw out or to
clarify the deeper meaning of this incident, it contains
several important implications. First, the recourse of a
predominantly good, kind, and decent man such as Count de
Santmorin to violent means (and means which nearly bring
about Osbert's death), casts doubt on just how separate and
distinct good and evil really are. Malcolm's attempt to

ravish Mary is to be expected as a result of his inherent

24

depravity; the Count's attempt, on the other hand, shows
that even people who are basically good are sometimes
capable of evil actions. And second, the fact that love
or desire has driven an otherwise decent man to a criminal
abduction demonstrates how irresistible the proddings of
passion can be. Whether it is a lustful desire, or a sin-
cere and honorable love, passion in the Gothic romance can
strike without notice, and drive its victim to the most
violent and irrational extremes. St. Aubert warns against

the overindulgence of the heart in The Mysteries of Udolpho,

 

and Emily is clearly frightened by the power of her emotive
and intuitive faculties. But it is Lewis's Ambrosio who

is most thoroughly and dramatically overwhelmed by lust,
desire, and perhaps even love.

The weaknesses of The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne

 

are numerous and very noticeable: the characters are almost
invariably flat and stilted, and it is therefore difficult
to care about or even to believe in their predicaments.
Malcolm's evil is only vaguely motivated, and his maneuver-
ings are largely uninteresting. Radcliffe seems to have
been very uncertain about the characterization of her lead—
ing figure, of Osbert, Earl of Athlin, and he is very un-

convincing as a hero, and essentially unlikable as a person.

25

The plot is full of delays and awkward transitions, and is
overly dependent upon coincidence. The resolution is pa-
tently predictable, and the marriages which conclude the
novel provide little satisfaction beyond that which arises
from familiarity and fulfilled expectations. In spite of
these problems, the themes which Radcliffe introduces in

Athlin and Dunbayne--the issues and concerns which she

 

begins to explore--are significant and potentially inter-
esting. Her particular version of the eternal conflict
between good and evil deserves further examination. Her
hesitant probing of the nature of evil, and her tentative
expression of the relationship between constructive emo-
tions and self-indulgent impulses are worthy of further
development. In short, Ann Radcliffe's first attempt at
a Gothic romance is a failure as a novel, but a success as
a demonstration that she has something to say. Thus, her
task through her next attempts is to construct a fictional
context and a narrative technique that are equal to her
intellectual concerns.

Radcliffe's second novel, A Sicilian Romance, was
first published in 1790, almost exactly a year after the
release of her first.5 Clara McIntyre reports that this

second attempt was more widely and favorably noticed by the

26

reviewers of the day (p. 35), and D. P. Varma writes that
it is a "more polished work and indicates a firmer grasp
of Mrs. Radcliffe's abilities."6 Even though it is not a
great novel, A Sicilian Romance does show significant im-

provement over The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne. And

 

most of these improvements seem to have arisen from a care—
ful and perceptive attention to the weaknesses of her first

novel, for Radcliffe has altered in A Sicilian Romance pri-

 

marily those elements which caused her the most difficulty
in Athlin and Dunbayne.
Perhaps the single most significant change that

Radcliffe made in A Sicilian Romance was to break with the

 

precedent of The Castle of Otranto by rejecting the use of

 

the medieval trappings which were intended to evoke the
atmosphere of the Middle Ages. While this decision under-
cuts Walpole's rationale of Gothic fiction as a blending of
the ancient and the modern romance, it clearly gave the
Gothic novelist a great deal more freedom and latitude.

And judging from the proliferation of Gothic romances after
1790, especially as compared to the very few that had ap-
peared during the twenty-five years between Otranto and

A Sicilian Romance, this freedom seems to have been much

 

needed. Moreover, the almost concurrent rise of the

27

historical novel--of fictional narratives set in bygone
ages which make no particular use of Gothic characters,
situations, or themes--seems to suggest that Walpole's
attempt to merge two kinds of romance may have been a

feat which only he could accomplish with any success. For
her part, Radcliffe was certainly more comfortable with
the more easily imagined setting of "the northern shore of
Sicily," and the relatively modern time of "towards the
close of the sixteenth century."7 With the exception of

Gaston de Blondeville, which she seems never to have in-

 

tended to publish, Radcliffe did not return to a medieval
setting, and most Gothic novelists seem to have been sat-
isfied with comparatively modern, European settings until

Shelley located a section of Frankenstein in England, and

 

Charles Maturin chose Ireland as the base from which Mel-
moth roamed the world.
A shift in emphasis from hero to heroine is another

important change in A Sicilian Romance. Radcliffe may

 

simply have found it easier to work with female characters
(although Father Schedoni is the best character creation
in her canon), but the fictional heroine as descended from
Pamela, Clarissa, and Sophia Western was by convention

relatively defenseless, and therefore approrpiate to an

28

embodiment of the passive endurance which is required in
the struggle with the overbearing evil of the Gothic vil-
lain. More importantly, a revision in the primary conflict
of the romance mandates the presence of a heroine as the

leading character: the main conflict in The Castles of

 

Athlin and Dunbayne is largely social and military, and has

 

to do with affairs of duty and honor; the conflict of h.

Sicilian Romance, however, is much more private and inti-

 

mate in nature, and has to do with personal autonomy and

will in affairs of love, courtship, and marriage. These

latter concerns became almost inseparable from the Gothic
romance, and Radcliffe increased the dominance of her

heroine in The Romance of the Forest and especially in The _

 

Mysteries of Udolpho, until The Monk convinced her to view

 

 

the conflict from the other side, to relate The Italian

 

with the villain as the most important character.

The plot of A Sicilian Romance is fairly simple in

 

outline, but confusing in detail. Basically, the narrative
tells of the trials of a young woman who wishes to marry
the young man with whom she has fallen in love, but whose
father insists, out of concern for wealth and power, that
she marry the man of his choice. Like Sophia Lee's The

Recess, of which Radcliffe is said to have been "among the

29

. 8 . . . . .
warmest admirers," A SiCilian Romance opens With a lei-

 

surely description of two sisters who are being raised by
a governess in a large, but mostly uninhabited castle.
Julia, who is to be the principal heroine, is eighteen
years old, and is described as imaginative, animated, and
enchanting, with dark eyes, and dark auburn hair. Her
twenty year old sister, Emilia, has blue eyes and flaxen
hair, and is comparatively timid, retiring, and contempla-
tive. Although their father, brother, and stepmother re-
side in splendor in Naples, Julia and Emilia have been

left to the care of Madame de Menon, a close friend of
their mother, the first Marchioness. While Emilia is per-
fectly happy with her obscure but tranquil existence, Julia
"would sometimes sigh for the airy image which her fancies
painted, and a painful curiosity would arise concerning the
busy scenes from which she was excluded" (1.14).

The first disruption of their uneventful life is
caused by the mysterious appearance of a flickering light
in the long-since deserted and now decaying south wing of
the castle. This unsettling occurrence, which leads to
rumors of ghosts and spirits, is followed by the arrival
of the Marquis, who has come to attend the deathbed of his

confidential servant, and to prepare the castle for a grand

30

celebration of his son's majority. The Marquis, we are
told, was "naturally of a haughty and overbearing disposi-
tion." But though his "passions were vehement," his wife,
the second Marchioness, "had the address to bend them to
her own purpose; and so well to conceal her influence,

that he thought himself most independent when he was most
enslaved" (1.6-7). This Marchioness, Radcliffe observes
somewhat later, returned her husband's sincere affection
"with seeming tenderness, and secret perfidy. She allowed
herself a free indulgence in the most licentious pleasures,"
continues Radcliffe, "yet conducted herself with an art so
exquisite as to elude discovery, and even suspicion. In
her amours she was equally inconstant as ardent, till the
young Count Hippolitus de Vereza attracted her attention"
(1.23-24). But Hippolitus' outward elegance and perfection
are matched by a refinement of mind and a purity of virtue
which would never permit him to engage in adultery. All
his ”frigid indifference," however, "served only to inflame
the passion it was meant to chill," and with each new re—
buff, the Marchioness becomes more determined to win him as
her lover (1.24-25). The Marquis' son, Ferdinand, is also
kind and virtuous, in spite of having been raised by such

dissolute parents. He and Hippolitus are close friends,

31

and travel together to Sicily to attend the festive parties,
dinners, and dances.

Not surprisingly, Julia and Hippolitus fall in love
almost at first meeting. But their troubles begin soon
after, as the Marchioness, burning with rage and jealousy
at the easy success of her rival, convinces the Marquis to
marry Julia to a much older man who has been induced by her
beauty to solicit her hand. Although the Duke de Luovo has
been married twice before, both wives "had fallen victims
to the slow but corroding hand of sorrow." And his char-
acter is best revealed in Radcliffe's matter of fact state-
ment that "he delighted in simple undisguised tyranny"
(1.129). Faced with the prospect of being married to such
a man, Julia determines on elopement, but the Marquis
learns of her plans, and is waiting to surprise his daughter
and to wound her lover seriously. Hippolitus is carried
away barely alive, and Ferdinand, who had assisted in the
attempted escape, is locked in a dungeon. Julia is con-
fined to a small room, but two days later, when prepara-
tions for her union to the Duke are complete, the Marquis
discovers that she has disappeared. The Duke's original
passion for the lovely Julia is now greatly augmented by

the intolerable affront of her wedding day desertion, and

32

by the public embarrassment to which he has been subjected.
The Marquis, of course, looks foolish and incompetent as a
father, and the Marchioness is enraged by the frustration
of her scheme to punish her rival.

At this point, the plot shifts to a structure of
flight and pursuit. Julia, who had escaped with the help
of her serving girl, spends several weeks in a remote cot-
tage, and when this retreat is discovered, she takes refuge
in a convent. But when the abbot insists that she must
either take the veil or go back to her father, she flees
for a third time, and is eventually forced to secrete her-
self in a cavern which winds back into the mountains. Al-
though there are interludes of comparative tranquility,
Julia's flight is fairly frantic on the whole, as she is
pursued not only by her father's servants, but by the Duke
and his followers as well. At one point, she is actually
overtaken by a second irate father who has mistaken her for
his own runaway daughter. To add to the confusion, Ferdi-
nand and later Hippolitus join in the search in an attempt
to protect Julia from the Duke and the Marquis. Moreover,
everyone involved in this great chase must contend with the
murderous bandits who roam through the forests and moun-

tains.

33

Radcliffe's decision to set her novel in Sicily adds
an interesting touch to Julia's flight by creating a claus-
trophobic sense of no escape. She can travel only so far in
any direction before coming to the sea, and her one attempt
to sail to the mainland is aborted when a violent gale
forces her ship back to the rocky coast, almost as if the
island is.refusing to give her up. When she discovers that
the cavern which she has entered in a last, desperate hope
of sanctuary winds beneath the castle of Mazzini, Julia
realizes that her many weeks of travel have come full circle,
and that her flight has ended, unwittingly, at the very
point from which it began. In exploring this cavern, Julia
finds a secret door, passes through a hidden passageway,
and finally comes upon a dungeon in which a lone prisoner
languishes. This inmate, she soon learns, is her mother,
the first Marchioness, who has been confined for the past
fifteen years after her husband had convinced the world of
her death by staging a mock funeral. As a final irony, the
door through which Julia entered the dungeon has locked
behind her, and she now has no choice but to give herself
up to a life of oppression with the Duke, or to remain un-

molested in prison with her loving mother.

34

Although the Marquis is greatly angered by Julia's
success in eluding capture, he soon faces much more serious

problems as A Sicilian Romance moves toward a surprising

 

and impressive catastrophe. The Marquis had imprisoned his
first wife so that he would be free to marry Maria de Vel-
lorno, with whom he was, and still is, deeply infatuated.
Except for the lone servant who had attended the Marchioness
over the years, no one had ever known of her continued exis-
tence. The Marquis was therefore shocked to disbelief when
the abbot of the convent where Julia had sought refuge re-
vealed his knowledge that the first Marchioness is alive

and a prisoner. After several weeks of brooding, he de-
cides that he must protect himself by destroying the only
proof of the abbot's bold accusation. But while he is
contemplating the murder of his first wife, his second is
with a young man who has eagerly accepted the role that
Hippolitus had refused so adamantly. When the Marquis is
finally informed of Maria's illicit activities, which have
been going on for many years, his schemes come crashing in
on him*with astonishing force and rapidity. His first
impulse is simply to kill Maria, and to ”expiate her guilt
with her blood" (2.187). But to even his own surprise,

he discovers that he loves her in spite of her infidelity,

35

and that he cannot endure the thought of injuring her. "It
seemed as if his desire of her affection," explains Rad—
cliffe, "increased with his knowledge of the loss of it;
and the very circumstance which should have roused his
aversion, by a strange perversity of disposition, appeared
to heighten his passion, and to make him think it impossible
he could exist without her" (2.190). Ruled by this great
and continued affection, he determines only to admonish his
errant wife, "to reprove and to punish, but hereafter to
restore her to favor" (2.191).

Thus the Marquis de Mazzini displays a human weak-
ness comparable to that which leads Count de Santmorin to

abduct Mary in The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne. But the

 

Marquis' blind adoration of Maria is established early in
the novel, and his present emotions are therefore convinc-
ing, as well as interesting and even touching. Maria,
however, shares none of her husband's tenderness, and when
she is upbraided with heated insults and harsh reproaches,
she boldly asserts her innocence by inventing a tale to
explain her conduct. Although he dearly wishes to believe
this story, the Marquis cannot doubt the evidence of the
embraces he has witnessed, and he leaves his wife sobbing

bitterly on the couch. Later that evening, the Marquis

36

falls suddenly and seriously ill. Calling for Ferdinand,
he orders him to bring the Marchioness to his room, but;
Maria is discovered "lifeless and bathed in blood" with a
dagger by her side (2.197). A letter indicates that she
has taken her own life after plotting revenge on her hus-
band by poisoning his wine. With his dying breath, the
Marquis tells Ferdinand of his imprisoned mother, and urges
him to go quickly to keep her from tasting the tainted food
that he has just carried to her dungeon. However, Hippo-
litus has already rescued both the Marchioness and Julia.
The cruel father and his licentious wife are dead, the
innocent wife is restored to her loving children, and Julia
is free at last from oppression and terror.

From beginning to end, the action of A Sicilian Ro-

 

mance is much more insular and private than that of Athlin

and Dunbayne. The conflicts are those of personal and

 

domestic life, and victims and persecutors are members of
the same family. While Julia is not characterized in such

great detail as Emily St. Aubert ix: The Mysteries of

 

Udolpho or Ellena di Rosalba in The Italian, she is cer-

 

tainly more fully developed than the heroine of Radcliffe's
first romance. Similarly, while the Marquis is single-

minded in his attempts to control his daughter, his evil

37

is better motivated in the end and much more complex than
that of the Baron of Dunbayne. Indeed, when Radcliffe
reveals that much of his cruelty springs from a doting
affection for a wicked and undeserving woman, she evokes
enough sympathy for her villain to cause a mild feeling of
pathos when his eyes are opened and his life destroyed.

In spite of these improvements, there are several

serious problems in A_Sicilian Romance. The account of

 

Julia's flight, for instance, continues on far too long
after its interest has given way to repetition, confusion,
and coincidence. Thus, this longest section of the narra-
tive is also the weakest. On the other hand, the concluding
section is the best, but the briefest, section of the ro-
mance. The revelation of the Marquis' conflicting and
paradoxical emotions--of his continued and even increased
adoration of the wife who has spurned his love to the point
of ridicule--gives substance and depth to his character.
And Maria's flagrant adultery, her artful excuses, and her
brutal revenge show her to be as great, if not so subtle,

a villainess as the Marchesa di Vivaldi of The Italian.

 

Given the power and interest of the unusual relationship

between the Marquis and the Marchioness, it is unfortunate

38

that Radcliffe did not develop their personalities sooner
and devote more time to detailing their interactions.

In addition to these weaknesses, other, less ser-
ious problems can be noted. Unlike her handling of the
Marquis, Radcliffe never succeeds in developing the Duke
de Luovo beyond her initial description of 'delighting in
simple tyranny.‘ He glides through the novel more as a
concept than as a person, and he is never more than a
dreadful possibility which Julia must avoid. Emilia suf-
fers from an even greater neglect, as she is never given
any purpose or function to justify her presence in the
narrative. And although the plot flows more smoothly than

that of The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne, there are sev-

 

eral awkward moments, such as that which arises when Fer-
dinand is needed to attend his dying father: "Ferdinand,

in escaping from the hands of the banditti, it was now seen,
had fallen into the power of his father," says Radcliffe.
"He had since been confined in an apartment of the castle,
and was now liberated to obey the summons" (2.196). But

even with its weaknesses, A Sicilian Romance shows clear

 

improvement over The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne. Thus

 

Radcliffe's second novel attests to her ability to learn

from her previous failures, and more importantly, its

39

moments of undeniable power and interest look forward to
the Gothic masterpieces that she was soon to compose.

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.9 Writing with greatly increased power and interest,
Radcliffe completes in her third novel the winnowing of

extraneous material that she had begun in A Sicilian Ro-

 

geeee. Secondary characters such as parents, brothers,
sisters, and governesses have been eliminated, and Adeline
is utterly abandoned and alone when she is thrust without
explanation into the care of Pierre and Madame La Motte.
The absence of subplots leaves Radcliffe free to concen—
trate on her heroine, and Adeline dominates this romance
almost as totally as Emily is to dominate The Mysteries of

Udolpho. The focus of The Romance of the Forest is even

 

more narrow and inward than that of A Sicilian Romance,
and the central conflict is more specifically sexual and
more potentially dangerous, for Adeline is faced not with
merely an unhappy marriage, but with seduction, rape, and

ultimately murder.

40

The villain with whom Adeline must contend is much
more ingenious, subtle, and treacherous than his earlier
counterparts, and the evil which he embodies is exquisitely
tempting and attractive, rather than patently offensive and
grotesque. Whereas Mary and Julia are permitted to con-
template their persecutors from a distance, Adeline is
brought face to face with Montalt on several occasions.

And while the heroine's struggle with the villain in each
of the earlier novels is obscured by numerous tangential
conflicts, the maneuvering between the heroine and villain

of The Romance of the Forest is placed uncluttered at the

 

center of the narrative. Thus, the greater success of
Radcliffe's third Gothic romance can be attributed pri-
marily to a tighter, more controlled action, to more fully
developed characters and incidents, and to an emphasis on
the extended and complex encounter between an interesting
heroine and a convincing villain.

The Romance of the Forest opens in April of 1658 as

 

Monsieur and Madame La Motte are forced by unspecified
legal and financial difficulties to flee the city of Paris,
and to seek shelter from the law in a distant town or
village. Having lost the road in the dark and rainy night,

La Motte approaches a "small and ancient house, which stood

41

alone on the heath."lo The rude appearance of the inhabi—

tants of this house fills him with apprehension, and after
he has been kept in suspense for some time, "a beautiful
girl, who appeared to be about eighteen" is forced upon him
at the point of a pistol. "You are wholly in our power,"
exclaims one of the ruffians. "If you wish to save your
life, swear that you will convey this girl where I may never
see her more" (43.6). La Motte obviously has little choice
in the matter, and he is also touched by the apparent dis-
tress of the young woman who stands trembling by his side.
Returning to his carriage with Adeline, he permits his party
to be conducted back to the main way. After several more
days of travel, these unhappy wanderers are again overtaken
by night, and their carriage overturns in the darkness of

a thick and gloomy forest.

La Motte and his wife, Adeline and the servants are
then forced to spend the night in a deserted and partially
decayed abbey that they have discovered in the midst of a
clearing. With the return of day and the revival of his
spirits, La Motte considers that, with a few repairs, the
abbey could well provide an ideal haven from all his
difficulties. And indeed, all goes smoothly at first.

After several days, however, La Motte begins to disappear

42

into the forest at intervals, and to respond to his wife's
attentions with some coldness and irritation. Her naturally
jealous disposition leads Madame La Motte to suspect that
her husband is meeting secretly with Adeline, and as a con-
sequence, she adopts a subtle but unmistakable rudeness
toward her young companion. The arrival of the La Mottes'
son, Louis, brightens the household for a time, but when
Madame observes that he has plainly fallen in love with
this woman of unknown family and fortune, her unspoken
animosity toward Adeline increases. Some time later, the
quietly depressed routine of the abbey is again broken,
this time by the sudden appearance of the Marquis de Montalt
and a group of Chevaliers. La Motte and the Marquis ex-
change looks of surprise and hostility on first meeting.
But whatever they may have been, their differences are ap-
parently settled in private, for the Marquis invites the

La Mottes to stay on at the abbey, which is situated on his
lands, and even becomes a regular visitor in their newfound
home. Adeline's personal melancholy is somewhat relieved
and her hopes for the future revived when she notices a
handsome young man in the Marquis' party, and Theodore also
seems to have noticed Adeline. But the Marquis has re-

marked her beauty and grace just as surely as has Theodore.

43

And to her great dismay, Adeline discovers that Montalt has
designs on her virtue, and that La Motte, her only possible
guardian and protector, is urging her to receive the Marquis
with warmth and intimacy.

In some respects, Adeline is similar in her role of
heroine to Mary and Julia, but there are significant dif-
ferences in their situations. Most importantly, Adeline is
the first of Radcliffe's heroines who is a true "child of
sorrow," who is completely friendless and alone as she
enters the wide and frightening world. Mary enjoys the
loving comfort and sympathy of the Countess and Osbert,
and Alleyn seems always to be on hand to rescue her from
danger. While the Marquis de Mazzini is more of an enemy
than a father, Julia can turn to Emilia and Madame de Menon
for solace, and Ferdinand does his best to insure her hap-
piness. Adeline, however, has lived among strangers since
she was seven, and is now essentially an orphan. At her
mother's death, the man who is supposedly her father gave
her up to a convent, and seemed totally indifferent to her
happiness. When she was twelve, this man informed her that
she must become a nun, but after several years of debate,
he relented in his demands. Finally, Adeline's joy at

escaping the convent turned quickly to fear as this rude

44

and sullen father left her alone with a gang of ruffians
at the house on the heath.

Because of these experiences, Adeline thinks of her
father with more fear than fondness, and while her new com-
panions seem kind enough at first, La Motte's apparent
treachery and Madame's cold hostility leave her with no
protection other than her own ingenuity and courage. More-
over, neither Mary nor Julia has any cause to worry about
her rank and fortune, but Adeline's peculiar background
leaves her social position and even her identity in doubt.
Thus Madame La Motte treats her sometimes as a poor unfor-
tunate, and sometimes as a dangerous rival, but always as
a person of little consequence. And as Richardson's Pamela,
had discovered long ago, few people who have the power to
prevent it are willing to intercede in the attempt of a
wealthy man to debauch an unknown woman. For all these
reasons, Adeline (and later, Emily and Ellena as well)
exists inevitably as a person apart: even when she is in
seemingly sympathetic company, her private sorrows and con-
cerns keep her in an isolation that can never by completely
dispelled until she finds out who she is, in both the

literal and the figurative sense, and until she establishes

45

a place in the world that is hers by right rather than by
gift.

Adeline's personality--her thoughts, feelings, and
particularly her sensibility--is also more fully developed
than those of the earlier heroines. Her inner or spiritual
isolation is reinforced by a physical separation: "the
lower apartments," explains Radcliffe, "being insufficient
for the accommodation of the family, a room above stairs
was prepared for Adeline" (43.40). And it is to this room
that she retires to relax her defenses and to indulge her
heart. By focusing on her heroine during these quiet mo-
ments, Radcliffe develops her kind, generous, and sensitive
nature, and explores her hOpes, fears, and anxieties. In
the privacy of her room, Adeline considers how to ease the
La Mottes' depression, and puzzles over Madame's sudden and
inexplicable coldness. After her first meeting with the
Marquis' party, "the image of Theodore pursued her to her
chamber" (43.119), and as her thoughts wander to daydreams,
she first suspects that she has fallen in love. Later, she
retreats to her apartment as her only sanctuary from the
Marquis' attentions, and she trembles in seclusion for the
success of her plan to escape the abbey and her would-be

ravisher.

46

One night as she is sleeping in her room, Adeline
is disturbed by dreams of a "large old chamber belonging
to the abbey" in which a man lies dying (43.135). Soon
after, she discovers a hidden suite which adjoins her own
apartment, and which is exactly like the one in her dream.
In these dreadful chambers, she finds an old dagger
"spotted and stained with rust," and a yellowing manuscript
"tied with a string and covered with dust" (43.144-45).
Retiring early to her room on several successive nights,
she studies the manuscript and pieces together its shocking
story. Her gradual realization that the author of this
account was imprisoned and eventually murdered in the very
rooms in which she now sits fills Adeline with a supersti—
tious terror, but she also feels a deep sympathy and sorrow
for this unknown sufferer: "O that I had been near!" she
exclaims, "yet what could I have done to save thee? Alas!
nothing. I forget that even now, perhaps, I am like thee
abandoned to dangers from which I have no friend to succour
me" (43.175). Although Adeline's character is just as
surely stylized as is the language of her lament, Rad-
cliffe's many descriptions of her most private thoughts
and feelings create a sense of intimacy shared by reader,

author, and heroine. Taking us into confidence, Radcliffe

47

has permitted glimpses of her heroine at her weakest and
most vulnerable. And this engenders a sympathy for Adeline
which renders both her specific fears and her vague anxi-
eties significant and important. In short, while we may
not grant the verisimilitude of Radcliffe's heroine, we
readily concede the validity of her feelings of inadequacy
and uncertainty, of loneliness, doubt, and desolation, for
we ourselves have felt them.

The characterization of the villain, of the Marquis
de Montalt, also shows advances over the presentations of

his counterparts in The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne and

 

A Sicilian Romance. Most significantly, he is the first of

 

Radcliffe's villains who is not what he seems to be, the
first whose inner depravity is carefully concealed by an
outer refinement and gentility. Although Montalt is even-
tually revealed as an incorrigible villain who is capable
of the most heinous crimes, there is, at first, an interest-
ing tension between his good and evil impulses. Thus it is
not entirely fair or accurate to say that his politeness is
simply and completely a mask or subterfuge; in a sense, he
really is a gentleman:

The Marquis was polite, affable, and attentive;

to manners the most easy and elegant was added
the last refinement of polished life. His

48

conversation was lively, amusing, sometimes even
witty. . . . Adeline listened till the cheer-
fulness which she had at first only assumed be-
came real. The address of the Marquis was so
insinuating and affable that her reserve insen-
sibly gave way before it and her natural vi—
vacity resumed its long lost empire (43.124-25).

In light of this description, the Marquis is perhaps most

similar to Montoni of The Mysteries of Udolpho. They are

 

both inherently cruel and immoral, but they are also quite
refined, and can be very charming and attractive when it
suits their purposes.

In spite of this similarity, there is a clear dif-
ference in the motivation of these two villains. In his;
perpetual coldness, Montoni seems entirely uninfluenced by
lust and physical passion; rather he uses implicitly sexual
threats in an attempt to gain control of the wealth and
power that he so desires. Montalt, on the other hand, uses
the great wealth which he already possesses in an attempt
to seduce women to the sexual intimacy that he seems to
crave. Montoni, in plain words, is engaged in extortion
through a form of sexual blackmail. But Montalt, at least
initially, is interested only in making love, in establish-
ing an amorous relationship with the beautiful young woman

whom he has found at his abbey. At its beginning, then,

49

the conflict between Adeline and the Marquis is one more of
values than of criminality. The openness with which he
makes his original proposal suggests that he fully expects
that Adeline will be interested in his invitation, and the
women who surround him with adoration at his chateau show
that many have already found his proposals attractive.
Indeed, one who is ruled more by pragmatic concerns than
moral ideals may judge that Adeline, in her friendless,
penniless, and nameless circumstance, could do a great deal
worse than to become the richly kept mistress of a handsome
and elegant marquis. But Adeline is deeply offended, and
rejects his offer with "an air of ineffable dignity"
(43.152). In his worldliness, the Marquis seems to assume
that Adeline is simply holding out for a more advantageous
offer, and he therefore asks her (although insincerely) to
claim his title as well as his love by becoming his wife.
Adeline, of course, stands firm in her refusal, and
the Marquis finally resorts to trickery to have her brought
to his chateau. But even when she is in his absolute power,
he continues to follow the gentle course of seduction.
"Adeline," says Radcliffe, "was astonished" by the magnifi-
cance of her surroundings, for the Marquis' chateau is

truly a pleasure palace, "splendidly illuminated and fitted

50

up in the most airy and elegant taste" (43.195). The decor
of his salon appeals to each of the senses: there are
frescoes "representing scenes from Ovid" and from "the
Armida of Tasso," silken couches, silver lamps, busts of
Greek and Roman poets, vases of flowers which “breathed the
most delicious perfume," a banquet of "fruits, ices, and
liquors," and "music such as charmeth sleep" (43.195-96).
But Radcliffe also stresses that the Marquis' villa is not
the gaudy creation of a mere sensualist; rather, it is the

residence of a man who possesses true taste, elegance, and

 

refinement. Thus, once again, the common convention which
holds that evil is ugly and grotesque is refuted, and for

a brief moment, it seems that Adeline, alone of Radcliffe's
heroines, may be tempted from the path of virtue:

Adeline listened in surprise, and insensibly
became soothed and interested; a tender melan-
choly stole upon her heart and subdued every
harsher feeling. . . . A female voice, ac-
companied by a lute, a hautboy, and a few
other instruments, now gradually swelled into
a tone so exquisite, as raised attention into
ecstasy (43.196).

Her spell is broken at first by the entrance of the Marquis,
but as he addresses her in "a gentle voice," and looks on
her with "a studied air of tenderness" (43.198), again the

temptation seems real.11 The enchantment recedes for a

51

second time, however, and Radcliffe signals through the
aphoristic tag at the end of the following vignette that
Adeline's internal victory, at least, is assured:

He led her, and she suffered him, to a seat

near the banquet, at which he pressed her to

partake of a variety of confectionaries, par-

ticularly of some liquors, of which he himself

drank freely: Adeline accepted only of a

peach (43.200-01).

In spite of this rebuff, the Marquis continues to
plead his love and eventually attempts to embrace Adeline,
but "with a look on which was impressed the firm dignity
of virtue, yet touched with sorrow, she awed him to for-
bearance" (43.203). And in answer to her complaints of
fatigue, the Marquis permits Adeline to retire for the
night, after reminding her again that their marriage will
be celebrated early the following day. Adeline casts
scarcely a glance at the voluptuous accommodations of her
chamber--at the richly canopied bed, decorated with solid
silver cupids, which dominates the room like a pagan altar-—
before seeking a means of escape. To her delight, one of
the windows is unlocked, allowing her to make her way out
into the gardens. Wandering hopelessly lost and disoriented

through the extensive grounds, she is finally saved by

Theodore, who has deserted his regiment and come to rescue

52

his beloved from the lascivious designs of the Marquis.
But next day, Theodore is overtaken, wounded, and charged
with assaulting his commander, as well as desertion. Ade-
line, sunk in misery, is returned to the abbey, and to
imprisonment.

Quite by accident, the Marquis has come to suspect
Adeline's true identity, and his thoughts turn from seduc-
tion to more drastic measures. And in a scene which fore-
shadows Schedoni's intricate maneuvering with the Marchesa

in The Italian, Montalt attempts to coerce La Motte into

 

murdering Adeline. For a long time, La Motte assumes that
the Marquis is speaking of rape, but at last he understands
more clearly:

"Watch her closely," interrupted the Marquis,
"and on no account suffer her to leave her apart-
ment. Where is she now?"

"Confined in her chamber."

"Very well. But I am impatient."

"Name your time, my Lord---to-morrow night."

"To-morrow night," said the Marquis---"To—
morrow night. Do you understand me now?"

”Yes, my Lord, this night if you wish it so.
But had you not better dismiss your servants,
and remain yourself in the forest? You know the
door that opens upon the woods from the west
tower. Come thither about twelve--I will be
there to conduct you to her chamber. Remember
then, my Lord, to-night---"

"Adeline dies!" interrupted the Marquis in
a low voice scarcely human. Do you understand
me now?"

---La Motte shrunk aghast---“My Lord!“ (44.68).

 

53

After further maneuvering, La Motte agrees to commit the

crime, and the discussion, as in The Italian, then moves on

 

to a debate over details. And that night, La Motte steals
toward Adeline's bed, dagger in hand, just as Schedoni
later approaches Ellena in her sleep. But at the last mo—
ment, Adeline awakes, and losing his nerve, La Motte allows
her to flee the abbey with a servant. When the Marquis
arrives the following morning, La Motte tells him of Ade—
line's escape, naming Peter as the sole accessory. And at
this point, we are given, for the first time, a clear and
undisguised picture of the Marquis' inner character:

The strong workings of his soul, which appeared

in his countenance, for a while alarmed and

terrified La Motte. He cursed himself and her

in terms of such coarseness and vehemence as La

Motte was astonished to hear from a man whose

manners were generally amiable, whatever might

be the violence and criminality of his passions.

To invent and express these terms seemed to give

him not only relief but delight (44.83-84).

The Marquis' violent curses have the effect of punc-

tuating the end to his term of absolute power, and Adeline's

successful escape brings to an end the first long section of

The Romance of the Forest. The fairly brisk pace and inter-

 

esting action of this segment, which begins when Adeline is
thrust into La Motte's care in the house on the heath, give

way to a long and leisurely account of Adeline's travels

54

through southern France, Savoy, Nice, and Languedoc. Among
the several new characters introduced in this section are
Monsieur and Clara La Luc, who invite Adeline to stay in
their home, and who are soon discovered as Theodore's father
and sister. The rather loosely established conflict of this
section centers on the fate of young Theodore, and, after
several weeks of uncertainty, La Luc, Clara, and Adeline
receive a report that he is under sentence of death in a
Paris prison. Since he has been condemned for threatening
the life of his superior officer, Theodore's vindication is
inextricably bound with the Marquis' destruction. While

the long-delayed denouement is finally interesting, the
intervening section is far too lengthy and uneventful, and

Radcliffe was to develop a similar situation in The Italian

 

much more expeditiously.

The Marquis' many crimes begin to unravel as a re-
sult of his decision to gain revenge on La Motte by having
him arrested for armed robbery. "The elegance of his
manners," reports Radcliffe, "had so effectually veiled
the depravity of his heart that he was a favourite with
his sovereign" (44.208). And for this reason, the Marquis
feels that he may proceed with impunity against his enemy.

J

This time, however, his vengeful passions have led him too

55

far. Although La Motte had in fact encountered and robbed
the Marquis shortly after taking up residence in the forest,
he attempts to discredit this allegation by charging that
Montalt had commissioned him to murder Adeline. Several of
the Marquis' hirelings, disgruntled at their meagre rewards,
also give evidence, and it appears for a time that Adeline
is the "natural child of the Marquis de Montalt and of a
nun belonging to a convent of Ursulines" (44.202). As
sordid as this charge is, the Marquis hopes that his most
serious crime will remain forever secret. But a man named
d'Aunoy, the sullen man whom Adeline had known as her
father, is finally located and brought to the stand. Under
questioning, he confesses that, in 1642, he had assassi-
nated Henri, Marquis de Montalt, on orders from his half-
brother, the present Marquis. Adeline's testimony is all
that is needed to complete the case against the villainous
Marquis, but she speaks reluctantly and with some sorrow,
for she realizes that "in punishing the destroyer of her
parent," she must unavoidably "doom her uncle to death"
(44.218).

In this manner, The Romance of the Forest runs its

 

course to a fairly satisfying and effective conclusion.

Although her experiences have brought her perilously close

56

to an incestuous seduction or rape, and while she must own
her uncle for the murderer of her father, Adeline has at
last discovered her past, her name, and memories of a good
father. Retaining his pride to the end, the Marquis poisons
himself rather than submit to an ignominious death at the
hands of the law. But his finer impulses also remain in
evidence as he signs a full confession establishing Ade-
line's birth, title, and inheritance of a considerable
legacy. Theodore, who has been completely exonerated,
urges an immediate marriage, but Adeline insists that she
must first return to the abbey and ensure that her father's
remains are buried at last beside her mother's grave. With
the completion of this sorrowful task, Adeline has righted
the wrongs of the past as far as is now possible, and she
is free to live out her life with only the recollection of
past sufferings to dampen her happiness.

And with the completion of her third novel in as
many years, Ann Radcliffe has brought her apprenticeship
to a very satisfactory conclusion. Although there are still

weaknesses in The Romance of the Forest, particularly the

 

lengthy section describing Adeline's travels, it is a better

novel than A Sicilian Romance, and a much better work than

 

The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne. While neither Adeline

 

57

nor Radcliffe seems able to comprehend entirely the evil of
the Marquis--the passions which can drive a man of many
good qualities to a life of murder and wanton destruction--
the treatment of these concerns in this novel prepares the
way for a more considered presentation of the same themes
in The Mysteries of Udolpho. Udolpho, in turn, inspires
Lewis to complete The Monk, which then leads to Radcliffe's

last version of the Gothic world in The Italian.

 

CHAPTER TWO

THE MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO:

 

A TENTATIVE PERFECTION

Critics generally agree that The Italian is Ann

 

Radcliffe's most successful literary work, but The Mys-

teries of Udolpho was clearly her most popular and best

 

liked novel.l Although Udolpho does not contain any ele-
ments which could not have been found three years earlier
in The Romance of the Forest, it is the first novel of the
Gothic school to present a developed and balanced synthesis
of those elements. Emily is a more rounded Adeline,
Montoni is a more complex and central Montalt, and the
castle in the Appenines is a more striking and organic

setting than the abbey in the forest. The Mysteries of

 

Udolpho is also Radcliffe's most ambitious and expansive
novel as she follows her heroine through a variety of sit-
uations, and examines in detail her hopes and delusions,
her suspicions and fears. By relating large parts of her

long novel from Emily's point of view, Radcliffe is able

58

59

to create a convincing account of an individual state of
mind. And it is this probe into Emily's psyche that stands

as the most significant achievement of The Mysteries of

 

Udolpho.

In the first third of the romance, Radcliffe de-
scribes Emily's upbringing and education in the sheltered
setting of La Vallée, Her relationship with her parents,
her travels with her valetudinary father, and her courtship
with Valancourt are each examined in turn. But by the end
of this section, both of Emily's parents will be dead,
Valancourt and Emily will be separated--perhaps never to
meet again-—and Emily will be under the legal guardianship
of her imprudent aunt and the inscrutable Montoni. In this
manner, the opening third of the novel is characterized
by a stripping away of Emily's supports and defenses as
she slips from complete happiness and security to a situa-
tion filled with doubt, anxiety, and a restless foreboding.
The isolation and vulnerability which result from this
stripping process are characteristic of Gothic romance;
the peace and tranquility of the opening are unusual, how-
ever, as the forceful opening, beginning Th_medias res and
filled with dramatic tension, is much more common.2 But

the quiet beginning of The Mysteries of Udolpho is in

60

keeping with the careful attention to detail which is evi-
dent throughout the narrative, and it also gives Radcliffe
an opportunity to present an unusually full account of her
heroine's background.

The action of the novel is dated at 1584, but the
historical setting remains hazy as Radcliffe shows little
concern for the factual authenticity of the events which
form the background of her narrative. Emily, who lives
alone with her parents, is said to resemble her mother,
"having the same elegant symmetry of form, the same deli-
cacy of features, and the same blue eyes, full of tender
sweetness."3 As complements to these physical attributes,
we are told that Emily manifests an "uncommon delicacy of
mind, warm affections, and ready benevolence." She gives
away her close kinship to sentimental heroines by display-
ing "a degree of susceptibility too exquisite to admit of
lasting peace," and a sensibility which gave "a pensive
tone to her Spirits, and a softness to her manner, which
added grace to beauty" (p. 5). Emily's philosophical
father recognizes that people with too fine a sensibility
often suffer great pain and anguish in the real world.

He therefore bases Emily's education upon an attempt "to

strengthen her mind; to enure her to habits of self-command;

61

to teach her to reject the first impulse of her feelings,
and to look, with cool examination, upon the disappoint-
ments he sometimes threw in her way" (p. 5).

The first serious test of how much self-control
Emily has learned comes when her mother dies after a sudden
and brief illness. Although Emily is naturally moved by
the death of her parent, she is certainly not incapacitated,
and she seems quickly to recover her accustomed composure.
However, her second trial, which comes with her father's
death, is a very different matter. Devastated by this loss,
Emily lapses into a psychosomatic illness and is confined
to the convent of St. Clair. ”The maternal kindness of the
abbess," says Radcliffe, ”and the gentle attentions of the
nuns did all, that was possible, towards soothing her
spirits and restoring her health. But the latter was too
deeply wounded, through the medium of her mind, to be
quickly revived" (p. 88). While it is possible that Emily
is so seriously affected by St. Aubert's death simply be-
cause it so quickly follows that of her mother, her feel-
ings toward her father are clearly both deep and conflict-
ing. She often idolizes him as the benevolent master of
her youth, yet she seems on other occasions to resent him

for going away and leaving her alone in a frightening world.

62

And in her worst moments, she is even able to imagine that
her seemingly exemplary father had kept a mistress, and
that she is the illegitimate offspring of his secret affair.
Moreover, Emily's grief at the passing of her father seems
too excessive to be easily explained. At the height of her
fever, for instance, she is "reluctant to leave the spot
where her father's relics were deposited," and reflects
that if she does not regain her health, "her remains would
repose beside those of St. Aubert" (p. 88). Even after

she has recovered from her sickness, she is tempted to
withdraw from the world in order to "devote herself to the
cloister, in a spot, rendered sacred to her by containing
the tomb of St. Aubert" (p. 89). Through the remainder of
the novel, Emily frequently loses herself in memories of
her father (though she rarely thinks of her mother), and

on several occasions, she fancies that his spirit has come
to offer sympathy and guidance. These emotions indicate
that Emily is torn between viewing her father as a hypo-
crite burdened by unconfessed sins, and a saint shrouded in
heavenly goodness and eternal wisdom. Emily's reactions to
her father and his death are important not simply because
they show that she preferred one parent to the other, but

because they demonstrate the power, suggestibility, and

63

morbid tendency of her imagination. In addition, her close-
ness to St. Aubert is a firm indication that her fate lies
not with her mother at La Vallée, but with her father in
the neighborhood of Chateau-1e-Blanc.

An element of Radcliffe‘s writing which is particu-

larly evident in the first section of The Mysteries 9:

 

Udolpho is her use of picturesque landscape. Emily's
journey with her father through the peaks and valleys of

the Pyrenees, and over the plains of Languedoc gives Rad—
cliffe an excellent opportunity to show her talent for
painting verbal pictures at its best. As a result of this
section and others like it, scholars have often described
Radcliffe as a "pre—Romantic," and have explored extensively

her use of the theories put forth in Burke's Philosophical

 

Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the

Beautiful (1757).4 But these discussions lead quickly away

 

from The Mysteries of Udolpho, and little has therefore

 

been said about the meaning of Emily and St. Aubert's
journey in the context of the novel itself.

Travel to warmer climates for reasons of health is
surely an age-old practice, and the motif of journey-as-
restorative had already appeared in Tristram Shandy (Volume

VII, 1765) and Humphrey Clinker (1771) by the time that

 

 

64

Radcliffe began to write. But while Tristram's trip to
France is presented as literally a flight from death, and
while Matt Bramble becomes consistently healthier as he
pursues his rambles, St. Aubert's journey is clearly a
pilgrimage to death. With each day's travel, he becomes
weaker, more languid, and less able to be inspired or re-
vived by the magnificance of the landscape. When he
reaches the neighborhood of Le-Blanc, he can go no further,
and ironically, he dies within view of his late sister's
chateau.

The relationship between the emotions which Emily
experiences while passing through various landscapes, and
the changes in her situation during the course of the nar-
rative is also meaningful. Outlined briefly, Emily's
travels with St. Aubert take her from the quiet fields
and meadows of La Vallee, over the dizzying cliffs and
crevices of the Pyrenees, and out onto the verdent plains
of Languedoc. In other words, the travelers move from the
calm and serene, through the rude and terrific, and back
into the peaceful. The ending tranquility, however, is not
the same as that with which the journey began, for it is
firmly impressed with memories inspired by stupendous

heights and thundering cataracts: "After traversing these

 

65

regions for many leagues," says Radcliffe, "they began to
descend towards Rousillon, and features of beauty then
mingled with the scene. Yet the travellers did not look
back without some regret to the sublime objects they had
quitted; though the eye, fatigued with the extensions of
its powers, was glad to repose on the verdure of woods and
pastures" (p. 43).

So, too, flows Emily's life as she moves from the
quiet tranquility of her adolescence at the opening of the
novel; through a year which includes the death of her_
parents, her persecutions at Udolpho, and the sufferings
of an uncertain romance; to a final reunion with Valancourt,
the happiness of which is tinged by memories of what they
have experienced. Emily's most dangerous experience--her
continued encounters with Montoni after the death of her
aunt--is analogous to teetering on the highest summit of
the Pyrenées. Each situation is filled with the pain and
terror, tempered by a peculiar fascination, which Burke
had associated with the sublime. And the image which Rad-
cliffe uses to describe the lush groves and vineyards of
Rousillon, which are nestled at the feet of the savage alps,

will also apply to Emily's situation in the cruel world of

 

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66

Udolpho--she, too, will "present a perfect picture . . .
of 'beauty sleeping in the lap of horror'" (p. 55).

Much has been written about the heavy-handedness
with which Radcliffe treats such episodes as Emily's reac-
tion to the first sentence of St. Aubert's papers and the P
mystery of the object concealed by the black veil. Little '

has been said, however, about the skill with which she

 

introduces the seeds of what will become the major interests 5
and concerns of the novel. Montoni, for instance, is so L’
closely connected with the Castle of Udolpho that his ini-

tial appearance early in the romance is easily overlooked.

But Emily does meet him at Madame Quesnel's shortly after

the death of her mother, and significantly, she finds him

"an uncommonly handsome person, with features manly and

expressive" (p. 23). Emily next meets Montoni after she

has been left in the care of Madame Cheron, and although

she continues to find him attractive, she is now somewhat

uneasy in his preSence: "Emily felt admiration, but not

the admiration that leads to esteem; for it was mixed with

a degree of fear she knew not exactly wherefore'I (p. 122).

Through these remarks, the mingled fascination and fear,

which will characterize Emily's reaction to Montoni during

67

her stay at Udolpho, are established firmly but quietly in
the early chapters of the novel.

Valancourt is also introduced early, and from the
outset of his meeting with Emily and her father, he is
marked clearly as the hero of the romance, and as the man
whom Emily will eventually marry. "St. Aubert was much
pleased," reports Radcliffe, "with the manly fortitude,
simplicity, and keen susceptibility to the grandeur of
nature" which he discovered in Valancourt (p. 34). Pre-
dictably, Emily finds him attractive in every way, and
seems to fall in love almost immediately. But the most
telling observation is made by St. Aubert: "This young
man," he says often to himself, "has never been at Paris"
(p. 41). He is correct in his conjecture, but more impor-
tantly, his comment subtly foreshadows the difficulty which
will come between the young lovers and plunge Emily from
the advent of happiness to the brink of despair.

The single most pervasive riddle of The Mysteries

of Udolpho is also posed and carefully developed in the

 

first section. Shortly after her mother's death, Emily
overhears St. Aubert weeping alone in the night. Stealing
quietly to his door, she watches in silence as her father

gazes tenderly upon a miniature portrait which he then

68

places to his lips while sighing "with a convulsive force"
(p. 26). Emily's anxiety at her father's obvious sorrow
turns abruptly to amazement and confusion when she observes
by chance that while the portrait represents a beautiful
woman, it is clearly not the likeness of her mother.
Emily's vague suspicions about St. Aubert's background are
sharpened by his great, but unaccountable, interest in the
Marchioness de Villeroi, and by his particular request
that he be buried near the Villeroi family tomb. And when
she unintentionally reads the first line of her father's
papers, which she has been enjoined to burn unread, Emily
feels certain that St. Aubert has sheltered a deep and
possibly compromising secret in his heart.

More immediate problems, brought about by her aunt's
bumbling interference and the menaces of Montoni, distract
Emily from the mystery of her father's past through much of
the second section of the novel. Thus, it is not until she
escapes from Udolpho and arrives at Chateau-le-Blanc that
she can begin to explore in earnest the roots of her fears
and suspicions. The question of her father's strange be-
havior, however, is vital to the entire romance, for it is
the only mystery to span the narrative from beginning to

end, and the only element to bind Emily and Montoni together

69

with the organic force of a shared history. And on a very
basic level, Emily cannot be sure of her own birth and
identity until she understands fully the nature of St.
Aubert's relationship with the Marchioness de Villeroi.
Cast in the nearly mythical terms which characterize all
successful romance, she must leave the familiar security
of La Vallée, brave the many dangers of the Castle of
Udolpho, and return alone to Chateau-le-Blanc. For not
until she has laid to rest the ghosts of her past can she
be free to live happily in the present, or to plan with
confidence for the future.

Through the second section of The Mysteries of

 

Udolpho, Emily and Montoni engage in an intricate psycho-
logical dance which is composed of emotional, sexual, and
intellectual maneuvers. This dance is fascinating to
follow, but it is also a very serious performance, for

with each new posture, Emily could lose her wealth, her
chastity, her sanity, or even her life. The general nature
of her predicament is clear enough: she is in fact being
held prisoner at Udolpho as Montoni attempts to force her
to sign over the deeds to the property she has inherited.
But the specifics cxf her situation and of her relationship

with Montoni are difficult to define, and it is therefore

70

possible to place several differing interpretations on the
events of this section of the novel.

It is possible, especially in retrospect, to make
light of Emily's ordeal by pointing out that nothing so
very terrible happens to her after all.5 Under this view,
Emily's own imagination, and not Montoni, is seen as her
greatest enemy. A second, more extreme position suggests
that Emily's view of her situation is not to be trusted
because she is the victim of a pronounced neurosis, prob-
ably caused by sexual repression. Although Emily says that
she fears and abhors Montoni, this position maintains that
she subconsciously finds him very attractive and desirable.
And under this interpretation, it is her sublimated sexual
desire, and not a serious concern for the safety and well-
being of herself or her aunt, which brings Emily to request
so many audiences with Montoni.6 But each of these views
would make Emily out to be considerably more neurotic than
she actually is, and more importantly, by concentrating
solely on Emily, each would downplay the significance of
Montoni to this section of the romance.

That Emily is only one of Montoni's many concerns
is hardly deniable. At the same time, however, he is

clearly aware of her presence at Udolpho, and he does

71

expend considerable energy in attempting to gain control

of her estates. In addition, it is through his encounters
with Emily that Montoni is raised from the level of a
common desperado engaged in semi-legal activities, to the
heights of a powerful, mysterious, and intriguing personage.
Montoni begins his persecution of Emily a few weeks before
they depart for Udolpho by insisting that she marry Count
Morano. When Emily asks, in exasperation, what right he
has to order her to marry anyone, Montoni replies angrily,
"by the right of my will; if you can elude that, I will not
enquire by what right you do so" (PP. 216-17). In this
manner, the performance is begun: Montoni will insist re-
peatedly on the right of his will, while Emily does her
best to evade the force of his wrath.

Awakened early in the morning of the day on which
she expects to be married to the Count, Emily is surprised
to find that Montoni has instead ordered an immediate de-
parture for his castle in the Apennines. Perhaps by acci-
dent, but almost certainly by design, Emily is kept pro-
foundly ignorant of the facts of her situation. She has
no idea of why they have left Venice so suddenly, and only
a vague notion of where they are going. She finds the dark

and ruinous Castle of Udolpho to be strange and forbidding.

72

Since she has not been informed that she will no longer be
required to marry Morano, she continues to fear danger from
that quarter. And because she has only a slight familiarity
with Montoni's character and background, she cannot be ab-
solutely certain of what to expect from him. Should she
look to him as a possible friend and protector, or should
she rather loathe him as a potential rapist and murderer?
As a result of the strangeness of her situation, and of the
ignorance in which she is kept, Emily is deprived of almost
every bit of factual information which a reasonable person
could use to make rational decisions. In this predicament,
her only recourse is to rely heavily on her intuition and
imagination--not because she is neurotic, but because she
has no other choice.

In her unprotected situation, both her intuition
and her intellect tell Emily that sexual violation is the
greatest danger to her security. Through much of the novel,
this sexual destruction could come from any one of several
sources. For a time, the most obvious threat comes from
Count Morano, for it is only reasonable for Emily to assume
that he will attempt to take by force the prize which he
could not possess through marriage. Next, until she becomes

more familiar with his character, Emily worries that Montoni

73

himself may decide to take her as his mistress. And fi-
nally, throughout her stay at Udolpho, Emily is distraught
by the possibility that one of Montoni's companions may
attempt to ravish her in her sleep.

Indeed, sexuality, and Emily's struggle to adjust
to it while others attempt to use it against her, is one

of the most involved and interesting aspects of The Mys-

 

teries of Udolpho. Perhaps because of his early passion

 

for Laurentini, or because of his consuming desire for
wealth and power, Montoni seems completely unmoved by
thoughts of sexual affairs. Thus it is often observed
that he himself “appears even less interested in [Emily]
as a mistress than as a murder victim."7 But in spite of
this lack of personal sexual interest, Montoni is fully
aware of Emily's sexuality and of her sexual fears. He
recognizes, to her dismay, that Emily is a young and
beautiful virgin, and that she finds threats of sexual
destruction even more terrifying than threats of murder.
In his attempts to compel her to relinquish her prOperties,
Montoni therefore threatens, at first indirectly but fi-
nally quite openly, to give her over to the cruel designs
of his jealous, hot-blooded, and frequently intoxicated

comrades: "'You know the terms of my protection,‘ said he;

74

'if you really value this, you will secure it'" (p. 436).
Since she has narrowly escaped the grasp of would-be rav-
ishers on several occasions, Emily can scarcely doubt that
Montoni will fulfill his threats. Moreover, she has heard
"terrific reports of what was passing at the castle; of
riots, quarrels, and of carousals more alarming than either"
(p. 444), and recognizes that Montoni's control over his
men is limited and fragile. Clearly, then, Emily is in a
very dangerous position, for while Montoni himself may be
sexually disinterested, a rape perpetrated by the members
of his gang is an undeniable possibility.

In addition to using her sexual fears as a lever to
pry loose her properties, Montoni also sees Emily's sexu—
ality--her beauty, charm, and physical desirability--as a
valuable commodity to be bought and sold on the open market.
The mystery of why he is so insistent that Emily marry
Count Morano, only to leave Venice just hours before the
proposed wedding, is finally explained when the Count ap-
pears in Emily's bedroom to plead his love:

"How can I gaze upon you, and know, that

it is, perhaps, for the last time, without
suffering all the phrensy of despair? But
it shall not be so; you shall be mine, in
spite of Montoni and all his villany."

"In spite of Montoni!" cried Emily
eagerly: "what is it I hear?"

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75

"You hear that Montoni is a villain," ex-
claimed Morano with vehemence,--"a villain
who would have sold you to my love!--" (p. 262).

But while the Count complains bitterly about Montoni's con-
duct, he fails to mention that he himself had pretended to
be wealthier than he is, and that Montoni had withdrawn
from the deal simply to save Emily for a buyer who is able
to pay a higher price.

Somewhat later in the novel, we are told that "Mon-
toni had lost large sums to Verezzi, so that there was a
dreadful possibility of his designing [Emily] to be a sub-
stitute for the debt“ (p. 445). But Verezzi's claim to
Emily is so hotly disputed by Bertolini, who had been led
to believe that she was to be given to him, that she escapes
unscathed from both men. Emily, of course, is thoroughly
outraged by her captor's attempts to use her as his per-
sonal chattel. Montoni, however, is not alone in this
particular form of deceit, for Emily's own aunt had mis-
represented her financial worth in order to gain the
handsome Italian as a husband. Unfortunately, Montoni had
been playing the same game, and thus both husband and wife
are greatly disappointed with the meagre fruits of their

SChemes.

76

There is hardly enough textual evidence to prove
that Emily is actually in love with Montoni on a subcon-
scious level. But there are numerous indications that she
finds some enjoyment in courting danger by continuing to
resist his demands. At first, it seems unlikely that Emily
would so steadfastly refuse to sign over her relatively
modest inheritance if she sincerely believed Montoni to
be as vicious and ruthless as she often claims him to be.
And when she continues to hold out even after she has wit-
nessed her aunt's miserable death, it is clear that Emily
is either very foolhardy, or very confident of her ability
to control Montoni--to resist his demands with sufficient
force to retain her estates, but not so forcefully that his
threats become a reality. The reason that Emily gives for
her resistance is typically sentimental: she is reluctant
to think of marrying Valancourt unless she can offer him a
respectible dowry. It soon becomes apparent, however, that
Emily is a stubborn and strong—willed woman who is fully
prepared to resist Montoni's injustice simply as a matter
of principle: "I am not so ignorant," she exclaims, ”of
the laws on this subject, as to be misled by the assertion

of any person. The law, in the present instance, gives me

 

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77

the estates in question, and my own hand shall never betray
my right" (PP. 380-81).

In a very real sense, Emily is at her best when she
is in Montoni's presence, for while she is sparring with
her persecutor, she is strong, resolute, and perceptive,
with scarcely a trace of the weakness and near hysteria
that so often cloud her mind when she is alone. Instead
of shunning him absolutely, which would seem to be the
safest and wisest course, she requests meeting after meet-
ing with Montoni, and for many weeks, she succeeds admir-
ably in matching his force with her own will. But as time
passes, and Montoni becomes increasingly explicit about
the form of torture that awaits her, Emily's resolution
begins to waver. Montoni finally complains that "women
delight to contradict and to tease" (p. 380), and after a
particularly violent argument, Emily repents "of the rash—
ness, that made her brave the power of such a man" (p. 385).
No, Emily does not love Montoni, but she does share some of
his characteristics of mind and personality, and in a per—
verse sense, each person is uniquely able to bring out the
best in the other.

Although Montoni and Emily are not romantically

involved, their debate over power, control, and possession

78

is nevertheless a distinctly sexual contest. It is char-
acteristic for Gothic villains to assume that sexual domi-
nance is the quickest and surest road to control of all
facets of their victims. But in spite of this view, rape
is clearly and inevitably a self-defeating activity, at
least in Gothic literature. Ambrosio, for example, wants
desperately to be loved by Antonia, and when she rejects
his advances, he seizes on rape as the only way to fulfill
his passion. Unfortunately, he does not realize until it
is too late that the love he desires can never be taken,
but only given. Similarly, rape as a play for power and
control is also fruitless in practice because it unavoid-
ably negates the strongest motive which the heroine may
have had for relinquishing any part of her autonomy. Since
most sentimental heroines would rather die than live a
'1ife of shame,‘ there is very little left that the agressor
can do after rape, and thus the balance shifts ironically
in favor of the victim. Richardson's Lovelace makes this
very point when he reports that the rape of Clarissa has
been accomplished: "And now, Belford," he writes, "I can
go no further. The affair is over. Clarissa lives."8
This villain can do no more; he has played out his hand

and is now impotent. But while the affair may be over for

79

Lovelace, it is just beginning for Clarissa as she ascends
to heights of power and sanctity that reveal her ravisher
to be almost pathetic in comparison. Montoni, however,
seems to recognize that the effectiveness of sexual intim-
idation lies not in the act itself, but rather in the
anticipation of that act. While he prods Emily ever closer
to the reality of a brutal rape, he is careful always to
retain her virginity as hostage to his demands.9

Thus Emily is never ravished in a physical sense.
But she is so concerned about the possibility of a sexual
violation that she is scarcely aware that her mind is being
violated, that her emotions and intellect are close to
collapse. And here again, comparisons to Clarissa are in-
structive: Lovelace has sworn to revenge himself on all
women, and has decreed a particular vengeance against the
Harlowe family. In his depravity, he assumes that the rape
of Clarissa, "the most excellent of women," will accomplish
both goals quite effectively. But while he finally manages
to penetrate her body, it soon becomes apparent that he has
left her essence--her inner soul or the reality of her
being-~almost entirely untouched. The great bitterness
and finality of his defeat therefore spring from the real-

ization that he has devoted all his power, energy, and

80

resources to the subjugation of a lone and defenseless
woman, only to see her emerge from her ordeal with more
strength, more beauty, and more ascendancy than ever before.
In a sense, Emily's case is just the reverse of
Clarissa's, for while she is able to save her chastity, she
comes perilously close to losing her mind. Beginning with
the early description of her 'too exquisite susceptibility,‘
there are numerous indications that Emily is a ready can-
didate for madness. When she returns alone to La Vallée
after the death of her father, we are told that "the melan-
choly subjects, on which she suffered her thoughts to
dwell, had rendered her at times sensible to the 'thick—
coming fancies'lo of a mind greatly enervated. It was la-
mentable," Radcliffe continues, "that her excellent under-
standing should have yielded, even for a moment, to the
reveries of superstition . . . which deceive the senses
into what can be called nothing less than momentary mad—
ness. Instances of this temporary failure of mind had more
than once occurred since her return home" (p. 102). And
when she lifts the black veil during her rambles through
Udolpho and reveals the object that it had concealed, Rad-
cliffe reports that ”horror occupied her mind, and excluded,

for a time, all sense of past, and dread of future

 

 

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81

ndsfortune" (p. 249). Somewhat later, as she plays on her
lute in an effort to soothe her troubled mind, we are told
that "there were times, when music had increased [her]
sorrow to a degree, that was scarcely endurable; when, if
it had not suddenly ceased, she might have lost her reason"
(p. 284). And after she has stumbled across a corpse,
"ghastly and horrible," while following Barnardine through
the winding chambers of the castle, Emily does indeed lose
her sanity for the remainder of the night:

Thus compelled to bear within her own mind

the whole horror of the secret, that oppressed
it, her reason seemed to totter under the in-
tolerable weight. She often fixed a wild and
vacant look on Annette, and, when she spoke,
either did not hear her, or answered from the
purpose. Long fits of abstraction succeeded;
Annette spoke repeatedly, but her voice seemed
not to make any impression on the sense of the
long agitated Emily, who sat fixed and silent,
except that, now and then, she heaved a heavy
sign, but without tears (p. 350).

Clarissa is also driven to distraction, but not
until she has in fact been ravished. And even then, she
is able to regain an acute and effective form of sanity
which allows her to win a clear-cut victory by transcending
Lovelace, her family, and ultimately the werld. Emily's

case, however, is much more ambiguous as her fears hang

heavily, though often without focus, over her days and

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nights in the harsh, male dominated world of Udolpho. Time
and space often seem vague, indefinite, and slippery, and
the castle itself, with its hidden spectacles of terror, its
dark and labyrinthine hallways, and its doors which cannot
be locked on the inside, sometimes seems intentionally Pl
malignant. Emily is forced to watch her aunt languish and
die under Montoni's cruel mistreatment, and is then left to

speculate endlessly on the dread nature of her own fate.

 

She can never know when she may next discover the body of
some butchered unfortunate, or when her bedroom may next be
invaded by Montoni, or Morano, or Verezzi, or Bertolini.
The anxiety of anticipation and the lack of any decisive
occurrence rack her sensibility until her mind becomes
almost as chaotic as she perceives her surroundings to be.
As the days go by, the feeling that she is losing her grip,
that she is no longer in complete control of events, of
her senses, or even of her reason, becomes ever stronger.
But somehow, she manages to hang on, to survive her
ordeal with both her mind and body intact. Even this
triumph is uncertain, however, for her escape from Udolpho
occurs as much by chance as design, and is an unexpected
and dream-like as was her capture and persecution: "They

passed, without interruption, the dreadful gates, and took

83

the road that led down among the woods. . . . Emily was so
much astonished by this sudden departure, that she scarcely
dared to believe herself awake; and she yet much doubted
whether this adventure would terminate in escape" (pp. 451-
52). Emily is free at last, but Udolpho still looms against
the moonlit sky, and Montoni remains as its irresistible
master.

After her terrifying experiences at Udolpho and her
fortuitous escape from its walls, Emily's adventures at
Chateau-le-Blanc, which are related in the third and final
section of the novel, may seem to have the potential of
falling into disappointing anticlimax. This potential was
apparently realized for Edith Birkhead who complains that
"so exhaustive--and exhausting--are the mysteries of Udolpho
that it was a mistake to introduce another haunted castle,
1e-Blanc, as an appendix."11 But this judgment is surely

misdirected, for the last section of The Mysteries of

 

Udolpho can hardly be considered an appendix in any sense,
and Chateau-le-Blanc is not simply another haunted castle.
Indeed, from a structural point of view, the account
of Emily's adventures at Udolpho comes much closer to true
digression in that very little occurs to forward the prin-

ciple concerns of the plot. Emily's primary challenge

p.\~

FU‘

84

while she is under Montoni's sway is to hang on to what she
already has (her estates, her virginity, her sanity), and
therefore, the Udolpho section ends with Emily in nearly
the same circumstances that she was in when it began. The
status of her courtship with Valancourt remains uncertain,
no new light has been shed on the mystery of her father's
past, and she still does not know how she will provide for
herself through the rest of her life.

While it is true that Emily is tricked into thinking
that she has seen a ghost in the bedchamber of the late
Marchioness, Chateau-le-Blanc has little in common with the
Castle of Udolpho, for the atmosphere is wholly different
and Emily's situation is entirely changed. At Le-Blanc,
Emily is among friends, she is no longer threatened with
rape or murder, her surroundings have returned to focus,
and her mind has regained a degree of stability. On the
other hand, the pain and terror which she encounters at
Le-Blanc may well be more threatening and chilling than
anything she endured at Udolpho, for they spring not from
the extraordinary circumstances of a nightmarish imprison-
ment, but from the plain reality of life as we all know

it. 12

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85

The pain that Emily experiences comes from her be-
lief that Valancourt has fallen into unforgivable dissipa-
tion and must therefore be rejected as an unworthy lover.
Her information comes from Count De Villefort, who has
adopted Emily almost as a daughter: "and I will inform
you," says the Count, "that the Chevalier's extravagance
has brought him twice into the prisons of Paris, from which
he was last extricated, as I was told upon authority, which
I cannot doubt, by a well-known Parisian Countess, with
whom he continued to reside, when I left Paris" (p. 507).
Although the Count is openly partial to Du Pont and hopes
that Emily will eventually consent to marry him, he is an
honorable man, and the truth of his reports can hardly be
doubted. To confuse the situation even further, Emily's
delicacy of mind will not allow her to relate to Valancourt
in explicit terms the charges she has heard against him.
And Valancourt, who also possesses a finely developed sen-
sibility, is so enmeshed in a web of self-accusation that
he exaggerates the extent of his crimes in his own mind,
and refuses as a point of honor to attempt to exonerate
lrimself to Emily. Through her many weeks of travail, Emily
fund drawn strength and hope from the constant expectation

OE being wedded to her dashing lover. But now that such a

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union seems impossible, she is truly broken, and feels that
there is little left for which to live.

As she is presented in the first two sections of
the novel, Emily is a fairly sympathetic character, and

seems to deserve the reader's support most of the time.

' l ‘3‘,
r

But in this affair with Valancourt, which Radcliffe calls
"the most severe occasion of her life" (p. 518), she be- ;

haves less than admirably as she embraces a blind and ;J

 

faithless pessimism which brings her understanding of
mature love into serious question. While her heart tells
her that she loves Valancourt as much as ever and that she
can never be happy without him, she yields to "the pre-
cepts, which she had received from her deceased father,

on the subject of self-command," and permits herself to be
ruled entirely by "the superior prudence of the Count"

(p. 518). This course of action shows first that Emily is
ready to believe, at second and even third hand, the worst
of the man she supposedly loves. Further, her reluctance
to request that Valancourt give a full.and open explanation
Of his conduct demonstrates that she values her delicacy
Hkore than his happiness and reputation. And finally, her

WjJJingness to accept the notion that several months of

{mossible vice lead inevitably to a life of decadence

87

indicates that she knows little of trust and less of faith.
Although Radcliffe insists, after Mons. Bonnac has cleared
Valancourt's good name, that "the mistake had been mutual"
(p. 653), Emily seems primarily to blame since she never
really gave Valancourt a chance either to explain or to
prove himself. It also seems that she should have realized
that the promptings of the heart are sometimes more reliable
than the conclusions of the mind, and most importantly,
that mature love demands trust and confidence in oneself
as well as in the beloved.13

Emily's terror at Chateau-le-Blanc arises from her
encounter with Laurentini di Udolpho, now a nun at the con-
vent of St. Clair, and the subsequent revelation that the
Marchioness de Villeroi had been St. Aubert's favorite
sister, and that she had been poisoned to a slow death by
her jealous husband at the instigation of the seductive
Laurentini. Through this meeting, Emily is brought face-
to-face with a confessed murderess, and is given the oppor-
tunity to see that not all villains are tall, dark, and
threatening men--and that not all victims escape unharmed
from their persecutors. There is a strong sense of the
vicissitudes of life about this section, as Laurentini

tells Emily, in effect, there but for fortune go you: "I

 

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88

was then innocent;" exclaims Laurentini, "the evil passions
of my nature slept. . . . Sister! beware of the first in-
dulgence of the passions; beware of the first! Their
course, if not checked then, is rapid--their force is un-
controulable--they lead us we know not whither" (p. 646).
Her assertion seems to be that there are evil passions
lurking within each of us, and that it is only through
constant vigil and careful control that we keep them from
overwhelming our reason, our judgment, and all that is good
about us.

we know Emily well enough by now to be all but cer-
tain that she will never become any man's mistress, much
less a murderess. But the mad Laurentini and the murdered

Marchioness nonetheless represent real conditions of life

to which Emily could easily have been reduced had her mental

balance been slightly more fragile, or had Montoni been a
little more direct in his attempts to gain her estates.
Thus the most terrifying aspect of the novel is neither the
horror which Emily finds at Udolpho, nor the ghosts which
she thinks she sees at Chateau-le-Blanc. It is rather the
fact that two young ladies, one very much like Emily and
the other differing only because of the lack of wisdom with

which she was raised, should be made to suffer so greatly,

 

V‘ o
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89

and to die so dismally. In the way of most romance, Emily
will marry Valancourt and live happily ever after, but from
an examination of her story, it is difficult to perceive
any sufficient reason why this should be the case. She
could just as easily have fallen victim to rape, or murder,
or insanity, or to any other of the thousand ills to which
we are prey.

While the achievements of The Mysteries of Udolpho

 

are numerous, so also are the failures. And while the pre-
sentation of Montoni may be its greatest innovation, the
characterization of Emily is finally its biggest disappoint-
ment. In almost every study of the novel, Emily has been
passed over as just another sentimental heroine, but this
description is not wholly accurate, and therein lies the
problem. If Radcliffe had been content with an easily
recognizable stereotype, she could have drawn her heroine
with several broad and sweeping strokes (as Mary Anne
Radcliffe was to do with Rosalina in Manfroné), and the
reader could go rapidly forward secure in the knowledge
that he is completely familiar with the fictional type.
But Ann Ward Radcliffe was considerably more ambitious,
as she obviously worked hard on the details of Emily's

character, and seems to have been intent on creating a

 

(D

9O

heroine with a ehhTy_proper sensibility. In other words,
Emily was to have been a heroine whose sensibility was
based not on convention, but rather on reason and exper-
ience.

Through the early part of the narrative, St. Aubert
serves as advocate for a responsible and constructive form
of sentiment. The primary aim of his deathbed speech on
the subject is simply to warn Emily against the effects of
"an ill-governed sensibility," and of "a heart, that is
continually alive to minute circumstances."14 He certainly
has no intention of teaching his daughter to reject feel-
ing altogether, for the total lack of sentiment, he main-
tains, "is a vice more hateful than all the errors of sen-
sibility" (p. 80). Rather, he is anxious for Emily to
understand the importance of tempering her finely developed
sentiments with the strength of fortitude, and to recognize
that the most exquisite feelings imaginable are useless
and empty unless they lead to the active virtue of practical
charity. Thus, in the end, St. Aubert is merely recommend-
ing a middle road between an overactive and therefore de-
bilitating sensibility, and a heart that is unable to feel

at all.

91

Emily's task through the course of the novel is
therefore to learn to live her life according to the prin-
ciples of proper sentiment that her father has outlined.
Although St. Aubert had seemingly intended to limit his
discussion to the control of sentiment or feeling, it soon
becomes apparent that Emily (and probably Radcliffe) in-
terprets his meaning more broadly to include imagination,
intuition, and passion or desire, as well as emotion.
Emily, however, has trouble making fine distinctions, and
seems never to realize that her father was trying to tell
her that hehh sentiment ehe reason or reflection are neces-
sary to a happy life. As a result, she emerges as a na-
turally imaginative and susceptible person who has developed
a severe distrust of her intuitive faculties, and an in-
flated View of the efficacy of reason, reflection, forti-
tude, and rationality.

While she is staying at Udolpho, Emily attempts
almost daily to place a check on her imagination, which,
she feels, is a dangerous indulgence. But as we have seen,
reason itself is at best an unreliable guide through the
murky world in which she is forced to reside. Intuition,
on the one hand, often leads her to suffer from imaginary

terrors, but reason and reflection, in their turn,

92

frequently point to equally horrifying conclusions. Be-
cause of this dilemma, Emily finally finds herself in a
psychological stalemate with no where to go and nothing to
do. And thus arises the peculiar passivity that was to
become a mark of the conventional Gothic heroine.

When she arrives at Chateau-le—Blanc, Emily seems
determined to do better, to be ruled solely by reason and
to base her actions on prudence and reflection. But once
again, she ends up on the wrong side of the issue, as she
is too quick to overrule her feelings and to believe evil
of the man she says she loves. If it were not for the
chance conversation between Du Font and Bonnac, it is
doubtful that Emily would ever have had enough insight and
wisdom to have been able to straighten out her misunder-
standing with Valancourt. In light of her actions, I find
it difficult to believe that Emily ever learns the lesson
that her father had presented, for she never seems to un-
derstand that our rational and intuitive faculties must
work together, that each must inform the other if we are
to plan with judgment and to act with wisdom.

The second disturbing aspect of Emily's character
is her apparent imperviousness to the lessons which could

be drawn from the events of her unusual life. When she

93

sets off on her own after the deaths of her parents, she is
young, sheltered, and understandably naive. Over the fol-
lowing months, however, she experiences much and is witness
to more. But while she 18 chronologically a year older at

the end of the novel, there is almost no indication that

'gig'

she has been changed in any lasting or constructive manner

by the succession of extraordinary occurrences to which she

 

has been exposed. Moreover, Radcliffe herself seems blind J
to her heroine's lack of growth-~she seems totally aware e
that Emily's failure to learn from her experiences is a
weakness in her character.
Emily's encounter with Montoni is, of course, the
foremost example of her failure to learn new wisdom or to
grow to a greater maturity. When she first comes under the
control of her aunt's husband, Emily holds a very simple
and clear-cut view of the world, a view which distinguishes
neatly between good and evil. Thus, as she becomes ac-
quainted with Montoni's true character and recognizes the
evil of which he is capable, her reason tells her that he
must be shunned and despised. And yet, on a nonrational
level, Emily feels a peculiar attraction to the mysterious
Montoni. After all, he is a handsome, intelligent, and

Commanding person who is able, when he so chooses, to act

94

with courtesy and refinement. But this ambivalent reaction
to the character of an obviously evil man causes Emily to
feel very uneasy and even guilty. She therefore attempts
to deny any attraction to her captor by persisting in
seeing him as nothing more (nor less) than a cruel and
barbarous murderer. While I do not agree that Emily is
sublimating a desire for sexual contact with Montoni, or

a longing, as some have suggested, to be raped in the

 

virgin bed of her lonely chamber,15 I do believe that she
is not entirely honest with herself about her reactions to
the evil that she sees around her. And because of this
personal dishonesty, Emily fails to learn the obvious
lesson presented with this experience—-the lesson that
people are never completely good nor wholly evil, and that
while we should recognize and defend against their evil,
we should also be aware of and willing to admit to their
more admirable qualities.

Several other episodes reinforce Emily's failure
to learn essentially this same lesson. While gazing out
her window at Udolpho one afternoon, Emily observes three
ladies from Venice enter the castle with two male com-
panions. Later that evening, when Emily is walking alone

in the hallway next to her room, she hears "distant sounds

95

of merriment and laughter“ which soon degenerate into "the
wild uproar of riot" (p. 383). And finally, when she dis-
tinguishes "female voices mingling with the laughter," she
can no longer avoid the conclusion that Signora Livona and
her friends are concubines who have come willingly to the
castle to satisfy the sexual urges of Montoni's men.
Emily's reaction to this realization is one of shock and
horror, but this Signora Livona is, of course, the same
woman whom Emily had known and liked in Venice, the same
woman whose "beauty and fascinating manners . . . won her
involuntary regard; while the sweetness of her accents and
her air of gentle kindness awakened with Emily those pleas-
ing affections, which so long had slumbered" (pp. 183-84).
Emily's present feelings of disgust and rejection may be
understandable, but her failure to recognize, either at the
moment or any time later, that Livona could well retain
some qualities of kindness and gentility, even though she
may be fallen in a sexual sense, is disappointing.

Emily's difficulties with Valancourt can also be
traced in part to this same source. When she meets and is
courted by this young man in the first section of the novel,
she clearly idealizes him as a good, kind, and virtuous

person. But when she is told in the third section that he

96

has participated in acts of questionable morality, she is
shattered, and rejects him absolutely and almost out of
hand, even though her original evaluation of his goodness
had been essentially correct, if somewhat exaggerated.

The examples of Laurentini and the Marchioness,
as I have suggested, give Emily an impressive Opportunity
to see what she herself could have become. But while she
feels shock and horror at Laurentini's crimes and pity for
the sufferings of her aunt, there is no indication that
she internalizes their experiences by applying them to her
own situation. Thus, while we as readers may have hoped
to find a wiser, more forgiving, and less intolerant Emily
at the conclusion of the narrative, this wish is not ful-
filled. While we may recognize that Emily's happiness at
the end of her tale must surely be attributed more to chance
than to design, Emily treats it as little more than a fit-
ting reward and her just desert. And when Ann Radcliffe
draws her concluding moral by insisting "that innocence,
though oppressed by injustice, shall, supported by patience,
finally triumph over misfortune" (p. 672), we can only
recall the murdered Marchioness, who, from all accounts,
was at least as innocent as her brother's daughter, and

ponder her sorry fate. The Mysteries of UdoTpho, then,

 

97

is an engrossing and ambitious romance, but it is finally
a fiction which outgrows certainly its heroine, and perhaps

also its author.

 

CHAPTER THREE
THE MONK: A CHALLENGE

TO THE FORM

On May 15, 1794, Matthew G. Lewis arrived at The
Hague to assume his new position in the British embassy to
Holland. Three days later, he wrote a letter to his mother
which included high praise of The Mysteries of UdoTpho, as
well as some mention of his own literary activity: "I have
again taken up my Romance," wrote Lewis. "I was induced to
go on with it by reading 'the Mysteries of Udolpho,’ which
is in my opinion one of the most interesting Books that
ever have been published."1 In a second letter to his
mother, dated September 23, 1794, Lewis announced with
open pride and excitement the completion of "a Romance of
between three and four hundred Pages Octavo . . . called
'The Monk'" (Po 213). Whether Lewis really did complete
an entirely new romance in "the space of ten weeks," or
whether this work was patched together from bits and pieces

taken from a "portfolio bulging with materail" as Lewis

98

99

Peck suggests (p. 20), need not concern us. For it is

clear that the experience of reading The Mysteries of

 

Udolpho provided Lewis with the inspiration that he needed
to complete a work of his own. Thus, Lewis's letters
suggest a sympathetic link between Udolpho and The Monk,
but the depth of similarity between these two Gothic mas-
terpieces should not be exaggerated or accepted as a given

of literary history. While Radcliffe's novel undoubtedly

 

had an effect on Lewis' imagination, The Monk is not an

imitation of The Mysteries of Udolpho; it seems, more

 

accurately, to pick up where Udolpho leaves off. In this,
chapter, I will explore how Lewis uses The Mysteries of
Udolpho as a point of departure for the construction of
his own distinctive version of the Gothic world.

A summary of the form of the Gothic romance as seen

in The Mysteries of Udolpho can be used as a basis for

 

understanding more clearly what Lewis has done in The Monk.
The culmination of all that Radcliffe had been working
toward through her first three novels, Udolpho embodies a
strong sense of purpose and direction, a feeling that she
was, for the first time, truly at ease with her material
and confident in her ability. Among the more noticeable

characteristics of The Mysteries of Udolpho are the

100

centrality of the role of the heroine, the closeness of
the narrator's point of view to that of the heroine, and
the ambiguity in the characterization of the villain. None
of these characteristics, however, represents a difference
in kind in comparison to the earlier romances; they are
rather differences in degree as Radcliffe has chosen to
accentuate further those same elements with which she had
been working for some time.

Emily St. Aubert, as we have seen, is without ques-

tion the dominant figure of The Mysteries of UdoTpho. She

 

is introduced at the beginning of the novel, and the course
of her life is carefully charted as she moves from La
Vallée, to the Castle of Udolpho, to Chateau—le-Blanc.
Although Montoni may be a memorable character, he is not
the most important figure in Udolpho. His role is sub-
servient to that of the heroine, and his primary function
is to persecute Emily by subjecting her to threatening
situations. Through a narrowing of the distance between
the narrator's and the heroine's points of view, Radcliffe
has created a convincing account of Emily's struggles with
a series of misfortunes, persecutions, and disappointments.
Radcliffe is able, as Robert Kiely has written, "to sub-

. . . 2
ordinate everything to an indiVidual state of mind."

 

.w

101

Because of these characteristics, The Mysteries of Udolpho

 

can be described as a heroine-centered romance, and indeed,
it can be ranked as the best of the heroine-centered Gothic
romances.

Although Montoni's role is smaller and less central

than is Emily's, he is nevertheless a very interesting and

 

even attractive figure. He is much more complex and fully

developed than are the villains of The Castles of Athlin

 

and Dunbayne, A Sicilian Romance, and The Romance of the

 

 

Forest, and his motivation is considerably more ambiguous.
The interest and attraction that Montoni holds for the
reader can be attributed to his energy, his air of mystery,
and his power of command. He is a decisive person: when
he is present, the pace of the narrative picks up, and the
action is more conclusive. While Emily is not conscious

of any attraction to Montoni, some part of her psyche
clearly finds him fascinating, perhaps because men of his
obvious experience, strength, and maturity are foreign to
her sheltered and decorous existence. In Radcliffe's first
three novels, the villains are fairly one-dimensional, and
their malevolence is prompted primarily by lust, with
touches of pride and greed. Montoni's initial motivation

is also fairly direct, but as time passes, and his

 

102

persecution of Emily becomes increasingly protracted and
severe, their relationship becomes very complex and in-
volved. On one level, Montoni's interest in gaining con-
trol of Emily's inheritance continues, but on another
level, her resistance to his demands becomes a matter of
principle: he simply cannot accept the thought of being
overruled by a "mere woman." On yet another level, Montoni
seems to derive a perverse pleasure from generating sexual
anxieties in his victim. And finally, it is possible that
Emily, with her combined innocence and strength, is as
strange and fascinating to Montoni as he is to her.

The Mysteries of Udolpho is, then, a heroine-

 

centered romance, but a romance which also includes the
most complex and compelling villain of any Gothic novel
written before the publication of The Monk. For this
reason, Udolpho can be understood as both an end, and a
beginning. Through her first four novels, Radcliffe en-
larges the role of, and identifies herself more closely
with her heroine, until Udolpho becomes almost exclusively
a chronicle of Emily's mental and emotional states of being.
Lewis's interest in The Mysteries of Udolpho, however, does
not seem to have centered on the characterization of this

heroine; rather, his imagination was captured by the

103

presentation of the villain. In his letter of May 18,
Lewis expresses a personal identification with Montoni:
"and when you read it," he asks of his mother, "tell me
whether you think there is any resemblance between the
character given of Montoni in the seventeenth chapter of
the second volume, and my own. I confess that it struck
me" (Peck, p. 209).3 It is therefore not surprising that
Lewis should have decided to promote the villain to the
central role, and to concentrate on his descent into sin,
rather than on the trials of a heroine. But Ambrosio is
not simply another Montoni, for while he proves capable of
great evil, he is himself a victim to some degree, and he
also displays a number of sympathetic and admirable char-
acteristics. Thus Lewis's most important accomplishment in
The Monk was to break with the form of the heroine-centered
Gothic romance by developing a complex and ambiguous char—
acter who can be described as a hero-villain.

The characterization of this hero-villain proceeds
by degrees which are relative to the overall structure of
the novel. Through the first two chapters, all of the
major characters are introduced, and two major conflicts--
Agnes's pregnancy and Matilda's passion for Ambrosio--are

established. This brief opening section includes Ambrosio's

 

104

refusal to keep Agnes's condition secret, and ends with the
report that Ambrosio himself has "yielded to the tempta-
tion" and "remembered nothing but the pleasure and oppor-
tunity" that he found in Matilda's longing embrace.4 The
next four chapters, which comprise roughly one-third of
the novel, present the intercalated story of Raymond and
Agnes. Although Don Raymond's history contains no direct
mention of the Monk, the experiences of these young lovers
will bear significantly on the development of the novel,
and on Ambrosio's relationships with Matilda and Antonia.
In addition, the interruption of the main plot at a crucial
and interesting point has the effect of holding Ambrosio
and Matilda in suspension. As a result, when we return to
them after Raymond's encounters with the robbers of the
forest, the Bleeding Nun, and the Wandering Jew, it is dif-
ficult to dispell the impression that Ambrosio has been
enjoying the pleasures of his mistress for some weeks.
The third and most substantial section of The Monk plays
out the conflicts that are set in motion in the first two
sections, while concentrating heavily on Ambrosio's
progress from Matilda's arms to Satan's talons.

The first chapter of Lewis's romance contains a

great deal of information about Ambrosio, but it is

105

presented largely in the form of simple reports. This
monk, whose saintliness and eloquence have made him the
talk of all Madrid, is treated for the present as a social
phenomenon which can be examined only from an external
point of view. Lewis's flare for the dramatic is apparent
in the opening scene of the novel in which he employs the
technique of peopling his stage with a large number of
characters, all of whom are awaiting the appearance of

the leading actor. Through a chance conversation between
an older woman and two young men of rank, we learn that
Ambrosio was found on the doorstep of the Capuchin abbey
when he was "yet an Infant," and that no one had ever suc-
ceeded in discovering anything about his past or his family
(p. 17). He was raised in the shelter of the monastery
where he came to be highly regarded for his intelligence,
his application to his studies, and his strict adherence

to the rules of the order. When he had attained the proper
age, Leonella is told, he became a member of the order, and
at the age of thirty, he was elected to the position of
Superior of his society. Not until "these last three weeks"
did Ambrosio ever leave the abbey, says Don Christoval, and

"He is reported to be so strict an observer of Chastity,

106

that He knows not in what consists the difference of Man
and Woman" (p. 17).

When Ambrosio finally arrives at the church, he is
described as "a Man of noble port and commanding presence.
His stature was lofty and his features uncommonly handsome,"
Lewis continues. "He bowed himself with humility to the
audience: Still there was a certain severity in his look
and few could sustain the glance of his eye at once fiery
and penetrating" (p. 18). His sermon, however, was indeed
effective, and the entire congregation, including even the
irreligious, seemed charmed by his oratory: "The discourse
was of considerable length; Yet when it concluded, the
Audience grieved that it had not lasted longer." And when
Ambrosio began to leave the church, Lewis tells us, "His
auditors crowded round him, loaded him with blessings,
threw themselves at his feet, and kissed the hem of his
Garment" (p. 19). From the beginning, then, it is clear
that Ambrosio, this monk who is "surnamed 'The Man of Holi-
ness,'" is indeed an exceptional person. He has risen at
an early age to the highest position in a prestigious reli-
gious order, his fame as a devout has spread to every
corner of Madrid, and most interestingly, he truly is elo-

quent and effective as a preacher of the Word of God.

107

At the same time, there are also indications early
in the novel that Ambrosio has a store of less admirable
characteristics. The first hint is presented in the epi-
graph to the chapter which implies a similarity between

Lord Angelo of Measure for Measure and Ambrosio:

 

----Lord Angelo is precise;

Stands at a guard with envy; scarce confesses

That his blood flows, or that his appetite

Is more to bread than stone (p. 7).
A second indication comes in the form of an ominous question
posed by the narrator: "The Abbot . . . quitted the Church,
while humility dwelt on every feature. Dwelt she also in
his heart?" (p. 20). And in response to Antonia's enthus-
iastic praise of Ambrosio, Lorenzo points out that until
recently, he had spent all his days in the cloister, and
that the true test of his virtue is only just beginning now
that he must occasionally face the temptations of the out-
side world. Leonella exclaims that she "never saw such a
stern-looking Mortal," and Don Christoval adds that "Too
great severity is said to be Ambrosio's only fault" (p. 22).
But a much more dramatic representation of the events to
come is presented when Lorenzo falls asleep in the cathe-

dral, and dreams that the ceremony which would wed him to

Antonia is interrupted by "an Unknown":

108

His form was gigantic; His complexion was
swarthy, His eyes fierce and terrible; his
Mouth breathed out volumes of fire; and on
his forehead was written in legible char-
acters--'Pride! Lust! Inhumanity!‘

Antonia shrieked. The Monster clasped

her in his arms, and springing with her upon

the Altar, tortured her with his odious

caresses. She endeavored in vain to escape

from his embrace (p. 28).
These hints, rumors, and reactions single out pride, lust,
temptation, inhumanity, and severity as characteristics
which will plague Ambrosio, and Lorenzo's dream seems to
suggest that Antonia, who feels a strong and spontaneous
attraction to the Monk, may well become his victim. This
view is reinforced by a Gypsy's prophesy which predicts
that Antonia will suffer from "Lustful man and crafty
Devil," and which warns her to beware of "One more virtuous
. . . /Than belongs to Man to be" (p. 38).

Shifting the focus from Antonia for the time being,
the second chapter concentrates on the relationship between
Ambrosio and Rosario/Matilda. But we are first given an
account of Ambrosio's cruel reaction when he reads Raymond's
note to Agnes and learns of her pregnancy. Although Agnes

pleads desperately for compassion and forgiveness, Ambrosio

responds with indignant severity: "What! Shall St. Clare's

109

Convent become the retreat of Prostitutes? Shall I suffer
the Church of Christ to cherish in its bosom debauchery

and shame? Unworthy Wretch! such lenity would make me your
accomplice. Mercy would here be criminal" (p. 46). After
the intercepted letter has been given to the Domina, and
Agnes can see that her cause is lost, she berates Ambrosio
for his cruelty and curses him in prOphetic exclamations--
in terms that Ambrosio will recall on several occasions,
and that Satan will repeat just before plunging the Monk to
a lingering death: "But the day of Trial will arrive!"
predicts Agnes. "Oh! then when you yield to impetuous
passions! when you feel that Man is weak, and born to err;
When shuddering you look back upon your crimes, and solicit
with terror the mercy of your God, Oh! in that fearful
moment think upon me! Think upon your Cruelty! Think upon
Agnes, and despair of pardon!" (p. 49).

As if to lose no time in the fulfillment of this
prophesy, Rosario reveals to Ambrosio within hours of
Agnes's outburst that she is a woman, and that she is in
love with him. By the next afternoon, Ambrosio has deter-
mined to insist that Rosario, now known to the Abbot as
Matilda, leave the monastery at once. But this resolution

is forgotten when Ambrosio is bitten by a poisonous

110

serpent, and Matilda saves his life at the risk of her own.
As he watches the beautiful Matilda languish in bed under
the effect of the venom, he can no longer resist her charms,
and just two days after spurning Agnes as a whore, Ambrosio
himself succumbs to sexual desire. At this point, the
reader may, at best, be puzzled by this model of monastic
life who is now locked in the embraces of a passionate
young woman. But the more probable reaction is to dismiss
Ambrosio as a religious hypocrite, as a fallen man who
attempts to conceal his true character behind an aura of
self-righteous holiness. In fairness to Ambrosio, however,
we must admit that the easy opportunity, the alluringness
of the woman, and most importantly, her frank confession of
her own desire create an almost unbearable temptation. "I
lust for the enjoyment of your person," says Matilda. "I
feel with every heart-throb, that I must enjoy you, or die"
(p. 89) .

Ambrosio's weakness in yielding to desire may be
either damned or forgiven, but Matilda's brazen declaration
of sexual passion is very startling and unexpected, espe-
cially in comparison to the delicately modest speech invar-
iably employed by Radcliffe's heroines. From Lewis's day

to our own, the character of Matilda has consistently been

111

praised as one of the most striking creations in The Monk.
S. T. Coleridge judged this character to be "the author's
masterpiece," and added that "it is, indeed, exquisitely
imagined, and as exquisitely supported."6 As many critics
have now pointed out, however, there is also a problem of
inconsistency in Matilda's character: although Satan
claims near the end of the novel that Matilda is "a sub-
ordinant but crafty spirit" sent from Hell to tempt Am-
brosio (p. 440), there are several instances in which she
reacts in private not as a daemon, but as a mortal. When
Ambrosio loses consciousness after having been bitten by
the serpent, for instance, we are told that Matilda "rent
her hair, beat her bosom, and not daring to quit Ambrosio,
endeavoured by loud cries to summon the Monks to her assis-
tance" (p. 71). In a second instance, when Matilda thinks
that Ambrosio is asleep, she speaks of her deep love for
him in a lengthy soliloquy (pp. 78-79). Later in the novel,
we are informed that "Matilda with every succeeding day
grew more attached to the Friar," and that "He was become
dearer to her than ever" (p. 235). And finally, when it
has become clear to Matilda that Ambrosio no longer cares
for her, Lewis reports that "her eyes filled with involun-

tary tears“ (p. 258). This inconsistency does not seem to

112

have been much noted before Edith Birkhead drew attention
to it in her critique of Lewis's novel,7 and I doubt that
many readers find it troublesome today. Nevertheless, the
inconsistency does exist, and it is difficult to discuss
Matilda's character without first addressing this problem.
The most obvious explanation of the inconsistencies
in Matilda's characterization is that Lewis simply changed
his mind as he neared the end of the novel, and failed to
align the earlier passages with his new conception.8 But
Peck disagrees with this view, saying that "it seems clear
that the author, though he fell into inconsistencies which
could easily have been removed, had determined upon her
evil nature from the start" (p. 39). Nothing is said, how-
ever, about why this seems clear.9 While I would not main-
tain that Satan is necessarily lying when he claims Matilda
for his agent, it may be helpful to remember that devils
in literature (as seen, for example, in Doctor Faustus and

Paradise Lost) are notorious braggarts, and certainly not

 

above stretching the truth.10 Lowry Nelson's comment that
the ironies announced at the end of The Monk are "rapid and
crude" clearly applies to Satan's very implausible claim
that Ambrosio was about to be pardoned, and I continue to

suspect that his assertion about Matilda was a specific

113

touch that Lewis added with little reflection.ll But

whether Matilda be woman or daemon is not finally of much
consequence, for both Ambrosio and the reader believe that
she is a mortal, and Satan's gloating revelation does
little to change the imaginative richness of the character
that Lewis has created in Rosario/Matilda.

In a technical sense, the problem with the charac-
terization of Matilda can be thought of as a flaw, as the
error of a young and exuberant writer. But in a larger
sense, this confusion between the mortal and the daemonic
can be seen as representative of the general conflation of
roles and worlds that permeates the entire romance. Ma-
tilda, for example, is first introduced as Rosario, a young
boy who has formed a particular friendship with Ambrosio
while serving his noviciate in the Capuchin monastery. She
soon confesses, however, that she is really Matilda de
Villanegas, and that, as a woman, she is in love with the
Abbot. After the immediate shock of this revelation has
passed, there is talk of Matilda remaining in the abbey as
a chaste and platonic friend. But once she has saved Am-
brosio's life and is herself on the verge of death, good
intentions give way to desire, and she becomes the seducer

and the lover of the Man of Holiness. When we return to

114

Matilda after the story of Raymond and Agnes, we soon dis-
cover that she has become a confirmed mistress who "put
every invention of lust in practice, every refinement in
the art of pleasure, which might heighten the bliss of her
possession, and render her Lover's transports still more
exquisite" (p. 224). In purging herself of the poison
which she has extracted from Ambrosio's wound, Matilda re-
veals that she is an adept in the occult sciences, and
after her lover has grown tired of her and expresses a
desire to possess Antonia, she uses her magical powers in
her role as procuress. Boy, woman, friend, healer, seducer,
concubine, magician, procuress--these are all facets of
Matilda's complex personality.12

Several other characters are also seen in a variety
of poses. At the beginning of his tale, Ambrosio is called
Saint, Preacher, and Abbot of the Capuchins. He later be-
comes Matilda's lover, Antonia's persecutor and ravisher,
and the murderer of Elvira and Antonia. He can be called
Father and Brother in the clerical sense, and through ties
of blood, he is Antonia's brother and Elvira's son. Agnes's
plan to impersonate a ghost leads Raymond to confound the
two, and as a result of his confusion, the Bleeding Nun

insists on treating him as her lover. Agnes herself

115

eventually becomes a nun, only to fall into the roles of
lover, prisoner, and mother. For her part, Antonia is such
a consummate victim that her roles as daughter and sister
fade in comparison. These relationships are important in
The Monk because identity, whether real or assumed, fre-
quently determines the course of the action. The success
of Matilda's interactions with Ambrosio, for instance, de-
pends on the continued success in the world at large of her
disguise as Rosario. Ambrosio must rely on his identity as
a monk and a confessor to gain admittance to the Dalfa
household, and his position as Antonia's brother seems to
account for her strong and immediate attraction to him.
Finally, the confusion between Agnes and the Bleeding Nun
forces Raymond to the awareness that there are things in
the world that he does not understand and cannot control.
In addition to this layering of roles, several
worlds, both literal and figurative, are juxtaposed in
Lewis's novel. The most obvious contrast is the geographic
distinction between the Old World as embodied primarily in
Spain, and the New World as represented by the West Indies.
In its best light, the New World can be seen as a place of
refuge, as a land to which one can flee to escape the

forces and restrictions of the more civilized nations.

116

Elvira and Gonzalvo fled to Cuba to elude the anger of a
father who was outraged by his son's marriage to a shoe-
maker's daughter. Similarly, it is to Hispaniola that
Lorenzo says he would fly if his uncle were to object to
his proposed union with Antonia. The New World is also a
place where people such as Antonia, with her beauty, grace,
sincerity, and perfect innocence, are born. But at the
same time Elvira lost her husband and two other children
to "the diseases incidental to Indian atmospheres." And
if we believe her claim that "nothing would have saved my
young Antonia but my sudden return to Spain," the brave
New World across the Atlantic must be seen as dangerous
and inhospitable (p. 214). "The abruptness of [his
mother's] flight," as Leonella puts it (p. 13), denied
Ambrosio the opportunity to visit this new land. But
ironically, it is the bite of the Cientipedoro, which Lewis
notes "is supposed to be a Native of Cuba, and to have been
brought into Spain from that Island in the Vessel of Co-
lumbus" (p. 72), that almost kills him, and that changes
the course of his life so drastically.13

One View of the Old World is presented in the lines

that Antonia's father wrote as he began his voyage to the

West Indies. Because he has been forced by his father's

117

anger to flee his native land, he feels that he has been
banished from all that he holds dear. Thus his poem, en-
titled "The Exile," paints an exaggerated picture both of
the dangers of the New World with its "snakes and tigers,"
and of the pleasures of the Old World with its "Happy
Swain," its "Mountain-Girl," and its "Shepherd chaunting
his wild rustic notes" (p. 216). Aside from this idealized,
pastoral view, the Old World is a place where an orphan can
rise to a position of power through the structure of the
Church, and where high-minded individuals such as Lorenzo
can attempt to make the class system function in a benevo-
lent manner. The Old World, in short, is civilized, while
the New World is wild and unsettled. But the perils of the
New World are those of nature--of climate, disease, and
strange, exotic beasts. The dangers of Spain, on the other
hand, are found not in nature, but in people and institu-
tions, for the Old World is the Established World, the
world of order, power, and control.

The principal institutions of the Established World
as seen in The Monk are the Church, and the wealthy, titled
class. With its status as the oldest, continually existing
religious and authoritative body in the Western World, the

Roman Catholic Church is a very appropriate symbol of the

118

established order. This status further enhances Lewis's
decision to set his novel in a Catholic country at a time
when the Church obviously wielded considerable social,
political, and economic power in addition to its religious
and moral influence. And by attributing superstition to
many of his minor and nameless characters, Lewis renders
the power of the Church even more complete. The noble
class is, of course, another traditional symbol of the
Established World; members of this class are frequently
depicted as having sufficient wealth and influence to con-
trol the lives of people not only in lower social positions,
but occasionally in their own class as well. Apart from
religious and social institutions, the concept of the
Established World can be understood to encompass the normal
and the accepted in general. Thus the meaning of this
figurative world is defined in its broadest terms by the
way things are--by the way people live their lives, and by
the assumptions that they hold about man and his place in
the universe.

As the head of a religious order within the frame-
work of the Catholic Church, Ambrosio is, at the beginning
of his tale, an ideal representative of the Established

World. He is, in essence, the symbol of an institution

119

which, in turn, symbolizes power, control, and authority.
His religious career can be said to have begun on the day
on which he was found at the abbey door. As an orphan,
alone in the world with no known name or family, much less
wealth or position, he would ordinarily have had little
opportunity within the accepted structures of society.
Ambrosio manages, however, not only to survive, but to
transcend his brethren, and to become renowned throughout
the land for his learning, eloquence, and piety. Clearly,
he has understood the functioning of the system in which he
found himself, and has been skilled in manipulating that
system to his best advantage. But Matilda de Villanegas
does not live within the boundaries of this Established
World, and she does her best to tempt Ambrosio to reject
the world that he knows and has mastered in favor of an-
other, radically different world that is defined in opposi-
tion to the normal, the familiar, and the accepted.

The little that we are told of Matilda's life re-
veals a woman whose past is similar to Ambrosio's in some
respects, but who chanced to develop an entirely different
world view. Born into a noble family, she was orphaned at
an early age. She inherited her father's great wealth,

however, and was raised by an erudite uncle who educated

120

her extensively, not only "in sciences universally studied,
but in others, revealed but to a few, and lying under cen-
sure from the blindness of superstition" (p. 60). In the
process of inculcating her with great knowledge, this
uncle also freed her mind from "the shackles of vulgar
prejudice," as Matilda phrases it, and taught her "to look
with adoration upon the pure and virtuous." With her
wealth and beauty, she was courted by "the noblest Youths
of Madrid." But this unusual young woman saw only "vice,
dissipation, and ignorance" in her suitors, and no one
gained her favor until she happened to hear Ambrosio preach
at the Cathedral of the Capuchins (p. 60). From that day
forward, her seemingly hopeless love for this churchman
grew deeper and stronger until she became obsessed with
the thought of uniting her life with his in some manner.
Matilda's approach to the predicament of loving, to
the point of despondency and declining health, a monk who
is widely celebrated for his holiness and chastity shows
the degree to which she is removed from the Established
World. By the artifice of her portrait as the Madonna to
her boldness in entering the monastery, by her threat of
suicide to her saving of Ambrosio's life at the risk of

her own, by her frank admission of carnal desire to her

121

free and unreserved fornication with the virgin Abbot,
Matilda demonstrates repeatedly that she is not bound by
the conventions of the world, that the restrictions and
taboos of society, religion, and morality are as gossamer
to her. As the plot progresses, Matilda becomes stronger,
more domineering, and more absolute in her rejection of
accepted standards of action and belief. She saves her
own life by striking a bargain with Satan, she urges Am-
brosio first to the seduction, and failing that, to the
rape of Antonia, and when this unfortunate cries desper-
ately for help, Matilda advises that she be silenced by
murder. All of these actions indicate that Matilda is not
to be located in the Established World of institutions and
authority, of conventions and controls. She is rather a
world unto herself, a world in which self is placed above
society, will above law, libido above morality, and man
above God.

At the same time, this aggressive, abandoned woman
who defines her own destiny, and who hesitates at no evil
constitutes but one side of Matilda's total character.
Lewis has also infused much of the novel with an unfocused
but very present feeling that Matilda is a lost and lonely

woman who is doomed to live a life apart, and who must act

122

as she does not of choice, but of necessity. From the
first moment that she sees Ambrosio, she conceives an
infatuation for him, and try as she may, she is completely
unable to control this passion. Even though she knows
that her love for Ambrosio must inevitably work his ruin,
she simply cannot resist the impulse which forces her
first to enter the monastery, then to reveal that she is
a woman, and finally to blurt that she must enjoy his
person or die. Byron is reported to have commented that
Lewis "should have made the daemon really in love with
Ambrosio,"14 and, in a sense, that is precisely what he
has done. The most interesting sense in which this is
true, however, is not when Matilda is understood in a
Christian framework as a devil from Hell, but when she

is seen as a figure from folk legends, as a woman who is
destined to love through eternity, but always to destroy
through that love.

Other literary examples of destructive love cen-
tered in reluctant but enticing women are not plentiful,
yet this figure does appear in the work of two of Lewis's
contemporaries. Geraldine in Coleridge's "Christabel,"

for instance, seems to experience a moment of doubt and

123

dread just before joining her chaste and beautiful bene-

factress in bed:

Yet Geraldine nor speaks nor stirs;

Ah! What a stricken look was hers!

Deep from within she seems half-way

To lift some weight with sick assay,

And eyes the maid and seeks delay.

(Part I, 11.255-59; composed 1797)

And Keats's La Belle Dame, who is quite obviously some sort
of faery child, "wept and sighed full sore" before lulling
her knight at arms to sleep (1.30; composed 1818). As a
character in a novel, Matilda is developed with more realism
than are Geraldine and La Belle Dame, but her relationship
to these haunting (and haunted) women who are driven to
seduce and enthrall is nonetheless apparent. Though she
eventually displays an attitude of haughty condescension,
Matilda is deeply devoted to Ambrosio through much of the
novel. In spite of her bold plans, the futility of her
love is clear from the beginning, and the pain that she
suffers as Ambrosio grows increasingly indifferent is re-
ported on several occasions. Her pathos is truly touching
«at times, and her daring is often striking. All of these
<3haracteristics merge to make Matilda seem neither fully

lauman nor entirely spirit, to set her off in a world that

is beyond normal experience and rational explanation.

124

Lewis's interest in the figures and themes of folk-
lore is clear, and his familiarity with ballads and legends
informs many parts of his novel. On the other hand, it is
not always possible to arrive at a clear Christian inter-
pretation of The Monk. Water-Kings, Bleeding Nuns, and
Wandering Jews, for example, have no certain place in tra-
ditional theological structures, and on the whole, Chris-
tianity is poorly equipped to deal with supernatural worlds
which cannot be identified either with Heaven or with Hell.
And while there is much talk about God in Lewis's romance,
His exact nature and powers are not always clear. Thus
Peter Brooks has asserted that the universe of The Monk is
actually more pagan than Christian:

"God" has become rather an interdiction, a
primitive force within nature that strikes
fear into men's hearts but does not move
them to allegiance and worship. God as
experienced by Matilda is no longer a symbol
and incarnation of the Sacred, but rather of
the nature of a taboo. The way in which she
brings him to bear on the situation--and it
is a way that Ambrosio will accept--suggests
a world where there is no longer an operable
idea of the Sacred or Hol , but rather a set
of supernatural forces in the universe which
must be acknowledged, combatted, propitiated,
conjured with. "God" is simply one figure
in a manichaeistic daemonology.15

This does not mean, however, that God is entirely irrele-

vant to The Monk. His existence is indeed acknowledged,

125

but as Brooks indicates, His attributes are open to ques-
tion. In the Alternative World in which Matilda resides,
His meaning is particularly ambiguous, for in this world,
God is either just one more traditional authority to be
opposed along with Church, law, and conventional morality,
or He has no real influence on events at all. But regard-
less of her nature and motivation, whether woman, devil,

or daemon, Matilda's role as seductress is clear and un-
changing: for whatever reason, she must tempt Ambrosio to
forsake the Established World that he has come to symbolize,
to pass beyond the boundaries of the accepted, the known,
and the predictable, and to join with her in a world apart.
Finally, it is her tragedy, or perhaps her triumph, to
recognize that nothing she can say or do will actually
change Ambrosio into a new man, to understand that she can
serve only as a means for the expression of the man that

he has been from the start.

While I have described the Established WOrld as
civilized and as based upon order and control, this world
is also corrupt and potentially dangerous. Evidence of
widespread decadence is found not only in Ambrosio's
descent into dissipation and crime, but in so many other

characters and events that the entire social structure

126

often seems rotted and diseased. In relating the story of
her life with the bandits of the forest, Marguerite de-
scribes "Young Men of family" who have turned to robbery.-
and murder after squandering their paternal inheritances

on vice and excess (p. 122). Donna Rodolphe, a Baroness,
is so vain that she assumes without a moment's doubt that.
Raymond is in love with her, and so abandoned that she is
eager for adultery. Her hatred and implacability are
brought to light when she learns the truth Of the situation,
and her attempt at vengeance through murder is almost suc-
cessful. Similarly, Elvira's father-in-law, who is a Mar-
quis, hounds his son into exile, abducts his grandson, and
deserts him to the caprice of monkish tutors while report-
ing to his family that he is dead. Beatrice de las Cis-
ternas, a distant relation to Don Raymond, was compelled

by her parents to enter the convent, but her "warm and
voluptuous character" soon led her to elope with the BarOn‘
Lindenberg and to become his mistress;. "Not satisfied with
displaying the incontinence of a Prostitute," the Wandering
Jew tells Raymond, "She professed herself an Atheist: She
took every Opportunity to scoff at her monastic vows, and
loaded with ridicule the most sacred ceremonies of Religion"

(pp. 173-74). And in a short time, she is so consumed with

127

passion for the Baron's younger brother that she is willing
to murder the first Baron in order to enjoy the second.

The Domina of St. Clare's Convent, however, is per-
haps the most thoroughly despicable character in the entire
novel. Proud, cruel, intolerant, and ruthless, this tyran-
nical woman has determined to make St. Clare's into her
ideal of a model religious order by attracting wealthy
patrons, enlisting the daughters of noble families, and
enforcing the most rigorous and inhumane regulations that
her companions will permit. When Agnes de Medina draws
shame to the convent by becoming pregnant, and, what is
worse, allowing the renowned Abbot of the Capuchins to
learn of her condition, the Domina swears to punish her
with the utmost severity. Agnes's torture begins when she
is forced at the point of a dagger to drink a liquor which
she has been told is a poison. As she believes that she
is on the verge of death, the Prioress and her accomplices
"interrupted with sarcasm the prayers in which She recom-
mended her parting soul to mercy: They threatened her with
heaven's vengeance and eternal perdition: They bad her
despair of pardon" (p. 354).

When Agnes next awakens, she'slowly realizes that

she has been put through an actual funeral and then entombed

l

128

in a vault among the moldering remains of deceased nuns.
But her suffering does not end here, for the Prioress and
her minions soon appear to inform her that she is to be
chained to the wall of a dank and dreary dungeon located
beneath even the burial vaults. And when Agnes ventures
to plead for mercy on behalf of her unborn infant, the
Domina responds with unparalleled barbarity:

Abandoned WOman, speak of him no more! Better
that the Wretch should perish than live: Be-
gotten in perjury, incontinence, and pollu-
tion, It cannot fail to prove a Prodigy of
vice. Hear me, thou Guilty! Expect no mercy
from me either for yourself, or Brat. Rather
pray that Death may seize you before you pro-
duce it; Or if it must see the light, that
its eyes may immediately be closed again for
ever! No aid shall be given you in your
labour; Bring your Offspring into the world
yourself, Feed it yourself, Nurse it your-
self, Bury it yourself: God grant that the
latter may happen soon, lest you receive
comfort from the fruit of your iniquity!

(P. 410).

This cruelty on the part of the Domina far exceeds, in in-
tent if not in result, the worst of Ambrosio's crimes. And
her tortures of Agnes are, of course, carefully premedi-
tated and carried out in cold blood. Yet the Domina needs
no spirit from Hell to tempt her to sadistic activities,

or to urge her over moments of hesitation and compassion.

With religious leaders such as the Prioress and her three

129

accomplices already at large, and with sexual passion and
irrational hatred blinding the judgment of people through-
out the land, one may well wonder that Satan should feel
any need to center direct attention on a single, lone monk.
It would seem, in short, that his work is proceeding very
nicely as it is; it would seem that the Established World
is in itself glutted with corruption and decadence.

The third figurative world embodied in The Monk is
that defined by the younger generation, by Raymond, Agnes,,
and Lorenzo. Having somehow risen above the taint of the
world into which they were born, these young people are
representative of a new social order, of an order that is
based on kindness and reason rather than hatred and super-
stition. From the dawning of their romance at Lindenberg
Castle, it is clear that Raymond and Agnes are a modern
couple, that they have rejected many of the assumptions,
and the prejudices, of their forebears. In particular,
they refuse to accept the notion that others, whether
parents, guardians, or whomever, have the right to control
their lives in significant ways. Thus, while they are
willing to comply with accepted practice in declaring
their love to Donna Rodolpha, once they meet with irra-

tional resistance, they do not hesitate to proceed with

130

a plan of their own. And it is also clear that both Ray-

mond and Agnes believe that they eetually are in control

 

of their lives, and that their reason and ingenuity will
prove sufficient for their happiness.

Schematically, the world proposed by the younger
generation can be located somewhere between the Established
World of power and authority, and the Alternative World
represented by Matilda: they would reject the ignorance,
corruption, and cruelty of the former without lapsing into
the hedonistic amorality of the latter. Agnes, for example,
is outraged that her mother had destined her to a clois-
tered life before she was even born (and for selfish rea-
sons at that), but she considers elopement only because of
her aunt's cruelty, and because she is convinced that Ray-
mond is an honorable man. Similarly, when Raymond dis-
covers that Agnes has in fact become a nun, he infiltrates
the convent grounds disguised as a gardener on the one hand,
while applying to the proper authorities for the revocation
of her vows on the other hand. In this manner, Raymond
and Agnes attempt to exert their personal rights and inde-
pendence while recognizing at the same time the need to
accede to the reasonable demands of the established order.

In spite of their refreshing pragmatism and rationality,

131

however, Raymond and Agnes are not as fully in control of
their lives as they may wish to believe. Significantly,
this recognition is forced upon them by the very worlds
that they would deny: Raymond is caught in the icy grip
of a being from the nether world, while Agnes comes to
feel just how powerful and exacting the authority of the
Established World can be.

Through the first several chapters of The Monk,
Lewis restricts himself to events of the natural world, but
these events--Lorenzo's dream, the Gypsy's prophecy, Ro-
sario's revelations--are certainly ominous. And Raymond's
ordeal at the cottage in the forest only just remains
within the bounds of reality: "And while I fixed him with-
out motion upon the floor, Marguerite wresting the dagger
from his hand, plunged it repeatedly in his heart till He
expired." And a little later, "We were obliged to pass by
the Barn, where the Robbers were slaughtering our Domes-
tics. The door was open: We distinguished the shrieks
of the dying and the imprecations of the Murderers!"
(p. 118).

The first weeks after Raymond's arrival at Linden-
berg Castle provide an interlude of happiness, romance, and

even comedy, but Donna Rodolpha's storming jealousy soon

132

brings an end to this calm. At this point, The Monk
arrives at a critical transition, for Agnes's ingenious
plan to escape the castle by impersonating the Bleeding
Nun is also an ingenious technique on Lewis's part to re-
move entirely the already weakened distinction between
real and unreal, and to carry the novel, characters,
reader, and all into a world where the fantastic mingles
easily and familiarly with the mundane- As Raymond awaits
the appearance of his disguised lover on the appointed
night, the atmosphere seems charged, everything is wound
tightly in anticipation, and presently a figure appears:
"A Chaplet of Beads hung upon her arm; her head was en-
veloped in a long white veil; Her Nun's dress was stained
with blood, and She had taken care to provide herself with
a Lamp and dagger. She advanced toward the spot where I
stood. I flew to meet her, and clasped her in my arms"
(p. 155). But this woman whom Raymond embraces is not his
Agnes; this being whom he escorts to his nuptial carriage
is not his beautiful bride. She is rather a legend come
to life, the embodiment of the superstition that Raymond
and Agnes would exploit in order to consummate their own
union. And the price that this spectre exacts for their

audacity and disbelief is to hold Raymond enthralled, and

133

to set off a succession of events which eventually places
Agnes at the mercy of a merciless tyrant.

The intercalated story of Don Raymond, then, is not
so irrelevant an interruption as it may first seem or as
some critics have complained,16 for it serves several im-
portant functions. Most significantly, Raymond's encounter
with the Bleeding Nun, and later with the Wandering Jew,
has the effect of remaking reality in such a way that Am-
brosio's subsequent experiences will seem very plausible,
and perhaps even logical and inevitable. "The natural
order of the world has given birth to something else,"
writes Peter Brooks, "and after this point, the rest of
Raymond's adventures . . . follow with perfect appropri-
ateness and plausibility. And not only Raymond's adven-
tures: when we return to the main plot, to Ambrosio,
Matilda, and Antonia, we move with ease into the evocation
of diabolical agents, the use of magic mirrors and magic
myrtle branches and subtle opiates" (p. 255). It is also
in Raymond's story that representatives of the Established
World, the New World, and the Alternative World are first
brought together and locked in a struggle for dominance
that will continue throughout the novel. Finding them-

selves pressed on both sides, Raymond and Agnes discover

134

first that there are powers in this world that they do not
understand and cannot control, and second that the tyranny
of authority is not as easily combatted as they had sup-
posed. Their youthful optimism, in short, receives a set-
back as they learn that the road to a new and reformed
world is long and arduous. Finally Raymond's Agnes emerges
from this story as a foil to Ambrosio's Antonia: both
women are drugged, declared dead, and carried down into the
subterranean burial vaults held in common by the Capuchin
monastery and St. Clare's Convent. Only one of these
victims, however, will ever again see the light of day.
Shortly after the conclusion of Raymond's tale, we
return at long last to Ambrosio, who is only just arising
from the couch where we left him. His "burst of transport
was past," Lewis reports, and "His heart . . . became the
abode of satiety and disgust" (p. 223). These feelings do
not long endure, for Ambrosio is soon making love to Ma-
tilda once again and "with redoubled ardour" (p. 224).
Through the following days and nights, he repeats his sin
many times, worried only that Rosario's true sex will be
discovered, and that his concubine will then be placed
beyond his embrace. Certainly there is nothing in Am-

brosio's actions at this point to-ameliorate his character,

135

to make him seem any less villainous or hypocritical. But
interestingly, it is at this juncture in Ambrosio's career
that Lewis makes his most concerted attempt to explain why
he acts as he does, and thereby to win a degree of sym-
pathy and understanding for his hero-villain. The method
that Lewis adopts in this attempt is to delve into Am-
brosio's background, and the rationale of his analysis is
roughly Rousseauistic in that he insists on a clear dis-
tinction between Ambrosio's ''real and acquired" character:
"The fact was, that the different sentiments, with which
Education and Nature had inspired him, were combatting in
his bosom" (PP. 237-38).

"It was by no means his nature to be timid," con-
tinues Lewis. "But his education had inspired his mind
with fear so strongly, that apprehension was now become
part of his character." Had Ambrosio's innate tendencies
been permitted to grow and mature, Lewis implies, he would
have been a very different person: "He was naturally
enterprising, firm, and fearless: He had a Warrior's
heart, and He might have shone at the head of an Army.
There was no want of generosity in his nature: The
Wretched never failed to find in him a compassionate

Auditor: His abilities were quick and shining, and his

136

judgment vast, solid, and decisive" (p. 236). Clearly,
then, the crucial variable in the development of Ambrosio's
character was his chance desertion by his parents, and his
subsequent upbringing in a monastery under the guidance of
an abbot described significantly as a "very Monk":

His Instructors carefully repressed those vir-
tues, whose grandeur and disinterestedness were
ill-suited to the Cloister. Instead of uni-
versal benevolence He adopted a selfish par-
tiality for his own particular establishment:
He was taught to consider compassion for the
errors of Others as a crime of the blackest
dye: The noble frankness of his temper was
exchanged for servile humility; and in order
to break his natural spirit, the Monks terri-
fied his young mind, by placing before him

all the horrors with which Superstition could
furnish them. . . . While the Monks were
busied in rooting out his virtues, and nar-
rowing his sentiments, they allowed every vice
which had fallen his share, to arrive at full
perfection. He was suffered to be proud, vain,
ambitious, and disdainful: He was jealous of
his Equals, and despised all merit but his own:
He was implacable when offended, and cruel in
his revenge (p. 237).

In light of this analysis and of the admirable qualities
that he does in fact display on occasion, it is easy to
believe that had Ambrosio been raised under more normal
circumstances, he may well have had a place in the New
WOrld represented by Raymond, Agnes, and Lorenzo. Indeed,
with his natural generosity and compassion, his judgment,

boldness, and strength of mind, he might well have been a

137

leader in the Opposition to ignorance, superstition,
cruelty, and despotic authority. As it happened, however,
this potential was carefully repressed, or rather redi-
rected into channels endorsed by the controlling powers.
Thus Ambrosio is himself a victim of the corrupting influ-
ence Of the Established World that he comes ultimately to
symbolize.

In addition to the perverting effect of his up-
bringing and education, Ambrosio is victimized in several
other ways. The victory in the battle between his natural
and learned character, Lewis insists, is to be decided by
a third element of his personality--by his passions. "Un-
fortunately his passions were the very worst Judges," Lewis
continues, "to whom He could possibly have applied." As a
result, "the natural warmth of his constitution" and "the
over-whelming torrent of his desires" prove too much for
"Religion's barriers," and "all impediments yielded before
the force of his temperament, warm, sanguine, and volup-
tuous in the excess" (PP. 238-39). In a sense, Ambrosio
is a victim of this excessively voluptuous constitution,
for he is largely driven by his passions, almost without
any control, from one crime to another. Thus, he is often

confused and frightened by the crimes he commits, and he

138

seems consistently surprised by the evil of which he is
capable. And although he is Matihda's lover, he is also,
to an extent, her prey and her puppet: she is determined,
for whatever reason, to seduce this monk. The temptations
that she embodies seem almost too much for the coldest of
men, let alone for one of a warm temperament and in "the
full vigour of Manhood" (p. 90).: Even after he has trans-
ferred his affections to another woman, Matilda still
exercises considerable power over Ambrosio by denying him
her bed, by enabling him to view Antonia stepping naked
into her bath, and by providing him.with the means to gain
access to the woman he so desires. Because of these
factors--because of chance, circumstance, and other forces
beyond his control--it is possible to feel some sympathy
and concern for this murderer-rapist. His evil is patent
and his damnation is inevitable, but his loss also partakes
of the tragic. Looming far larger than Radcliffe's Montoni,
this complex and fascinating character is Lewis's hero-
villain.

While Ambrosio may suffer under a variety of forces,
Antonia is the consummate victim of The Monk. One of the
first characters to be introduced in the romance, she is

described with conventional hyperbole: ."Her lips were of

139

the most rosy freshness; Her fair and undulating hair,
confined by a single ribband, poured itself below her

waist in a profusion of ringlets; Her throat was full and
beautiful in the extreme; Her hand and arm were formed with
the most perfect symmetry" (p. 12). Given this description
and her early introduction, a reader familiar with Rad-
cliffe's first novels may understandably conclude that
Antonia is to be the heroine of this present romance. And
she is similar to Emily, Adeline, and the others in some
ways, but she also possesses important differences. The
heroines of Radcliffe's novels are the protagonists of
their narratives, but Antonia is, purely and simply, the
victim of Lewis's novel. Born in the West Indies, she
seems to represent the freshness, the cleanliness, and the
optimistic naivete of the new found lands; transported back
to Spain, she is gradually overwhelmed by the urbanity,
sophistication, and complex deceitfulness that seem ines-
capable in older societies. And while Radcliffe's heroines 3
are no doubt innocent in experience, they are not so inno-
cent in mind. That is to say, while they are all virginal
in a physical sense, they seem to have a rather full under-
standing of sexual functionings. Thus Emily and Adeline

tend to be very suspicious and distrustful; they tend to

140

see in almost every man a potential ravisher, and to react
accordingly.

Antonia, however, is,innocent in mind as well as in
body. While she exhibits a natural modesty in the presence
of strangers, she seems to have little idea that anyone
would want to violate her in any way. She feels a strong
and instinctive attraction to Ambrosio, and she therefore
greets him with a warm and open friendliness. Her sincerity
is not clouded by any thoughts of dark designs, and not
until Flora finally explains "the Monk's designs and their
probable consequences in terms much clearer than Elvira's,
though not quite so delicate" (p. 333) does she seem to
comprehend the threat that Ambrosio could pose to her.
Because of the Single-mindedness with which she is pre-
sented, one may choose to complain that Antonia is a
"plaster statue,"17 but at the same time, the appeal of
her characterization is in its very simplicity, and its
interest is in the great purity of her role as victim.
Antonia, in short, is a lamb, and her sacrifice is inevi-
table.

Through the last section of The Monk, Ambrosio
finds himself caught up in a situation which becomes ever

more grave and complex with each new day.' At first, it is

141

tempting to conclude, as has D. P. Varma, that a "struggle
between religion and passion" is at the heart of his di-
lemma.18 But Ambrosio's concern with the religious meaning
of his sins is, in fact, minimal. He adopts a carefully
legalistic stance toward Divine Judgment, and is anxious
only that he not resign absolutely the last possibility of
salvation. Indeed, his greatest concern is not that he has
strayed from the path of God, but that his reputation as a
devout will suffer if his crimes are discovered. And the
further he falls from Heaven, the greater his concern for
his reputation becomes. Thus Ambrosio's struggle may be
described more accurately as a conflict between the Estab-
lished WOrld in which he holds a prestigious position, and
the Alternative World to which Matilda would convert him.
Although he is greatly attracted by the freedom, and espe-
cially the pleasure, that he sees in his lover's world, he
is very reluctant to give up the power, security, and
familiarity of his place in the Church. He therefore
attempts to straddle worlds, to enjoy the benefits of each
without pledging full allegiance to either. Matilda in-
sists that this attempt at a middle road is a sign of weak-

ness, an example of sniveling hypocrisy: to her mind, if

one is not "God's Friend," then he must necessarily be

142

"God's Enemy" (p. 269). But ironically, Ambrosio persists
on his chosen course even to the murder of Antonia, which
he perpetrates in a last, desperate attempt to salvage a
fame and reputation that have been thoroughly moribund for
some time.

On anOther level, Ambrosio is reluctant to join
absolutely with Matilda because he feels threatened in a
very basic and personal sense by her and by what she rep-
resents. He recognizes that she is stronger than he is,
and he is frightened by the mental, and particularly the
sexual, power that she displays. "He found himself unable
to cope with her in argument," Lewis notes, "and was un-
willingly obliged to confess the superiority of her judg-
ment. Every moment convinced him of the astonishing powers
of her mind" (PP. 231-32). And in comparing Antonia to
Matilda, Ambrosio complains that his present lover is too
aggressive: "How enchanting was the timid innocence of
[Antonia's] eyes, and how different from the wanton expres-
sion, the wild luxurious fire, which sparkles in Matilda's!
Oh! sweeter must one kiss be snatched from the rosy lips
of the First, than all the full and lustful favours be-
stowed so freely by the Second. Matilda gluts me with

enjoyment even to loathing, forces me to her arms, apes

143

the Harlot, and glories in her prostitution. Disgusting!"
(pp. 242-43). Ambrosio is appalled that anyone, much less
the harmless and gentle woman that Matilda had once seemed
to be, would deny so absolutely the normal strictures of
religion, morality, modesty, and every other accepted con-
trol. Most importantly, he sees in a complete acceptance
of Matilda a complete admission that he, too, has dedicated
himself without reservation to the values for which she
stands. He would then be forced to admit that he is in-
deed willing to maneuver, dissemble, ravish, torture, and
even murder in the name of pleasure, of self, of the here
and now. And in the end, the only significant difference
between the Established World in its corrupt and decadent
state, and Matilda's Alternative World is awareness--eeT£-
awareness and a confession of eeTT-knowledge.

Faced with the impossible task of attempting to
balance two contradictory worlds, Ambrosio sees Antonia as
a way out. He seems to assume without a second thought
that he will be able to enjoy sexual interludes with this
lovely young woman while continuing to occupy his position
as Abbot of the Capuchins. Perhaps because of her tender
age and her perfect innocence, he regards Antonia as easily

seduced, and as a woman whom he can readily control. He

144

fantasizes that with time she will grant him her favors
willing, but always with a proper sense of modesty and
decorum. She will make no physical or intellectual demands
on him as has Matilda, and he will be the dominant partner
in their relationship. Solipsistically, he understands
Antonia's open avowal of affection for him as an expression
of a desire for sexual intimacy, and with that, passion
takes over: "Ambrosio no longer possessed himself; Wild
with desire, He clasped the blushing Trembler in his arms.
He fastened his lips greedily upon hers, sucked in her pure
delicious breath, violated with his bold hand the treasures
of her bosom, and wound around him her soft and yielding
limbs" (p. 262). Antonia's screams and Elvira's sudden
interruption soon destroy his ecstasy, however, and he is
forced to admit that his desires will not be as easily
satisfied as he had assumed.

Just why Ambrosio lusts so irrepressibly and ex-
clusively for Antonia is unclear, but tentative answers
can no doubt be found in subconscious motivations. In his
fallen state, he is perhaps envious of Antonia's innocence,
and wishes to blemish her purity to prove in a perverted
manner that his own crimes are not so hideous after all.

Conversely, he may feel that a relationship with Antonia

145

will restore his lost innocence through a form of associa-
tion. Or perhaps his desire to ruin her is an expression
of a totally unconscious sibling rivalry, a feeling which
may be rendered as, "You basked in the love of our parents
while I was corrupted beyond redemption in a monastery."
Or even of sibling attraction in the sense that an inces-
tuous encounter can be interpreted as an extreme form of
narcissism, of pride and vanity.19

Judged with more sympathy and less psychology,
Ambrosio's attraction to Antonia can be understood simply
as a longing for a normal life, for a life with no Church
fame or prestige, but with no monastic restrictions. A
life in which sexual activity is neither criminal nor pro-
fane, but rather sacred and even holy. "What would I re-
fuse to sacrifice," asks the Monk, "could I be released
from my vows, and permitted to declare my love in sight of
earth and heaven? . . . To share in her joy when happy,
to kiss away her tears when distrest, to see her fly to
my arms for comfort and support! Yes; If there is perfect
bliss on earth, 'tis his lot alone, who becomes that
Angel's Husband" (p. 243). No matter how we finally in-

terpret Ambrosio's motivation, it is clear that his

victim's purity and innocence form the cornerstone of his

146

attraction. And thus, as long as he remains a monk, any
attempt to satisfy his lust will be inevitably self-
defeating, for innocence is not preserved through rape,
and pure love does not arise from torture. But then,
Ambrosio's entire career is blatantly self-destructive,
and as he advances from one outrage to another, it is only
a matter of time until he is discovered, exposed, and re-
pudiated.

The Monk, however, is not an optimistic novel, and
even though Ambrosio is indeed apprehended and hauled be-
fore the Inquisition, there is little sense of relief, or
feeling that justice has at last been served. Lewis's
novel features the convergence of worlds and the collision
of values which we may expect to cause upheavals of suffi-
cient force to reorder society, and to purge the universe
of evil, at least for a time. But instead of major erup-
tions which bring the expulsion of corruption and tyranny
followed by the ascension of a new and better order, we
encounter only a series of tremors, violent in nature, but
limited in scope and indiscriminate in destruction. As an
example of these tremors, Don Ramirez is successful in
arresting the Domina of St. Clare's Convent on behalf of

Lorenzo and the Inquisition. But the people of the vast

147

crowd, on whom he had depended for support, grow quickly
and wildly out of control after hearing St. Ursula's
account of Agnes's torture and apparent death. And once
again, a bold and daring plan to right the wrongs of the
Established World goes awry. On this occasion, the result
is the beating of the Domina into "a mass of flesh, un-
sightly, shapeless, and disgusting" (p. 356), the sacking
of the convent, and the murder of several nuns "who were
perfectly innocent and unconscious of the whole affair"
(p. 394).

Agnes is eventually discovered in her dungeon, and
is carried back to the living world, back to her opulent
family and her languishing lover. But the exclamation with
which she greets her liberator--"There is a God then, and
a just one!" (p. 372)--rings hollow and pathetic. For con-
current with this joyous praise of God, another completely
innocent and defenseless woman is being ravished and
slaughtered "by the side of three putrid half-corrupted
Bodies" (p. 379). And Ambrosio, the Man of Holiness who
once seemed to hold such promise, is finally corrupted,
ruined, and thoroughly brutalized by his brief stay in the
world. Tortured beyond endurance by the Inquisition, he

takes the last step, and sells his very soul to Satan,

148

only to suffer a lingering death described in terms which
seem to mock the Creation: "Six miserable days did the
Villain languish. On the Seventh a violent storm arose:
The winds in fury rent up rocks and forests: The sky was
now black with clouds, now sheeted with fire: The rain fell
in torrents; It swelled the stream; The waves overflowed
their banks; They reached the spot where Ambrosio lay, and'
when they abated carried with them into the river the

Corse of the despairing Monk" (p. 442).

Raymond and Agnes, Lorenzo and his new found Vir-
ginia manage to secure a life of happiness and tranquility,
but several innocent women and a fallen man are sacrificed
along the way. Moreover, there is no significant reform
of the established order; indeed, there is no lasting re-
demption of any kind. To emphasize this, Lewis gives us
three glimpses of the general populace, of the great
numbers of nameless people who persist through the novel.
The first view is at the very beginning of the romance when
hundreds of peOple flock to the Church of the Capuchins to
hear Ambrosio's sermon. Adopting a satirical stance, Lewis
informs us that this multitude has assembled neither from
"motives of piety," nor from "thirst of knowledge" (p. 7).

Rather they have come, with few exceptions, out of idle

149

curiosity, because of vanity's desire to be seen, or as an
escape from the boredom Of their lives. Our next encounter
with the crowd is on the night dedicated to St. Clare, on
the night during which the convent is overrun, looted, and
burned by a frenzied mob. And at the end of the novel, it
is again the general populace of Madrid, the same people
who had once adored Ambrosio as a saint, who have the final
say about the Monk. The tenor of their judgment shows
clearly that nothing has changed, that the great majority
of the world goes on as always in spite of the terror and
the horror that a few have experienced: "The story of how
a Sorcerer had been carried away by the Devil, was soon
noised about Madrid; and for some days the whole City was
employed in discussing the subject. Gradually it ceased
to be the topic of conversation: Other adventures arose
whose novelty engaged universal attention; and Ambrosio
was soon forgotten as totally, as if He never had existed"
(p. 438).

For all their differences, both Radcliffe and Lewis
attach endings to their narratives in which they retreat
from the dark views implicit in the stories that they have

told. At the conclusion of The Mysteries of Udolpho, Emily

 

is convinced that God is in Heaven, and that all is right

150

with the world. In The Monk, Lewis attempts to create a
sense of order and stability by meting out a series of pun-
ishments and rewards. Ambrosio and the Domina of St.
Clare's suffer agonizing deaths, and the Monk, at least, is
presumbly damned to Hell for eternity. Having paid the
penalty for their incontinence (though Agnes is forced to
pay by far the greater price), Raymond and Agnes are re-
stored to each other, and to happiness. Lorenzo, who was
allowed the consolation of embracing Antonia through her
dying moments, eventually finds peace with Virginia, and
his uncle is spared the difficulty of deciding whether he
would permit Lorenzo to marry an obscure young woman of
only the most modest means. Even very minor characters,
such as Flora and the nuns who voted with the Domina on the
question of how to deal with Agnes, meet their respective
rewards and punishments. But in spite of this detailed
settling of accounts, Elvira and especially Antonia remain
as stark reminders of suffering that can be neither'justi-
fied nor explained away.

Although Radcliffe fails to explain the justice of
the murder of Emily's innocent aunt, it is possible to come

away from The Mysteries of Udolpho with a degree of confi-

 

dence that the good of this world are rewarded and the evil

151

punished. The same cannot be said of The Monk, however,
for Lewis is never able to expunge completely the subtle
but very insidious pessimism that pervades his novel.~ He
can never quite dispell the impression that various forces
of the universe conspire to level out all extremes, to
expel from the world all persons who cannot be reduced to
a mean of plainness and mediocrity. Thus Antonia is too
good, too kind, and too innocent to survive, and Ambrosio's
evil is too bold and unusual to go unpunished. Indeed,
Ambrosio is subjected to this leveling process even before
he embarks on his life of sin with Matilda, for as soon as
his childhood tutors detect an extraordinary potential in
their young pupil, they begin the careful task of denying
that potential, of dragging him down to their own level.
While Lewis retains much of the pressing sense of claustro-

phobia that Radcliffe had generated in The Mysteries of

 

Udolpho, he also incorporates several panoramic views of
society at large. And it is the crowd, the great mass of
common people, that is perhaps his best symbol of the
leveling forces at work in the world. In their idleness
and boredom, the people of Madrid search unceasingly for
anything that is at all unusual or novel. Like a swarm

of locust, they descend on their prey through mindless

152

chatter or riot if need be, and never loosen their grip
until the extraordinary has been rendered average, and the
exceptional mundane.

The inclusion of society in The Monk has the effect
of spreading the evil beyond specific characters and situa-
tions in a sense that Radcliffe never attempted in Udolpho

(but that is in evidence in The Italian). The traumas that

 

Emily St. Aubert experiences, as I suggested in the last
chapter, have a spatial and temporal quality; they exist_
as a valley of shadows from which one will eventually
emerge, or as a dream from which one will awake with the
dawning of a new day. But the evil in The Monk seems much
more persistent; it seems to function in an almost cyclical
manner. Even though Ambrosio has been overcome and ex-
pelled, the forces that made his crimes possible still
endure. There will always be an established order, an
impetus for reform, and people who define their own worlds
independently of all conventions and restrictions. The
only hope for change lies in the success of those pushing
for a new and better order, but even the best of New Worlds
becomes old, reformed becomes established, and the whole
process begins once again. As long as there is great human

potential, there will be the possibility of the corruption

153

and perversion of that potential. Thus Lewis's novel seems
to suggest that there will be more mothers who are murdered,
more sisters who are polluted, and more Ambrosioes who will
stare and wonder at what they have become.

The examination of good and evil in The Monk is,
then, much more complex and detailed than that in The Mys-

teries of UdoTpho. Many shades of grey have been inter-

 

posed between the black and the white as Lewis has pre-
sented a longer and more steadfast view of the evil of
which man is capable. While Radcliffe had focused on the
transformation of the reality in Emily's mind, of the na-
ture of her internal world, Lewis centers on the transfor-
mation of physical reality, of the world out there. And
while Emily's anxious and even hysterical state of mind
makes almost anything seem possible, the destruction of the
barriers between natural and supernatural embodied in Ray-
mond's headlong ride through the night with the Bleeding
Nun makes almost anything indeed possible. Like the horses
harnessed to Raymond's carriage, the forces of normal re-
ality are out of control, and people are driven almost at
random to extremes of lust, passion, hatred, and cruelty.
When Emily discovers that she is in fact her father's

daughter, psychological ghosts are exorcised, and her world

154

is set to rights. But when Ambrosio learns the truth of
his parentage, the horror and darkness of the world become
thicker and more inescapable. The mere fact that a few
members of the younger generation are able to secure their
happiness does little to ease the violence done to others.
And the fact that these young people (like Radcliffe's
Emily) have little understanding of what they have been
through, and only a slight appreciation for the meaning of
their victory cancels much of this last remaining hope.

In spite of its dark and murky View, Matthew Lewis's The
Methis a remarkable novel, and a story of great interest
and energy. Finally, The Monk stands as an implicit chal-
lenge asking Ann Radcliffe to look again, to peer more
deeply into the recesses of the Gothic world that she had

worked so hard to create.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE ITALIAN: A STRUGGLE TO

 

RESPOND: THE FINAL FORM

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 And
Matthew Lewis, with the bold violence and sensuality of
The Monk, broadened the subject matter of the Gothic ro-
mance, 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 look-
ing forward to the release of Radcliffe's next novel, and
George Robinson was willing to pay her¢£800 for the right

to publish it.2 Although The Italian, or the Confessional

 

 

of the Black Penitents seems never to have achieved quite

 

the popularity of The Mysteries of UdoTpho, it was indeed
successful with the reading public, and even more so with

the critics. While some have preferred The Mysteries of .

 

Udolpho, and a few The Romance of the Forest, the majority

 

155

156

of literary critics and scholars in Ann Radcliffe's own
day, and particularly in the twentieth century, have

praised The Italian as her masterpiece.

 

Inasmuch as The Italian was published shortly after

 

the release of The Monk, comparisons between the two are
perhaps inevitable. Moreover, the plot and characters of

The Italian clearly invite such analysis. "In The Italian,"

 

says Clara McIntyre, "the dominating power is the Church;
and the figure of Schedoni--sinister, mysterious, and ap-
parently austere, but inwardly depraved--is not unlike
Lewis' conception of his Monk."3 Writing with less equivo-
cation, Ernest Baker states plainly that "Schedoni is man-
ifestly conceived in rivalry to . . . Ambrosio."4 Edith
Birkhead also points to the likenesses between Schedoni and
Ambrosio, and then cites additional similarities: "The
dramatic scene where Schedoni stealthily approaches the
sleeping Ellena at midnight recalls the more highly col-
oured, but less impressive scene in Antonia's bedchamber.
The fate of Bianchi, Ellena's aunt, is strangely reminiscent

5 Schedoni and Am-

of that of Elvira, Antonia's mother."
brosio, however, are as different as they are similar, and

to say simply that Radcliffe "undertook to rub out [The

Monk] by bowdlerizing the work in her next book, The

157

Italian,"6 is no more accurate than to say that The Monk is

nothing more than an imitation of The Mysteries of Udolphe,

 

Thus, the similarities most Often cited between The Monk

and The Italian are important not really for what they tell

 

us about either novel, but rather as indicators of a deeper
and more substantive exchange between Radcliffe and Lewis.
The debate in which these two Gothic writers en-
gaged through their novels can be outlined as follows: In
composing her first three romances, Radcliffe worked dili-
gently to create a narrative form which would center on the
physical, mental, and psychological struggle between two
persons. As the form developed, the role of the heroine
as victim became increasingly dominant, and the nature of
her conflict with villain became ever more exclusively
psychological and sexual. The strong air of confidence and

satisfaction which permeates The Mysteries of UdoTpho sug-

 

gests that Radcliffe felt that she had finally brought her
Gothic narrative to its fullest and most meaningful expres-
sion. ButtflmnlMatthew Lewis, fascinated by Udolpho and
anxious to establish a literary reputation of his own, com-
posed a romance in the Gothic vein which seems to suggest
that while Radcliffe's novels are interesting, their view

of the human personality and of man's capacity for evil is

158

Oversimplified and unjustifiably optimistic. Finally, in
her next novel, and the last to be published in her life-
time, Radcliffe undertook to fashion a reply to Lewis's

implicit criticisms, but a reply that was to be rendered
in her own terms. Had The Monk never been written, it is
conceivable that Radcliffe would have broken off her lit-

erary career somewhat earlier, allowing The Mysteries of

 

Udolpho to stand as her final word. Or if she had pub-
lished another romance in the absence of The Monk, it would

surely have been much closer to Udolpho than to The Italian.

 

But while Lewis's novel may have made The Italian possible

 

in a sense (in much the same sense that Udolpho made The
Mehh possible), it is nonetheless a distinctly Radcliffean
romance. Much more than simply a proper and decorous ver-
sion of The Monk, Radcliffe's last novel is an attempt to
present an objective and thoroughgoing View of evil in the
world without falling into either the oversimplifications

of The Mysteries of Udolpho, or the sensationalistic and

 

brutal outlook of The Monk.

The manner in which Radcliffe chose to respond to
Lewis's challenge to her view of man and evil can be ex-
plored by comparing The Italian not only to The Monk, but

to her own earlier novels as well. The handling of

159

characters and roles in The Italian, for instance, repre-

 

sents an unmistakable departure from her established prac-
tice, for the movement toward a heroine-centered romance,

which had culminated in The Mysteries of Udolpho, is

 

largely reversed. While Ellena di Rosalba is clearly the
heroine of her romance, she is not nearly so dominant as
either Emily St. Aubert, or Adeline in The Romance of the
Forest. Indeed, Ellena is not even the most important

character in The Italian, for that distinction is reserved

 

for Schedoni. In answer to Lewis's use of Ambrosio, a
character that he developed from the potential that he had
sensed in Montoni, Radcliffe created a fully realized hero-
villain of her own, and cast him in the central role of her
last novel.7 To complement this hero-villain, she went

back to A Sicilian Romance and brought the lascivious

 

Marchioness forward as the rounded and very effective vil-
lainess embodied in Vivaldi's mother, the Marchesa. And
at the same time that the importance of the heroine was
decreased, the role of the hero was enlarged and revital-
ized. As a result, Ellena and Vivaldi play roles of
approximately equal importance, but each is nonetheless

carefully subordinated to the character of Schedoni.

160

This reworking of roles makes The Italian much more

 

complex, and perhaps more interesting, than The Mysteries

 

of Udolpho, because it opens the narrative to a much

 

broader range of possibilities. No longer are we limited
to following the experiences of a lone heroine as she at-
tempts to deal with problems arising first from one source,
and then another. Instead, we are given extended views of
the hero-villain's relationships with the villainess, the
heroine, and the hero. Each interaction is important in
itself, and yet all three are woven tightly into the struc-
ture of the plot. While the relationship between Ellena
and Vivaldi is similar to that between Emily and Valancourt,

the couple in The Italian spends more time together, and

 

yet the danger that each must face alone creates a deeper
and more meaningful bond between them. And whereas Emily
is only one of Montoni's many concerns and may never actu-
ally be in as much danger as she often thinks she is,
Vivaldi and particularly Ellena are the sole objects of
Schedoni's considerable powers of persecution, and Ellena,
at least, comes perilously close to being murdered.

These are the more Obvious ways in which Radcliffe
altered her established form, and it seems likely that many

of these changes were indeed made in response to how Lewis

161

had handled his characters in The Monk. To this extent,
Clara McIntyre's speculation that Radcliffe, having noted
Lewis's success, "might have thought it worth while to
attempt a study in the same field" seems reasonable.8 But

a less obvious, although more significant difference be-

tween The Mysteries of Udolpho and The Italian is found in

 

 

the objectivity and detachment of the narrator. One of

the greatest disappointments in Udolpho is Emily's apparent
failure to learn from her experiences, and to become a more
tolerant, understanding, and simply wiser person as a re-
sult of what she has been through. But even more distres-
sing is that Radcliffe herself seems completely unaware of
this failing in her heroine. Never does she give any indi-
cation that Emily should have changed in response to the
unusual traumas she has endured, and never does she hint
that Emily's feelings through the last section of the novel
are in any way inappropriate. It seems, in short, that
Radcliffe had worked so hard to merge her point of view
with Emily's mentality that she is finally unable to break
free and to achieve the distance necessary to provide mean—
ingful comment on her heroine's lack of growth.

In narrating The Italian, however, Radcliffe avoids

 

this problem by keeping her own point of view carefully

162

divorced from those of her characters. Her decision to
focus alternately on several characters, and especially
to divide the role of victim between Ellena and Vivaldi,
allows her to retain an effective distance, and keeps her
from being identified too closely with any one character.
Interestingly, the more irrational characteristics which
had been attributed to Emily in Udolpho are assigned in

The Italian, not to Ellena, but to Vivaldi. A tendency

 

toward superstition, a habit of rushing to unfounded con-
clusions, and an unpredictable impetuosity are features of
Vivaldi's personality, as they were of Emily's. But before

the conclusion of The Italian, Vivaldi is made embarras-

 

singly, and pointedly, aware that he has displayed these
weaknesses. Ellena, then, never becomes quite so hysterical
as Emily, but at the same time, she is not subjected to the
severe, calculated, and prolonged psychological torture

that Emily encounters at theCastle of Udolpho. The dangers
that Ellena faces are more immediate and physical, and the
method that Radcliffe gives her to deal with them shows
significant growth in the author, if not in the heroine.
Moreover, in presenting the characters of Schedoni and the
Marchesa, Radcliffe shows that she has also learned how to

construct a convincing account of internal personalities

163

without relinquishing her narrative integrity. Schedoni
may well be her most striking and complex character, and
yet it is clear that she has retained her detachment and
objectivity in the process of creating him.

It is doubtful for several reasons that Radcliffe
could have learned these lessons simply by reading The’
Mehh. First, Lewis's own point of view is quite various:
at the opening of his romance, he adopts a broadly satiric
stance which implies considerable detachment, but this dis-
tance is soon collapsed as the satiric pose is employed
only briefly and intermittently through the remainder of
the novel. Raymond's lengthy tale is related exclusively
in the first person. And Lewis himself allows Raymond and
Agnes to go blithely on with their lives, in spite of their
extraordinary and tortuous experiences, and in spite of the
fate that they know Antonia to have suffered. Second,
Lewis and Radcliffe, for all their similarities, approach
Gothic narrative through two very different methods. Rad-
cliffe proceeds through subtle indirection, while Lewis's
technique is to shock through Open and very graphic de-
scriptions. The terrors of Radcliffe's world frequently
lurk beneath the surface and are present to the reader

largely through implication; those of Lewis's world stare

164

the reader in the eye and scream in his face.9 Finally,
there are slight but important variations in the focus of
each of the three novels in the sequence that we have been
considering. As a heroine-centered romance, The Mysteries

of UdoTpho emphasizes the reactions of a young woman to

 

prolonged and essentially sexual anxiety. Leaving the

heroine behind, The Monk looks at the perversion of an in-
herently good, and potentially great man, and then focuses
on his subsequent fall from authority and innocence to sin

and corruption. The primary interest of The Italian, how-

 

ever, is not in how a good man becomes evil; rather it

focuses on the fascination and grandeur of "a man called

father Schedoni," and particularly on the workings of his
10

brilliant but evil mind.

Whether or not The Italian is singled out as Rad-

 

cliffe's best novel, Schedoni is praised almost universally
as her most interesting and memorable character.ll Nearly
from the beginning of the romance to its conclusion,
Schedoni controls the action, influences other characters,
and occupies the reader's attention even more completely
than does Ambrosio. Unlike The Monk, there are no inter-
polated tales in which Schedoni is not involved, andeven

in those segments in which he is not physically present,

165

such as the section describing Ellena's confinement to the
convent of San Stefano, the power of his maneuvering is
invariably perceived. Like Montoni, Schedoni's chief char-
acteristics are his air of mystery, his strength of will,
and his keenness of intellect. His monastic brethren know
nothing of his past or family, and, given "his severe
reserve and unconquerable silence," they can only specu-
late that he is afflicted either by "a haughty and dis-
ordered spirit," or by ”some hideous crime gnawing upon
an awakened conscience" (p. 34). He is in the habit of
coming and going at intervals, and although he is watched,
”there were times when it was unknown whither he had re-
tired." As for his mental faculties, some brothers "said
that he had talents, but denied him learning; they ap-
plauded him for the profound subtlety which he occasionally
discovered in argument, but observed that he seldom per-
ceived truth when it lay on the surface" (p. 34).
In outward appearance, Schedoni is certainly an

imposing personage:

His figure was striking, but not so from grace;

it was tall, and, though extremely thin, his

limbs were large and uncouth, and as he stalked

along, wrapt in the black garments of his order,

there was something terrible in its air; some-

thing almost super-human. His cowl, too, as it
threw a shade over the livid paleness of his

166

face, encreased its severe character, and gave
an effect to his large melancholy eye, which
approached to horror. His was not the melan-
choly of a sensible and wounded heart, but
apparently that of a gloomy and ferocious dis-
position. There was something in his phys-

’ iognomy extremely singular, and that can not
easily be defined. It bore the traces of many
passions, which seemed to have fixed the fea-
tures they no longer animated (pp. 34-35).

From this first description, Schedoni may seem to be a copy
of Montoni or Ambrosio, but as his personality develops,
his individuality becomes apparent. One difference is that
while Ambrosio is initially innocent at least in deed,
Schedoni (and perhaps Montoni) has commited several crimes

long before the opening time of The Italian, and is there-

 

fore beyond society and the law from the outset. Moreover,

at the opening of The Monk, Ambrosio already occupies the

 

very kind of high position in the Church toward which all
of Schedoni's efforts are exerted. Consequently, Ambrosio
is urged to commit his crimes by desires of the flesh,
while Schedoni seems to feel few carnal impulses, and is
driven instead by pride and avarice. Because of his
voluptuous personality, Ambrosio's throughts and emotions
run out of control almost from the moment that he first
discovers that Rosario is a young and beautiful woman.

But one of Schedoni's foremost characteristics is the

167

strong and careful control that he attempts to maintain
over mind and body at all times. After once experiencing
the delights of sexual intercourse, Ambrosio comes to
live for the body and for pleasure; Schedoni, however,
does his best to deny the body and to repress all feeling.
This asceticism is represented neatly by the "several in-
struments of torture" that Vivaldi finds in the Confessor's
cell, and by the report that Schedoni is "severe in his
devotion, and in self-punishment terrible beyond the reach
of" any of his brethren (pp. 102 and 105).

We can also note again that The Monk and The
Italian ultimately have different centers of interest. The
emphasis in Lewis's romance is more on how Ambrosio comes
to be evil, and to that end, we are given careful descrip-
tions of his perverting education and of the strange cir—
cumstances that unite to bring him to the point of incest
and murder. Schedoni's evil, however, is presented largely
as a given, and Radcliffe then concentrates on how his evil
influences his thoughts and actions. As a result, Schedoni
is not so clearly victimized as is Ambrosio, and his evil
is not so obviously self-destructive. As Frederick Garber
has observed, "the villains do not . . . share the same

sins, and at this point of divergence the monks of Lewis

168

and Mrs. Radcliffe reveal an ultimate difference in outlook.

Schedoni wants power and status (and the wealth that comes

with them) but Ambrosio's passions are self-destructive and
12

have no other goal than immediate gratification." Fi-

nally, bringing The Mysteries of Udolpho back into consi-

 

deration, we can see that Schedoni is closer to Montoni
than to Ambrosio. Thus it seems that Radcliffe began with
the outline of her first Italian, and developed him into
the strong, fully rounded, and dominant figure of her
second. Montoni, then, may well have provided the inspira-
tion for Ambrosio, but he is the direct forebear of
Schedoni.

In keeping with her intention of clarifying her
Gothic view, Radcliffe makes the central conflict of The
Italian much more clear and specific than it is in any of
the earlier romances: Vivaldi, the only son of a noble,
wealthy, and proud family, has fallen in love with and
wishes to marry Ellena di Rosalba, a young woman of lower
rank and only modest means. Even in his love-stricken
state, Vivaldi recognizes that Ellena's family "was of such
a condition as rendered the consent of his parents to a
marriage with her unattainable" (p. 12). And further, he

finds it difficult "to believe that she would condescend

169

to enter a family who disdained to receive her" (p. 14).
In spite of his awareness of his parents' displeasure,
Vivaldi continues his pursuit of Ellena, but when he
presses his suit to her guardian aunt, he is told quite
plainly that "though Signora di Rosalba is [the Vivaldi's]
inferior in rank, she is their equal in pride" (p. 24).

To further complicate this situation, the Marchese, who is
by far the more reasonable and considerate of Vivaldi's
parents, is greatly prejudiced against Ellena by reports
that she is an abandoned and conniving woman who is at-
tempting to trick or blackmail his infatuated son into
marriage. Finally, the Marchesa, who needs no false or
misleading information to conceive an inveterate hatred
of Ellena, is willing to adopt the most drastic measures
to keep her son from marrying the woman he loves.

"The mother of Vivaldi, descended from a family as
ancient as that of his father," says Radcliffe, "was
equally jealous of her importance; but her pride was that
of birth and distinction, without extending to morals.

She was of violent passions, haughty, vindictive, yet
crafty and deceitful; patient in stratagem, and indefati-
gable in pursuit of vengeance, on the unhappy objects who

provoked her resentment. She loved her son," Radcliffe

170

concludes, "rather as being the last of two illustrious
houses, who was to re-unite and support the honour of both,
than with the fondness of a mother" (pp. 7-8). While the
Marchese expresses his disapproval of Vivaldi's attachment
through open and angry confrontation, the Marchesa learns
more of her son's thoughts and affections through subtle
and indirect questioning. And while the Marchese feels
that he can do little more than threaten disinheritance as
the consequence of disobedience, the Marchesa, "despairing
to effect [her designs] by open violence . . . called in an
auxiliary of no mean talents, and whose character and views
well adapted him to be an instrument in her hands" (p. 33).
This auxiliary, of course, is Father Schedoni, and in the
several exchanges between the Marchesa and her Confessor,
we are presented not only with some of Radcliffe's very
best writing, but also with her most detailed and convinc-
ing examination of the evil mind.

During their first meeting, Schedoni and the Mar-
chesa merely discuss "the means of accomplishing their
general end" (p. 35). The motivation of each party is clear
and straightforward at this point: the Marchesa wants
simply to prevent a marriage between her son and Ellena,

while Schedoni is anxious to help her achieve this end in

171

the expectation that she will use her influence at court to
obtain his promotion to "a high benefice" (p. 35). Even
before this consultation, Schedoni has employed an agent to
deliver slanderous reports of Ellena's background to the
Marchese, and to enjoin Vivaldi not to visit his beloved--
"Go not to the villa Altieri," warns the mysterious monk
before slipping into the murky gloom of nearby ruins (PP.
13, 15, and 41). When these relatively mild measures prove
ineffectual, Schedoni and the Marchesa meet again, agree
that their efforts "should no longer be confined to remon-
strances," and determine to have Ellena carried off to an
obscure convent. It is also during this second meeting
that their relationship begins to become more complex:
"During the warmth of this sympathy of resentment," says
Radcliffe, "the Marchesa and Schedoni mutually, and sin-
cerely, lost their remembrance of the unworthy motives, by
which each knew the other to be influenced, as well as that
disgust which those who act together to the same bad end,
can seldom escape from feeling towards their associates"
(pp. 53-54). With this loss of awareness, the conspirators
begin to move closer together, at the same time that their
plotting begins to move beyond practical motivational con-

cerns, and to leave behind accepted social and moral

172

considerations. Their conspiracy, in short, is beginning
to become a thing apart; it is beginning to take on mean-
ing and interest in and of itself.

As soon as he discovers that Ellena has been ab-
ducted, Vivaldi suspects that his mother's confessor is
involved. Even though he has no actual proof of Schedoni's
culpability, he searches him out in the convent of Spirito
Santo and accuses him of the kidnapping. When Schedoni
does not answer this charge or even acknowledge his pres-
ence, Vivaldi becomes increasingly incensed and frustrated.
Failing to understand that the monk is engaged in an act
of penance through silent meditation, Vivaldi exclaims,
"What means this mummery?" (p. 103). And when he has run
out of patience and has no idea of what to say or do next,
he stumbles onto hints provided by Paulo's rambling story
of a strong confession: "'Speak! Answer me,'" he demands,
"'or dread what I may unfold. Yet silent! Do you know the

convent del Pianto? Do you know the confessional of the

 

Black Penitents?'" (p. 105). These questions, which seem

 

to cloak such knowledge, are finally enough to rouse
Schedoni who fixes his eyes on Vivaldi and curses him with
great force before rushing out of the church: "'Avaunt!‘

cried he in a tremendous voice; 'avaunt! sacrilegious boy!

173

Tremble for the consequence of thy desperate impiety!'"
(p. 105).

In spite of this show of bravado, Schedoni is
deeply unsettled by the implications of Vivaldi's queries,
and he is convinced at first that the Marchesa also knows
of his previous crimes. Thus, when he is summoned to a
third interview at the Vivaldi Palace, Radcliffe describes
his appearance in terms which epitomize the Gothic villain:
"His visage was wan and wasted, his eyes were sunk and be-
come nearly motionless, and his whole air and attitudes
exhibited the wild energy of something-~not of this earth"
(p. 110). While he is soon relieved to discover that the
Marchesa, at least, is apparently ignorant of his past,
his interest in her affairs is greatly increased, and his
motivation is now much more personal and complicated.
First, he must continue to worry about the actual extent
of Vivaldi's knowledge, and should it prove necessary, he
must be prepared to protect himself against damaging dis-
closures. Moreover, because of his implacable nature,
Schedoni now desires to revenge the public insults to which
Vivaldi has subjected him. And finally, he must think of
a way to settle his personal dispute with Vivaldi without

angering his intended benefactress. For these reasons,

 

174

Schedoni is not prepared to suggest any specific actions
during their third conference, but he is able to probe the
Marchesa's attitude toward her son, and to insinuate that
it may be necessary to adopt measures against Vivaldi as
well as Ellena. He begins by complaining indirectly about
the "horrible impiety" of which Vivaldi has been guilty,
and when the Marchesa entreats him to "speak explicitly" so
that she can show that she is able to "lose the mother in
the strict severity of the judge," he recounts the incident
at Spirito Santo in exaggerated and invented terms (p. 111%
"The Marchesa," we are told, "listened to the relation with
no less indignation than surprize, and her readiness to
adopt the confessor's advice allowed him to depart with
renovated spirits and most triumphant hopes" (p. 112).

By the time of their next and most important meet-
ing, the Marchesa has received word that Vivaldi has dis-
covered Ellena's place of confinement, and that they have
succeeded in escaping from the convent. Schedoni can see
immediately that the Marchesa is furious even to distrac-
tion in the belief that her son is already married and lost
forever. Sensing that she is filled with despair as well
as anger, he allows her to continue to believe that Vivaldi

is indeed married, for he feels that he will then be able

 

175

to enjoy his revenge without alienating the Marchesa. In
addition, Schedoni has determined to accomplish his various
ends by proposing, with great subtlety and indirection,
that Ellena be murdered. While this plan is certainly
cold-blooded, the reasoning behind it is also very logical,
for if Schedoni can bring the Marchesa to agree to the
murder of Ellena, he will then have made her an accessory
to a heinous crime. This, he feels, will enable him to
extort whatever power or position he may desire, and also
to proceed with impunity against Vivaldi. Even in her
agitated state, however, the Marchesa is not easily led,
and Schedoni must make use of all his powers of insinua-
tion, flattery, and SOphistry to achieve his goal.

When this situation is viewed impartially and in
the light of familiar or normal morality, its nightmarish
aspects become clear, for what began as a simple, and even
understandable attempt to keep a romantic and headstrong
young man from marrying to disadvantage has evolved rapidly
into a complex and almost demented plot to commit murder.
While Schedoni's methods are indeed cruel, they are also,
as I have suggested, quite logical--we need only recall the
recommendations of that other Italian, of Niccolo Machia-

velli, to understand why he proceeds as he does. But the

176

motivations of the Marchesa are much more difficult to com-
prehend fully. Even though she is a vindictive woman, it
is difficult to believe that she would resort to murder
merely because she thinks that her son's intended marriage
is imprudent. Because of this disparity between the mag- h
nitude of the crime that she contemplates and her overt P

reason for considering it, the Marchesa is quite probably

 

influenced by other, less apparent motives. From a psycho- 53
logical viewpoint, for instance, it is tempting to conclude ,
that the Marchesa is the victim of a subconscious sexual
attraction to her son, and that she will therefore go to
great extremes to prevent him from marrying any woman.
There is, however, absolutely no indication in Radcliffe's
text that this is the case; indeed, when "the father of a
lady, who was held suitable in every consideration" pro-
poses a union between Vivaldi and his daughter, the Mar-
chesa shows no disapproval whatsoever (p. 165).

Yet, from another point of view, the Marchesa
clearly is involved in plotting to commit murder from other
motives in addition to the anger and disappointment that
she feels at her son's choice of mates. One indication of
this is the great care that Radcliffe takes to show that

the discussions between Schedoni and the Marchesa have been

177

largely abstracted from the reality about which they are
supposedly concerned. Thus, Radcliffe states plainly, as
I have already noted, that the conspirators "mutually, and

sincerely, lost their remembrance of the unworthy motives,

 

by which each knew the other to be influenced" (p. 53, my
italics). Schedoni, of course, is aware of the advantage,
and perhaps even the necessity, of insulating his accom-
plice from the brutal reality of their meditations. And

as the measures that they consider become ever more serious
and savage, he increases his efforts to isolate the Mar-
chesa--and even himself--from the image of a young and
innocent woman groaning in the agony of death.

As a result of this abstraction, the exchanges be-
tween Schedoni and the Marchesa become, in effect, a con-
test of will and intellect in which each participant at-
tempts to minimize his own involvement, and seemingly his
own guilt, while hoping to maximize that of his opponent.
As this contest becomes more complex, and hence more chal-
lenging, it finally becomes possible to speak of the
quality of one's performance almost entirely without refer-
ence to any other structure of values. In these exchanges,
then, Radcliffe is elaborating on the game in which Emily

and Montoni were engaged, and in the process, she presents

178

the reader with a striking instance of the confusion be-
tween means and ends: while the plotting is intended to
lead ultimately to Ellena's death, the game itself is so
fascinating that its relationship to the real world is
quickly forgotten by the participants. In short, playing
the game becomes a motive in itself, as it generates an
excitement and an intensity that are comparable to those
of a sexual encounter. Both Schedoni and the Marchesa
clearly enjoy their intricate and subtle maneuverings,
much as Emily and Montoni seem to have enjoyed their re-
peated confrontations.

The debate on whether to murder Ellena can easily
be identified as the pivotal episode of The Italian.
Structurally, this consultation, which actually consists
of two separate meetings on successive days, spans two
chapters very near the middle of the romance (Vol. II,
Chs. 3 and 4). By accounting for the Marchesa's belief in
the need for more drastic measures, the developments of
the first half of the novel lead up to this extended con-
versation, and the plan of action which is finally agreeed
upon during this conference prepares the way for the events
of the remainder of the narrative. Moreover, it is also

during this meeting that the contest between Schedoni and

179

the Marchesa is carried to its highest and most fascinating
level.

The Marchesa's exact reasons for calling Schedoni
to this all-important conference are not entirely clear:
on one hand, Radcliffe says that the Marchesa now believed
her son to be "irrecoverably lost," but on the other hand,
we are also told that she wished to examine "whether there
remained a possibility of dissolving these long-dreaded
nuptials" (pp. 165-66). In either case, it seems doubtful
that she has contemplated murder on her own, and perhaps
her greatest desire is simply to achieve "the relief of
expressing her emotions." Schedoni, however, almost cer-
tainly has murder in mind from the outset, and it is he
who begins the game when he responds to the Marchesa's
despair by placing a tentative suggestion in play, only to
withdraw it almost immediately:

"Perhaps that is affirming too much,"

observed Schedoni.
"How, father!" said the Marchesa.
"Perhaps a possibility does remain,"
said he.
"Point it out to me, good father! I do
not perceive it."
"Nay, my lady," replied the subtle Schedoni,

correcting himself, "I am by no means assured,
that such possibility does exist" (p. 167).

180

Although the Marchesa clearly wishes him to commit himself
with a specific suggestion, Schedoni refuses to do so, and
instead, concludes the first exchange by maintaining flatly
that "There is no remedy” (p. 168).

It then falls to the Marchesa to open the second
exchange, and she does so by lamenting that there is no
"law to prevent, or, at least, to punish such criminal
marriages" (p. 168). This time around, Schedoni plays
along, and even asserts that death is the appropriate pun-
ishment for a crime such as Ellena's. At first, the Mar-
chesa responds favorably and insists that she has "a man's
courage," but she soon wavers and is forced to admit that
"some woman's weakness still lingers at [her] heart" (pp.
168-69). Exceedingly sensitive to implication, Schedoni
takes this as a hint, and withdraws his suggestion for a
second time. The Marchesa is forced to open yet another
exchange, and although she gives Schedoni several broad
opportunities to repeat his advice, he again refuses to do
so. As a result, the Marchesa, recognizing by now that she
has been badly outmaneuvered, has no choice but to repeat
the advice herself: Is it not your opinion, she asks,
"that justice, equally with necessity, demands--her life?"

But Schedoni is determined to secure victory at this point,

 

181

and replies only that he "may have erred" before insisting
that he must depart at once to attend an important mass

(p. 170). The Marchesa is obviously anxious to decide upon
a definite course of action, but since Schedoni insists on
delaying any decision, she can do no more than to arrange
for another meeting on the following evening. The Confessor
then leaves "with the silent footstep, that indicates wear-
iness and conscious duplicity," while the Marchesa remains
in her room, "shaken by ever-varying passions, and ever-
fluctuating opinions" (p. 171).

With the dusk of evening rapidly gathering, the
second half of this great game transpires in the gloomy
north cloister of the church of San Nicolo. One of the
most interesting aspects of this entire affair is that,
in spite of all their talk and maneuvering, each partici-
pant seems to have decided independently on Ellena's murder
through the small hours of the intervening night. Never-
theless, the Marchesa adopts a passive role, and indicates
that she wishes Schedoni to lead her once again through
argument to conclusion. With his characteristic genius,
Schedoni begins by attributing his own suggestion of the
previous day to the Marchesa: "One way, only, remains for

you to pursue, in the present instance," says he. "It is

182

the same which your superior sagacity pointed out, and
taught me to approve" (p. 172). But with continued caution,
the Marchesa pleads indecision, and thereby forces Schedoni
to reiterate the discussion in detail. He first presents
the argument from law and then goes on tOuthatfrom.virtue,
although each is, of course, twisted to the point of com-
plete inversion. Finally, the Confessor concludes his
presentation with careful euphemism and high rhetoric:

”she is sent to an eternal sleep, before her time.-——Where
is the crime, where is the evil of this? On the contrary,
you perceive, and you have convinced me, that it is only
strict justice, only self-defence" (p. 173).

The Marchesa, however, still does not express an
opinion on the act of murder itself; rather she asks
Schedoni to explain the particulars of how such a plan may
be carried out. Thus, by skipping from the question of
"whether" to a consideration of "how," the Marchesa allows
the fact of murder to come into existence as a foregone
conclusion without ever having to approve it directly. At
this point, her insulation from the reality of the crime
is almost impenetrable, and she therefore takes the offen-
sive by attempting, also for Machiavellian reasons, to

bring Schedoni to agree to commit the murder himself. But

183

as he begins to sketch a disjointed outline of how the deed
may be accomplished, it becomes apparent that the main
business of the meeting is finished, and that the conspir-
ators have now slipped into private reveries.

Schedoni mentions "one poor man, who sustains a
miserable existence by fishing" and "a lone dwelling on
the beach," which we later discover to be the agent and
scene of his former crime. As he is captured by this
memory, he begins to speak in fragments and to mutter as
if he is talking more to himself than to his fellow con-
spirator. But this makes little difference, for the Mar-
chesa is caught up in her own thoughts which tend solely
toward the deed which she has been contemplating. She
notices an "inscription over a Confessional, where appeared,
in black letters, these awful words, 'God hears thee!'"
She then detects the "low and querulous notes of an organ,"
and presently, the "slow chaunting of voices" (pp. 176-77).
Finally she recognizes with great emotion that "it is a
first requiem; the soul has but just quitted the body!"
These circumstances are almost too much, and "her breath-
ings," we are told, "were short and interrupted." She
leaves the Confessor and walks alone until, at long last,

she indulges in a full release of tension and emotion: The

184

Marchesa "wept without restraint," while Schedoni exclaims
to himself, "Behold, what is woman!" (p. 177).

In attaining the insight and detachment necessary
to compose this scene, Radcliffe shows how far she has come
as an author since The Mysteries of Udolpho. No longer is
she unaware of the failings of her characters, or uncon-
scious of the implications of her material. Furthermore,
it seems quite likely that Radcliffe designed this inter-
course between Schedoni and the Marchesa specifically to,
parallel the relationship between Ambrosio and Matilda,
and thereby to answer, in large part, Lewis's challenge to
the validity of her Gothic view. And this answer consists
quite simply of demonstrating, with great skill and force,
that the sexuality which is so perversive in The Monk is
not the only foundation on which guilt and obscenity can
be constructed.

While there is certainly no evidence that Schedoni
and the Marchesa engage in literal sexual activity, they
clearly are involved in a form of intellectual adultery,
in an affair which is strikingly similar to an illicit
sexual association.l3 Consider, for instance, the intimate
relationship that they share, and notice that the Marchese,

the husband, is carefully and repeatedly barred from their

185

consultations (pp. 35, 112, 166, and 172). Notice that the
Marchesa tells Schedoni that she wishes to "converse on the
subject nearest [her] heart, and without observation"

(p. 170). And mark her admission that her "only relief"
comes from consulting with Schedoni, and her insistence
that he is her "only counsellor," her "only disinterested
friend" (p. 172). Moreover, looking at their conference
which extended through two days, we find several specific
parallels: On the first day, they meet in the Marchesa's
chambers, and Schedoni's deliberately convoluted talk of
murder works his partner into a highly impassioned state.
But when he feels that her excitement is intense, he
breaks off the discussion abruptly and without a conclu-
sion, thus leaving the Marchesa "agitated and perplexed"
(p. 170). As a result, it is almost in desperation that
she hastily arranges what can only be described as a tryst
for the following evening. And during this rendezvous,
Schedoni follows through on his designs, and their plans
are finally consummated in the resolve that Ellena will
die. As in a sexual encounter, their conversations are
filled with flattery, and they repeatedly stroke each
other, not with touch, but with words. Each knows what

the other wants, but both maneuver at length to avoid

 

186

initiating the last act. And when they finally arrive at
a definite decision, it has been so finely argued and
achieved through such subtlety that it is impossible to
say that either is more guilty than the other.

The relationship between Schedoni and the Marchesa
continues to carry sexual overtones even after they have
determined on Ellena's death, and have been separated for
some time. Having failed to carry out his criminal mission,
Schedoni returns reluctantly to the Marchesa, who fully
expects to hear that her desires have been satisfied, and
that Ellena is dead. Indeed, the anxiety of waiting for
this report seems to have made the Marchesa all but phys-
ically ill. After describing the magnificant and volup-
tuous decor of her chambers, Radcliffe turns to a descrip-
tion of the Villainess herself:

The Marchesa reclined on a sofa before an open
lattice; her eyes were fixed upon the prospect
without, but her attention was wholly occupied
by the visions that evil passions painted to
her imagination. On her still beautiful fea-
tures was the languor of discontent and indis-
position; and, though her manners, like her
dress, displayed the elegant negligence of the
graces, they concealed the movements of a
careful, and even a tortured heart. On per-
ceiving Schedoni, a faint smile lightened upon
her countenance, and she held forth her hand

to him; at the touch of which he shuddered
(p. 292).

187

Schedoni and the Marchesa then exchange a series of flat-
tering amenities, which is followed by an embarrassed
silence as "neither of the parties seemed to have suffi-
cient courage to introduce the subjects that engaged their
thoughts" (p. 292). Schedoni is desperately attempting
to hide his emotions and to think of a graceful and plaus-
ible way to confess that he has not consummated their
designs after all. And in perhaps the clearest terms
that she ever uses, Radcliffe describes the implicitly
sexual nature of the Marchesa's intimate involvement with
this man and their plot to commit murder:

Had Schedoni been less occupied by his own

feelings, he might have perceived the extreme

agitation of the Marchesa, the tremor of her

nerves, the faint flush that crossed her cheek,

the wanness that succeeded, the languid move- _

ment of her eyes, and the laborious sighs that

interrupted her breathing, while she wished,

yet dared not ask, whether Ellena was no more,

and averted her regards from him, whom she

almost believed to be a murderer (pp. 292-93).
Clearly, then, the Marchesa's reaction to the presence of
Schedoni is very similar to that of a coy and beautiful
woman longing yet dreading to receive her lover to her bed.

By drawing a parallel between two kinds, or perhaps

two sources, of guilt--one based in the illicit sexual af-

fair between Ambrosio and Matilda, and the other located

 

188

in a conspiracy to commit murder--Radcliffe has delineated

one level of meaning. A second level of meaning is estab-

lished by the association between two kinds of obscenity,

for the depravity which pervades the image of a monk copu-

lating in his cell with a woman who has been linked to the :1
Madonna is rivaled by that in the image of a Confessor and E‘F

his Penitent plotting in the House of God to murder an E
i

 

innocent woman.l4 With these two images in mind, we can 9}
understand the Marchesa's motivation, or the basis of her i
desire to have Ellena murdered, in greater detail. As we

have seen, her initial and practical motive of wishing to

keep Ellena from becoming Vivaldi's wife tends to get

lost in her exciting maneuvers with Schedoni. But given

the circumstances surrounding her rendezvous with the Con-

fessor in the Church of San-Nicolo, it seems that the

Marchesa is feeling still other attractions and even more

perverse desires. It seems, in general, that she is ex-

periencing an almost irresistible temptation to become

involved in the performance of that which is absolutely

forbidden. Specifically, she seems to derive a demented

form of excitement from the thought of exercising absolute

power--the power of life and death--over another persOn.

And to plot all of this in the very presence of God, and

189

at the same time that a Mass for the Dead is being cele-
brated, provides a union of fascination and terror, of

attraction and perversion that is so strong that the Mar-
chesa can scarcely endure it. With its great complexity
of passion and neurosis, the relationship between Schedoni '1
and the Marchesa is quite possibly Radcliffe's most subtle “1
and successful creation. And it is undoubtedly the best

example of her technique of implication and indirection, j

 

and of her practice of veiling deep-seated corruption with
the semblance of reason and decorum.

Another crucial relationship, and one which is
equally subtle if not quite so complex, is that between
the villain and the heroine, between Schedoni and Ellena.
But before Ellena ever encounters Schedoni in person, she
is imprisoned at his instigation in an isolated convent
high up in the mountains. The abbess of this community,
an acquaintance of the Marchesa, at first gives Ellena a
choice between marrying a man who will be chosen for her,
or simply becoming a nun. But Ellena steadfastly refuses
both alternatives, and when she complains publicly that she
is being held against her will, the abbess threatens her
with close confinement, which seems, in this case, to imply

certain death.

190

On the whole, Ellena is somewhat more spirited and
sensible than most of her fictional sisters, but one char-
acteristic that she shares with them is an overriding con-
cern for propriety and social appearances. Therefore, even
though she faces imprisonment, torture, and possibly death,
she hesitates to leave the convent with Vivaldi, who has
arranged for her escape, for to do so would be to imply
connections and commitments that she wishes to avoid. In-
creasing dangers, however, and Vivaldi's repeated assurances
that he will not press her on the question of marriage, con-
vince her to quit the convent while escape is still pos-
sible. But predictably, they are scarcely beyond the con-
vent gates when Vivaldi urges Ellena to permit him to lead
her to "the first altar" where they can be married (p. 144).
Ellena refuses even to consider such a plan, but over the
next several days, Vivaldi continues to plead with her to
become his wife (PP. 150 and 179). In a sense; this in-
sistence, which Ellena considers highly indelicate, causes
her more pain than do the persecutions of her admitted
enemies, because she now feels harassed and even betrayed
by the man who says that he loves her. After several argu-
ments on the subject, however, Ellena finally relents and

agrees to wed Vivaldi with no further delay. But she has

 

191

tears in her eyes when she announces this decision, and she
even says that marrying at this time will injure her pride
and cause her to feel degraded. With typical impetuosity,
Vivaldi attributes her tears to reluctance, and complains
heatedly that her "love is feeble," and that her "whole
heart" is no longer his (p. 182). From this exchange, it
seems that a large part of their conflict stems from Vi-
valdi's demands for an absolute and uncompromising love:
Ellena is simply not certain that she can love so com-
pletely, and, in any case, she is somewhat frightened by
the finality of the decision to try. Vivaldi's most per-
suasive argument is that not until they are married will
Ellena be safe from further plotting. This contention com-
pletes the ironic set of the son, who innocently assumes
that marriage offers certain protection, and the mother,
who views the report that Vivaldi is indeed married as an
absolute demand that his wife be murdered. "Oh, wretched,
wretched mother!" says the Marchesa, "to what has the folly
of a son reduced thee!" (p. 177).

Adopting a technique that is used frequently in
the Gothic romance, Radcliffe shows that this secret mar-
riage which has not been sanctioned by the groom's parents

is indeed ill-advised by having Vivaldi and Ellena

 

 

192

arrested by supposed officers of the Holy Inquisition just
as they are about to exchange their vows. Vivaldi fights
valiantly to protect Ellena, but he is severely wounded and
finally overcome by loss of blood. The lovers are then
taken away in separate carriages, and they are kept apart
from this point until very near the end of the novel, as
Radcliffe deals first with Ellena's encounter with Schedoni,
and then with Vivaldi's experiences as a prisoner of the
Inquisition.

The traumatic events with which Ellena is faced as
Schedoni's captive are similar in some respects to Emily's
trials at the Castle of Udolpho. Although Ellena quickly
perceives that her kidnappers are not really official
agents, she can only speculate that they are minions of
the Marchesa, and she has no idea of where they are taking
her or of what they plan to do with her. At a "lonely
dwelling, which stood so near the margin of the sea, as
almost to be washed by the waves," her journey comes to an
end, and she is received by a man called Spalatro, who is
marked by the "gaunt ferocity of famine," and the combined
effects of "villainy and suffering" (p. 210). Although her
surroundings are forbidding and her anxiety great, Ellena

suffers no direct violence through the first night. In the

193

morning, she is wise enough to suspect that her breakfast
may have been poisoned, which indeed it has, and her care-
ful abstinence allows her to live through the first day.
waard evening, Spalatro, who is surprised to find her
still living, lets Ellena out of her locked chamber, and
invites her to walk on the beach until her supper is ready.
1 The description of Ellena's walk by the sea, and
of her first face-to-face meeting with Schedoni, is skill-
fully arranged and very impressive in its effect. Behind
Ellena is the ruinous and dismal mansion that is her prison;
before her some distance down the beach is a rude hamlet
that represents escape and security. On one side, the
waves are pounding the shore, night is falling all around,
and a thunderstorm is gathering in the heavens above. Ob-
serving that Spalatro is not in sight, Ellena has turned
her steps toward the hamlet when she notices a monk, a
"sacred protector," approaching in her direction with a
slow and thoughtful stride. Her heart leaps with joy, and
she fully expects to be able to enlist his aid. But so
stark and rough is the monk's appearance that Ellena re-
mains silent as they pass, and then quickens her pace
toward the village. The monk, however, has turned around

and soon overtakes her again, but "still Ellena could not

194

summon courage enough to attempt engaging his compassion"
(p. 221). Monk and maiden pass and repass several addi-
tional times, and with each encounter, Ellena becomes in-
creasingly agitated and ever more terrified, "though she
knew him not for her persecutor" (p. 221). Eventually,

the monk pauses next to Ellena and subjects her to a series
of obscure questions: "'Whither go you?‘ 'Who, and what

is it that you fear?‘ 'Poor insect! who would crush thee?'"
(pp. 221-22). Then as he is leading her back to the de-
cayed mansion, the monk finally refers directly to the
Marchesa, and Ellena knows that she can expect no succor
from him.

Overcome by horror at the realization that there is
no hope, Ellena faints to the sand at the monk's feet. And
here, while Ellena lies unconscious on the beach, Schedoni
reveals a hint of the conflicting passions that mark him as
a hero-villain:

As he gazed upon her helpless and faded form,

he became agitated. He quitted it, and traversed
the beach in short turns, and with hasty steps;
came back again, and bent over it--his heart
seemed sensible to some touch of pity. At one
moment, he stepped towards the sea, and taking
water in the hollows of his hands, threw it

upon her face; at another, seeming to regret that
he had done so, he would stamp with sudden fury

upon the shore, and walk abruptly to a distance
(p. 223).

195

Confirming his resolve, Schedoni thinks of using his dagger,
but he fears that traces of blood on the sand may give evi-
dence of his crime. He then considers carrying her into
the waves so that she will drown and leave no clues. But
just as he is about to lift her in his arms, Ellena re-
vives, and her shrieks subdue his courage once again.

At this point, Radcliffe interrupts the action of
her narrative briefly to work on the humanizing process
that will allow Schedoni to be understood as a person as
well as a villain. Although the exact nature of his pre-
vious crime is not yet revealed, we are told that the Con-
fessor, whose title had formerly been Count di Marinella,
was the younger son of an old family. His love of osten-
tation had led him to exhaust his rather small inheritance,
and pride had then urged him to leave the area where he
was known. He next emerges as a monk in the convent of
Spirito Santo, and his determination to rise to a position
of power in the Church was revealed by his strict observ-
ance of the rules of his order, and by his unequalled repu-
tation for self-denial and discipline. But while his
superiors professed to admire his dedication, it soon be-
came apparent that they had no intention of promoting him

to a substantial office. Perceiving the necessity of

196

seeking advancement "by other avenues," Schedoni nurtured
the confidence of the Marchesa di Vivaldi, and he must now
murder Ellena as the price of preferment (pp. 225-27).
With his characteristic caution, Schedoni would
rather that his mercenary perform the deed itself, but
Spalatro refuses, partly because he has lost his nerve,
and partly because he wants more money. In the dispute
that follows, each attempts to maneuver the other into
committing the murder, until Schedoni, exasperated at his
hireling's cowardice and insubordination, moves soundlessly
up the stairs, dagger in hand. With much irresolution, he
approaches the mattress where Ellena, exhausted by the
trauma of the past days, has fallen into a troubled sleep.
But just as he is about to plunge his poniard into her
breast, he pauses to bare her bosom because he fears that
her dress "would interrupt the blow" (p. 234).15 Suddenly,
Schedoni draws back in astonishment, for in his prepara-
tions to murder Ellena, he has chanced to discover that
she is wearing a miniature which bears a likeness which is
his own. Forgetting the lateness of the hour and the pe-
culiar appearance of his presence in her room, he calls
loudly on Ellena to awake. He demands to know whose por-

trait she is wearing, and her innocent answers lead him to

197

believe that he has been plotting for so long to murder a
woman who is his own daughter. This discovery, coming on
top of the tension that he has obviously experienced through
the evening, is too much for Schedoni, and the humanity
which Radcliffe had begun to develop bursts forth in a
great flow of emotion:
Ellena's terror began to yield to astonish-

ment, and this emotion encreased, when, Schedoni

approaching her, she perceived tears swell in

his eyes, which were fixt on her's, and his

countenance soften from the wild disorder that

had marked it. Still he could not speak. At

length he yielded to the fulness of his heart,

and Schedoni, the stern Schedoni, wept and

sighed! He seated himself on the mattress be-

side Ellena, took her hand, which she af-

frighted attempted to withdraw, and when he

could command his voice, said, "Unhappy child!

-——behold your more unhappy father! (p. 236).
While his force of character, his subtle machinations, and
his great energy of mind and body may have won Schedoni our
interest and fascination, only this show of sincere emotion
and Of the weakness that is human gains him a measure of
sympathy. And the message which Radcliffe seemingly in-
tended this episode to carry is that no mortal, no matter
how wicked he may seem, is completely evil. (Imagine the
implications if Radcliffe had had Schedoni recognize

9
Ellena as his daughter, and murder her nevertheless!)

198

Ellena is quite naturally amazed almost beyond be-
lief by Schedoni's sudden revelation. Although she does
not know the full story of her family background, she had
always been taught to believe that both her parents had
died long ago. Thus, to discover a father under such
strange circumstances, and in the person of the very monk
whom she has found so terrifying, causes a surge on con-
flicting emotions including disbelief, surprise, relief,
and dread. Schedoni's heartfelt insistence, however, and
his knowledge of many specific and intimate details Of her
family, soon convince her that he is indeed what he claims
to be. At this point, Radcliffe is once again faced with
a heroine who has endured many trying and frightening
experiences, but who is now emerging into a period of
relative peace and safety. In The Mysteries of Udolpho,
Emily seems simply to leave her trauma behind in Montoni's
castle--she seems to shake off her terror as one would
shake away the recollection of a bad dream. And Lewis's
Agnes seems to deal with her more brutal tortures in much
the same manner. Finally, Ellena also participates in a
similar process, but this time, Radcliffe is very clear and

deliberate in her description of what is happening as her_

199

heroine attempts to interpret and hopefully resolve the
traumas that she has experienced.

The key section of Radcliffe's account of this pro-
cess reads as follows:

When Ellena's mind became more tranquil, she
noticed again the singularity of Schedoni's
visit to her apartment at so sacred an hour.

. . . The suspicions, however, which she had
formerly admitted, respecting his designs, were
now impatiently rejected, for she was less
anxious to discover truth, than to release her-
self from horrible suppositions; and she will-
ingly believed that Schedoni, having misunder-
stood her character, had only designed to assist
in removing her beyond the reach of Vivaldi.
The ingenuity of hope suggested also . . . that
in the first impatience of parental anxiety, he
had disregarded the hour, and come, though at
midnight, to her apartment to ascertain the
truth.

While she soothed herself with this explana-
tion . . . she perceived on the floor the point
of a dagger peeping from beneath the curtains!
Emotions almost too horrible to be sustained,
followed this discovery; she took the instru-
ment, and gazed upon it aghast and trembling,
for a suspicion of the real motive of Schedoni's
visit glanced upon her mind. But it was only
for a moment; such a supposition was too ter-
rible to be willingly endured. . . . (p. 242).

To clarify what is happening, we can place emphasis on such
phrases as "release herself," "willingly believed," "ingen-
uity of hope," "too horrible to be sustained," and "too
terrible to be willingly endured." Through the use of

!
these words, Radcliffe shows clearly that Ellena realizes

200

the truth of the situation, but that she chooses, seemingly
with a conscious act of will, to deny this knowledge, to
blot the awareness that Schedoni is a would-be murderer
from her mind. Thus, when Ellena finally marries Vivaldi,
she can live happily ever after, not because she is unreal-
istically insensitive to the effects of traumatic experi-
ences, but because she has participated in a process of
psychological repression. While this may not necessarily
be good for Ellena's mental health, it does show that Rad-
cliffe is now fully aware of a problem that is apparent
in her earlier works, and that she has given her heroine
a plausible and meaningful way of dealing with it.

"The major criticism of Schedoni," reports E. B.
Murray, "is that his character disintegrates after he is
shocked into believing that he had just about killed his
own daughter."16 While it is true that Schedoni's tears
signal the end to his reign of terror over Ellena, he
clearly recovers much of his former energy and command in
other areas. Indeed, with respect tomalignant villainy
and perverse attraction, he never really attains his
greatest strength or achieves his most horrifying triumph

until he is on the verge of death. Unlike Ellena, Vivaldi

really has become a prisoner of the Inquisition as the

201

result of Schedoni's charge that he committed sacrilege by_
subjecting a monk, engaged in the act of penance, to a
stream of violent and heretical insults. After Schedoni is
convinced that Ellena is his daughter, however, he sees
Vivaldi as his son-in-law, and thus as the way to power and
wealth that he has sought for so long. But when he goes to
Rome to try to extricate Vivaldi, he finds that the tri-
bunal wishes to question him not about his charge of heresy,
but about his own former crimes. Through the cumbersome
machinery of the Inquisition, which is set in motion by the
vindictive Nicola, we eventually learn of the murder of
Ellena's real father, and of the persecutions to which her
mother was subjected.

Now that all of Schedoni's secrets are out and he
has been condemned to death, we may expect him to be de-
feated and powerless. But instead, he remains interesting
and exceptionally dynamic to his dying moment. His reac-
tion to Vivaldi, for instance, is curiously mixed; on one
hand, he tells him with a "smile of triumph and derision"
that he is Ellena's father (p. 365), and he later taunts
Vivaldi further by bragging of how easy it had been to play
on his "prevailing weakness," on his "susceptibility . . .

to superstition" (p. 397). But on the other hand, he also

202

makes "an ample confession of the arts that he had prac-
ticed against Vivaldi," and declares that "the charge of
heresy, which he had brought against him, was false and
malicious" (p. 394). At the same time, however, Schedoni's
hatred of Nicola never moderates in the least, and it soon
becomes apparent that, for his final triumph, he has con-
trived to poison not only himself, but his betrayer as
well. As Nicola slumps to the floor, Radcliffe's villain
becomes almost inhuman: "Schedoni uttered a sound so
strange and horrible, so convulsed, yet so loud, so exult-
ing, yet so unlike any human voice, that every person in
the chamber, except those who were assisting Nicola, struck
with irresistible terror, endeavoured to make their way out
of it" (p. 402). With this exultation at having destroyed
his destroyer, the Confessor's own life slips away, and
"presently a livid corse was all that remained of the once
terrible Schedoni!” (p. 404).

Vivaldi's encounters with Schedoni in the dungeons
of the Inquisition are very complicated (and perhaps need-
lessly so), but the relationship between the hero and the
villain is neither as subtle nor as interesting as the
interactions between Schedoni and the Marchesa, and Schedoni

and Ellena. The episode concerning the Inquisition is

203

intellectually important, however, for it brings a degree
of coherence to Radcliffe's philOSOphical reply to Lewis's
criticism of her attitude toward man and evil. At the
heart of her position is, as Frederick Garber has put it,
a belief "that an image of order had to be held onto, that
not all men were nice but that God's good points took care
of unpleasantness, however fascinating it was in its
strangeness, however attractive in its strength."17 The
contention that there are both good and evil in the world,
and that the good generally makes up for the evil, is
neither particularly profound nor original. But the manner

in which Radcliffe develops this view and integrates it

into The Italian is indeed interesting and worthwhile.

 

As a gentlemanly representative of the Enlightment,
Vivaldi is appalled by the cruelty and suffering that he
finds in the operation of the Inquisition. While he is no
doubt familiar with personal malice such as that manifested
by Schedoni and Nicola, his firsthand contact with insti-
tutionalized evil seems to come upon him as an unantici-
pated and very distressing revelation: "That any human
being should willing afflict a fellow being who had never
injured, or even offended him," reports Radcliffe; "that,

unswayed by passion, he should deliberately become the

204

means of torturing him, appeared to Vivaldi nearly incred-
ible!" (PP. 311-12). And when he considers that the in-
quisitors probably look upon their position as the "summit
of their ambition," he is even more disturbed. But Vivaldiks
horror at the methodical cruelty of the inquisitorial pro-
cess is eventually mitigated to a degree by his observation
of a vicar-general who demonstrates through his handling
of Schedoni's trial that he is fair and disinterested:
"Tears fell from Vivaldi's cheek while he gazed upon this
just judge, whose candour, had it been exercised in his
cause, could not have excited more powerful sensations of
esteem and admiration" (p. 352). The goodness of this man,
however, is quickly undercut by the narrow and prejudiced
views of another official who is more interested in appear-
ances and condemnation than in justice. Good inquisitor
and bad thus form a set as one respects the power and re-
sponsibility of his office, while the other sees his posi-
tion as an opportunity to display self-importance and to
dominate others by causing them to suffer.

Through this pairing of admirable and reprehensible
characters, Radcliffe reminds her reader again and again
that there is good in the world as well as evil, and pro-

vides a balance to the Gothic view which she may well have

205

felt to be lacking in The Monk. The abbess who persecutes
Ellena, for instance, is very similar to the domina who

tortures Agnes. But in The Italian, Radcliffe is careful

 

to include a good abbess, a lady who is "a shining example
to governesses of religious houses"(p. 299). Father An-
saldo, a good confessor, is juxtaposed to Schedoni, and
Olivia, as a good woman, is opposed to the Marchesa. To

a lesser extent, the Marchese can be seen as a good parent,
or at least as an honest and just father, thus balancing

to a degree the evil and duplicity of his wife. And when
Olivia realizes that Ellena believes that Schedoni is her
father, she replies by referring to sets of two fathers,
two brothers, and two husbands: "The original of this por-
trait is not the Count di Bruno, my dear lord, nor your
parent, but his brother, the cruel husband-——" (p. 380).
This quiet but repeated insistence on the redemption of
evil through goodness constitutes Radcliffe's philosophical
reply to the darkness and almost unbroken pessimism of
Lewis's Gothic view. Her reply as a writer who is an ar-
tist is embodied, as we have seen, in the relationship be-
tween Schedoni and the Marchesa. Through her descriptions
of their encounters, Radcliffe shows that she is able and

willing to look just as deeply into the recesses of the

206

evil mind as did Lewis. Indeed, in a sense, her view of
depravity is even more searching, because all the evil in

The Italian is ultimately human in its source--all the

 

passion and perversion can be traced nowhere but to this

world.18

Although The Italian ends happily for Ellena and

 

Vivaldi, as does The Mysteries of Udolpho for Emily and

 

Valancourt, the evil that Ellena encounters as she learns
of her identity is stronger and more immediate than any
that Emily comes up against. The victim whom Ellena even-
tually uncovers, for instance, is not an aunt, unknown to
her and long since dead, but a mother who is still living,
and still haunted by the memory of a murdered husband and
an abused honor. And while Emily's troubles never begin
until she is almost a woman, Ellena is forced to grow up

in obscurity and relative oppression, and with no knowledge
of her loving mother or her dead father. Emily endures a.
period of great psychological trauma, but it has a definite
end; Ellena, however, must live with the awareness somewhere
in the back of her mind that she has nearly been murdered,
and that the man who brought this terrible suffering to her
and to her family was her father's brother. The effect in

The Italian, then, is to tighten the circle of evil around

 

207

the heroine, to bring both oppression and oppressor closer
to home until both have invaded her very family.

As the evil in The Italian is brought ever closer

 

to the heroine, so too is the Gothic world brought closer
to the England of Radcliffe's day. Conventionally, the
Gothic romance had been set vaguely in a period long ago

and a place far away, but The Italian has a very specific

 

time and setting.19 "It was in the church of San Lorenzo
at Naples, in the year 1758," reads Radcliffe's opening
sentence, "that Vincentio di Vivaldi first saw Ellena
Rosalba" (p. 5). Dates and time references throughout
the novel have been carefully calculated to accord with
each other, and geographical references are clearly to
modern Italy. And not only is Radcliffe specific in her
setting, but she has brought the time of her narrative to
within a generation of her own day, and has set the action
in a European country with which her readers were likely
to be familiar. The brief preface which provides a frame

for the story called The Italian also moves the narrative

 

closer to home by telling of an Englishman who happens to
notice a strange, lurking figure while touring the Santa
Maria del Pianto in 1764. This man, the Englishman is in-

formed, is an assassin who has taken refuge from the law

208

in the sacred haven of the Church. The reference to this
assassin is interesting from another point of view, for
his mere presence implies another Schedoni--his story indi-
cates that while one villain may be dead, other murderers
are still at large in the world. And Radcliffe also shows
her detached awareness of stereotyped views of Italy when
her guide responds to the Englishman's disbelief that a
murderer would be sheltered by the Church by replying, "if
we were to shew no mercy to such unfortunate persons,
assassinations are so frequent, that our cities would be
half depopulated" (p. 3).

Radcliffe returns to this objectivity in the last

chapter of The Italian when she includes observations which

 

cut completely through the traditional pretense of the
Gothic romance: The beautiful home where Ellena and Vi-
valdi choose to live after their marriage, says Radcliffe,
"was, in truth, a scene in fairy-land." And somewhat

later, she adds that "the style of the gardens . . . was
that of England, and of the present day, rather than of
Italy" (p. 412). These comments represent a dropping of

the mask for an instant because Radcliffe seems to be saying
that while the divine happiness in which she is allowing

her characters to exist may be found in a fairy-land, it

209

is not easily or frequently found in the world as we know
it. And further, she seems to imply that her tale is not
about Italy after all, but about her own country and her
own day. Her central purpose, then, has been not to tell
a story of Machiavellian Italians and superstitious Cath-
olics, but to penetrate to the good and evil of the human
heart and mind, to warn against the corruption and irra-
tionality to which passion and perverse desires can lead
us, to expose the cruel hypocricy of false pride, and,
most of all, to assert again the simple belief that with
a little good luck and a great deal more patient endur-H
ance, the virtuous of this world may hope finally to rise
above the evil, and thereby to lead reasonably tranquil

and contented lives.

CONCLUSION

Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho and The

 

‘Italian.haVe long been associated with Matthew G. Lewis's

'The Monk. Of the many who tried, Lewis was the only author

 

to come even close to equaling Radcliffe's pOpularity as a
Gothic novelist, and there are certain similarities in the
characters and situations of their romances. But the
standard critical view which speaks of borrowings and
bowdlerizing is both vague and misleading. While The,

Mysteries of_gdolpho, The Monk, and The Italian do share

 

 

a special relationship, it is characterized not by influ-
ence and imitation, but by challenge and response.
Radcliffe's steady progress from The Castles of

Athlin and Dunbayne, to A Sicilian Romance, to The Romance

 

of the Forest reveals a perceptive and self-critical
struggle to eliminate those elements which were awkward'
and unsuccessful, and to concentrate ever more carefully

on those characters, situations, and themes_which.were most

interesting and meaningful. Her fourth novel, The Mysteries

210

211

of Udolpho, represents the culmination of five years of

 

writing. Radcliffe's greatest achievement in Udolpho is
the representation of Emily's almost solipsistic view of
the world around her, of the state of mind which allows
for her intricate and nearly subliminal relationship with
Montoni.

Lewis does indeed speak of having been induced by
Radcliffe's novel to go on with hiw own romance, but to a

great extent, The Monk is a unique creation. Thus, it is

 

more accurate to say that Lewis was inspired, and not in-
fluenced, by The Mysteries of UdoTpho. Looking beyond the
heroine, Lewis was able to see a potential in Montoni, and
to go on to transform Radcliffe's shadowy villain into his
own bold and fascinating hero-villain. The ambiguous char-
acters, the overwhelming passions, the grim brutality, and
the subtle but pervasive pessimism which result from his
revisions stand as implicit criticisms of The Mysteries of
Udolpho. Through his romance, Lewis seems to say that while
Udolpho is interesting, its view of good and evil is too
clear-cut, and its action is brought to an unjustifiably

optimistic conclusion. In effect, The Monk challenges Rad-

 

cliffe to reconsider the force of passion and perversion,

212

and to examine again the possible, and perhaps even likely,
course of evil in this world.

In The Italian, Radcliffe attempts to fashion a

 

response to this challenge in Lewis's own terms. She con-
cedes that good and evil may be embodied ambiguously in a
single person. She allows that admirable characteristics
can be corrupted to perverse ends, and she grants that the
innocent of this world may indeed suffer both physical and
psychological tortures. But she continues to insist that
even the cruelest of villains retains a touch of goodness
and humanity. And she refuses to surrender her essential
optimism, her belief that there is a reasonable chance
(though not an absolute assurance) that a good person can
endure the tribulation of evil days, and emerge into a
life of relative happiness and tranquility.

Radcliffe and Lewis, of course, were debating the
unanswerable, and later writers have continued the argument
through numerous novels which draw on the energy of the
Gothic impulse. Fortunately, there is no need to choose
sides, for both authors have embodied their visions in fic-
tions which remain vital and compelling to this day. Thus,
I have made no attempt to endorse either Ann Radcliffe or

Matthew G. Lewis as the better or more important writer.

213

Rather, my goals have been to clarify the complex relation-
ship which binds their novels together, and to advance
readings of their novels which may help to establish the
importance of the Gothic romance to the develOpment of the

novel through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

NOTES

NOTES

INTRODUCTION

1For a summary of the contemporary estimates of
Radcliffe' s novels, see Clara Frances McIntyre, Ann
Radcliffe in Relation to her Time, Yale Studies in —English,
62 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1920), pp. 34- 56.

 

 

2McIntyre, p. 13.

3The best modern biography of Lewis is Louis E.

versity_Press,_I961). The—earliest account of his life is
Margaret Baron-Wilson's The Life and Correspondence 2£.§;
g; Lewis, 2 vols. (London: Henry Colburn, 1839). Bio-
graphical treatments of Ann Radcliffe can be found in Clara
McIntyre's Ann Radcliffe Th Relation he her Time. Aline
Grant's Ann Radcliffe: h Biography (Denver: A. Swallow,
1951), and E. B. Murray's hhh_Radcliffe (New York: Twayne
Publishers, Inc., 1972).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4Introduction to The Mysteries of Udolpho, ed.
Bonamy Dobree (New York: Oxford University Press, 1966),
p. xii.

 

5The most memorable example of this encounter-in-
isolation takes place in Shelley's Frankenstein (1818).
As Victor pursues his creature across the frozen wasteland
of the Arctic, their struggle becomes titanic, and clearly
a representation of man's eternal conflict with his mons-
trous potentialities.

214

NOTES

CHAPTER ONE

1Ann Radcliffe, The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne:

A Highland Story, advisory ed. D. P. Varma, Gothic Novels
Series (1821; rpt. New York: Arno Press, 1972), p. 1. All
future quotations from The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne
are taken from this edition, which is a reprint of the
1821 edition published in London by J. Jones. Page num-
bers will be cited parenthetically in the text.

 

 

 

 

 

2The Gothic Flame (1957; rpt. New York: Russell and

Russell, 1966), p. 74.

 

3Preface to the second edition of The Castle of
Otranto, ed. W. S. Lewis ( New York. Oxford University
Press, 1964), p. 7.

4E. B. Murray, Ann Radcliffe (New York: Twayne Pub-

lishers, Inc., 1972), p. 63.

 

5Although the specific publication dates of
Radcliffe's first novels are not available, The Castles of
Athlin and Dunbayne was first mentioned in the Critical
Review for September, 1789, and A_Sicilian Romance was
first noticed in the Monthly Review for September, 1790.
See Clara Frances McIntyre, Ann Radcliffe in Relation to
her Time, Yale Studies in English, 62 (New— Haven: Yale—
University Press, 1920), pp. 34-35.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6D. P. Varma, Introduction to A_Sici1ian Romance,

advisory ed. D. P. Varma, Gothic Novels Series (1821; rpt.
New York: Arno Press, 1972), p. xxi.

 

215

216

7Ann Radcliffe, A Sicilian Romance, advisory ed.

D. P. Varma, Gothic Novels Series (1821; rpt. 2 vols. in
1, New York: Arno Press, 1972), 1, 1 and 5. Future quota-
tions from A Sicilian Romance are from this Arno Press
edition, which is also a reprint of the 1821 edition.
VOlume and page numbers will be cited in the text.

 

 

8Obituary notice of Sophia Lee in the Annual
Register, 66 (1824), 217. Cited by McIntyre, p. 11.

 

9J. M. S. Tompkins writes on p. 259 of The Popular

Novel in_England (1932; rpt. Lincoln: University of Ne-
braska Press, 1967) that "in The Romance 2£.EEE Forest

. . . Mrs. Radcliffe reached her full strength." D. P.
Varma says that this novel displays "the first dawn of her
mature powers" (Gothic Flame, p. 91). And in his intro-
duction to Three Eighteenth Century Romances (New York:

Charles Scribner' 3 Sons, 1931), Harrison R. Steeves praises

 

and intrinsically entertaining a piece as anything Mrs.
Radcliffe wrote" (p. xiv).

loAnn Radcliffe, The Romance _o_§ Eh_e_ Forest, in The
British Novelists, with an Essay and Prefaces, Biographi-
cal and Critical, by Mrs. Barbauld (London: R. and A.
Taylor, 1820), 43, 6. All future quotations from The
Romance of the Forest are taken from Mrs. Barbauld's edi-
tion; volume and page numbers will hereafter be cited
parenthetically in the text.

 

 

 

 

 

11E. B. Murray points out the relevance of
Richardson's Clarissa (as well as Milton's Comus) to this
section of The Romance g£_Ehg Forest (p. 105). While
there are broad similarities between Montalt and Lovelace,
Radcliffe's villain seems to be a true voluptuary, and
there is no indication that he sees the seduction of
Adeline as a way of gaining revenge on the entire female
sex.

 

 

NOTES

CHAPTER TWO

1Bonamy Dobrée remarks that The Italian "is often
regarded as her best book, though not the one best liked,"
and cites Coleridge's preference for Udolpho as character-
istic. Introduction to The Mysteries of Udolpho, ed.
Bonamy Dobree (New York: Oxford University Press, 1966),
p. xiv.

 

 

2In the opening episode of Thg_Cast1e of Otranto,
for instance, Conrad is crushed beneath a giant helmet,
and The Romance g£_the Forest begins with Adeline being
thrust without explanation into the care of the La Mottes.

 

 

3Ann Radcliffe, The Mysteries of Udolpho, ed.
Bonamy Dobrée (New York: Oxford University Press, 1966),
p. 5. A11 quotations from The Mysteries of Udolpho are
taken from this edition; page numbers will be given
parenthetically in the text.

 

 

4Rictor Norton gives an interesting summary of
the studies on this subject, "Aesthetic Gothic Horror,"
Yearbook of Comparative and General Literature, 21 (1972),
31-40 0

5J. M. S. Tompkins presents this position in her
discussion of Udolpho, The Popular Novel iB_England
(1932; rpt. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1961),
pp. 253-54.

217

 

218

6This reading of Emily' 3 character is very similar
to the interpretation of The Turn of the Screw which claims
first that the young governess is in love with her employer,
and second, that she "is a neurotic case of sex repression,
and the ghosts are not real ghosts at all but merely hallu-
cinations of the governess," as Edmund Wilson phrased it in
"The Ambiguity of Henry James," Hound and Horn, 7 (1934),
393. Wilson's remarks are cited by Wayne Booth, who goes
on to argue against the hallucination theory while support-
ing a straight or literal reading of the story, The
Rhetoric of Fiction (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1961), pp. —311- 16.

 

 

 

7Robert Kiely, ThJ Romantic Novel in England
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972), p. 72.

 

8Samuel Richardson, Clarissa, or the History of a
Young Lady, abridged and edited by George Sherburn (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, 1962), p. 305.

 

 

9Robert Kiely argues that Emily is "unravishable"
because "the reader is never for a moment allowed to be-
lieve that [she] could be raped" (p. 72). But this argu-
ment is surely beside the point, for Emily is not the
reader of a novel, but the heroine of a fiction. And in
that role, she clearly sees herself as eminently ravish-
able; moreover, none of the male antagonists seems to have
any doubt that she can indeed be raped. One may also argue
with Kiely's choice of words, for while the reader probably
does not expect that Emily will be ravished, he is certain-
ly led to believe that she could be violated.

10Radcliffe takes her quotation from Macbeth,
V.iii.38. In this passage, the Doctor assures Macbeth that
his wife's illness is rooted not in her body, but in her
mind.

11Edith Birkhead, The Tale of Terror (1921; rpt.
New York: Russell and Russell, 1963), p. 48.

 

219

‘ 12Frederick Garber has made a similar point by
asserting that Mrs. Radcliffe instigated "the recognition
that the horrors had moved from that which is not like us,
and is therefore conveniently externalized, to the war-
fares within someone whose likeness to us holds more hor-
ror than his difference. For horrors to come out of some-
thing strange into the world is one thing, but for them
to come out of persons like oursleves is quite another,"
"Meaning and Mode in Gothic Fiction," in Studies ig_Eight-
eenth-Century Culture: Racism in the Eighteenth Century,
ed. Harold E. Pagliaro, Vol. 3 (Cleveland: Press of Case
Western Reserve University, 1973), p. 162.

 

13In an interesting, though finally wrongheaded
article, Nelson C. Smith has suggested that Radcliffe's
real intention in The Mysteries of Udolpho is to satirize
her heroine, and to launch an "attack on the cult of
sensibility" as represented by Emily, "Sense, Sensibility
and Ann Radcliffe," Studies ig_English Literature, 13
(1973), 577-90. "Far from being an advocate of sensibil-
ity," says Smith, "[Radcliffe], like Jane Austen two dec-
ades later, shows its weaknesses and flaws" (p. 577). Yet
through all her troubles with Valancourt, Radcliffe never
once suggests or implies that Emily is acting selfishly,
immaturely, or unwisely. To the contrary, she leaves the
clear impression that Emily has no other choice under the
circumstances but to reject her dissipated lover. The
obvious alternative, however, had been presented in Tgm_
Jones when Sophia, who has firsthand knowledge of Tom's
failings, is nonetheless willing from the beginning to
give him a second chance if he can pass the test of time.

 

14The extent of Radcliffe's interest in this theory
of proper sentiment is demonstrated by the long and finely
argued defense which she has St. Aubert pronounce almost
with his dying breath. While his remarks show that Radcliffe
was put off by artificial, excessive, and affected sentiment,
they also show that she continued to believe that fine and
proper feelings are important to a happy life.

15See Kiely, p. 75.

NOTES

CHAPTER THREE

Harvard University Press, 1961), p. 208. Peck notes that
Lewis's "ever have" has been changed to "has ever" in the
Life, and that this passage has often been quoted in its
altered form. See Margaret Baron-Wilson (Mrs. Cornwall
Baron-Wilson), The Life and Correspondence of M, g, Lewis
(London: Henry Colburn, 1839), l, 123.

2Robert Kiely, The Romantic Novel in England
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972), p. 68.

 

3A3 Peck points out, the passage to which Lewis is
referring actually occurs in Vol. 2, ch. 3, which is mis-
numbered as ch. 17 in the first edition.

4Matthew G. Lewis, The Monk: A Romance, ed. Howard

Anderson (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973), p. 90.
All future quotations from The Monk will be taken from this
edition; page numbers will be cited in the text.

 

5In complaining that "the deterioration in Ambrosio's
character . . . is too swift," Edith Brikhead seems to con-
sider chronological time only, and to underrate the extent
to which Raymond's long tale extends the narrative time, Thg_
Tale of Terror (1921; rpt. New York: Russell and Russell,
1963). p. 677’

 

6Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Review of The Monk: A

Romance, in Critical Review, 9£_Annals g£_Literature,‘l9
(1796), 194.

 

7Tale of Terror, pp. 63-70.

 

220

221

8Montague Summers has advanced this explanation in
"Byron's 'Lovely Rosa,'" in Essays 12 Petto (London: [1928]),
pp. 66-67.

9Looking at Peck's exact phrasing, I might also
point out that having decided upon Matilda's "evil nature"
is not necessarily the same as having intended her as a
spirit from Hell.

10In the last act of Marlowe's Doctor Faustus,

Mephostophilis replies to the charge that he tricked or
bewitched Faustus by saying:

I do confess it Faustus, and rejoice.

'Twas I, that when thou wert i' the way

To heaven dammed up they passage. When

Thou took'st the book to view the

Scriptures, then I turned the leaves

and led thine eye. (V.ii.99-103)
While these claims are certainly true in a figurative sense,‘
if they are accepted as the literal truth--if we believe
that Faustus was controlled mind and body from beginning to
end--then he can no longer be seen as choosing of his own
free will to sell his soul, and the justice of his damna-
tion would become very questionable. Ambrosio's situation
is open to a similar line of analysis, for it is important
that he be primarily responsible for his crimes. In other
words, it is essential to the meaning of both Doctor Faustus
and The Monk that the hero be seen as a man with a free will,
and SEE as a puppet who is jerked about by uncontrollable
daemons.

11Nelson's comment appears in "Night Thoughts on
the Gothic Novel," Yale Review, 52 (1963), 241.

 

12Whether it was intentional or not, Lewis frequently
calls attention to the roles that his characters play through
his habit of enumerating them, and incidentally, through his
use of upper case letters: "Let us forget the distinction of
sex," says Ambrosio to Matilda, "and only consider each other
as Brother and Friend" (p. 89). And a little later, Lewis-

222

adds, "He saw before him a young and beautiful Woman,

the preserver of his life, the Adorer of his person" (p.
90). After Ambrosio has fulfilled his desire, Matilda is
called, "Dangerous Woman" (p. 223), "the fair Wanton,"
and "the Syren" (P. 224). And when he remembers the poi-
son that is still circulating in her veins, we are told
that "the voluptuous Monk trembled less for his Pre-
server's life than his Concubine's" (p. 225).

F
13The final irony of this situation is that Lewis 3

himself was to die on May 16, 1818 from yellow fever which
he contracted while in Jamaica to visit his plantations
(see Peck, pp. 171-75).

14Thomas Medwin, Journal Lf the Conversations Lf

LordB Byron: Noted Duri_g_a Residence with his LordshipZat
Pisa (New York: Wilder and Campbell, 1824), p. 130. Also
recorded in Medwin' s Conversations Lord Byron, ed.
Ernest J. Lovell, Jr. (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1966), p. 188.

 

 

["LI- fl'fi'u ‘ (' -- .

 

 

 

 

 

15Peter Brooks, "Virtue and Terror: The Monk,"

ELH, 40 (1973), 251.

16Ernest A. Baker has written that Don Raymond's
story is "tied into the plot rather than united with it,
and has very little bearing on the main theme," 3B3
History 2: the English Novel (London: H. F. & G. Witherby,
1934), 5, 211. And Edith Birkhead has asserted that "in
IRS Monk there are two distinct stories, loosely related
. . . . Lewis forges a link between the two stories,"
she continued, "but the connection is superficial, and
the novel suffers through the distraction of our inter-
est," TBS Tale 9; Terror, pp. 66-67.

 

17Birkhead, p. 67.

18The Gothic Flame (1957; rpt, New York: Russell

and Russell, 1966), p. 142.

 

223

19Peter Brooks discusses the psychology of The

Monk at length in his article cited above.

 

PET- ..

NOTES

CHAPTER FOUR

1E. B. Murray says flatly that Radcliffe was the

most popular novelist of the eighteenth century: "From

the appearance of The Romance Lf the Forest (1791) through
the critical appraisal of The Italian (1797), Mrs.
Radcliffe experienced a popularity which no novelist be-
fore her--not Henry Fielding, not Samuel Richardson, not
Tobias Smollett, nor Laurence Sterne--had come close to
achieving." Ann Radcliffe (New York: Twayne Publishers,
Inc., 1972), p. 19. ;

 

 

 

 

2Clara Frances McIntyre, Ann Radcliffe in Relation
to her Time, Yale Studies in English, 62 (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1920), pp. 14- 15.

 

3McIntyre, p. 64.

4Ernest A. Baker, The Historyg£_the English Novel
(London: H. F. & G. Witherby, 1934), 5, 200.

 

5Edith Birkhead, ThJ Tale Lf Terror (1921; rpt.

New York: Russell and Russell, 1963), p. 69.
6
Murray, p. 19.

7This innovation over the earlier novels is reflect-
ed even in titles, for The Italian is the first of Radcliffe's
novels to draw its name from a character rather than a set-
ting.

8McIntyre, p. 65.

224

225

9This difference in method probably accounts for
the common assertion that Radcliffe is proper and refined,
while Lewis is crude and tasteless. In actuality, there
is almost as much passion and perversion in Radcliffe's
Gothic world as in Lewis's. But Radcliffe is careful to
impose a layer of civilization between what she says and
what she means.

10Ann Radcliffe, The Italian, or The Confessional F

of the Black Penitents, ed. Frederick Earber (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1968), p. 34. All future quota-
tions from The Italian are from this edition: page num-
bers will hereafter be cited in the text.

 

 

 

11"There are no real parallels to this striking
and original creation," says Frederick Garber, who then
adds that Schedoni is "the only one of [Radcliffe's]
characters who ever really lives" (Introduction to The_
Italian, p. xiii). And E. B. Murray carries Garber's
assessment a step further by maintaining that "Schedoni
is the only successful character creation in Mrs.
Radcliffe's works" (p. 135).

 

12Garber, Introduction, p. xii.

13E. B. Murray calls this "spiritual adultery"
(p. 139), but I prefer the term "intellectual adultery"
because of the highly abstract and sophistical nature of
their exchanges. I would agree, however, that the per-
version which Schedoni and the Marchesa share is one of
both the mind and the spirit. (Murray's full statement
reads, "The powerful and, in its way, natural union of
these two proud and malignant souls delineates a kind of
spiritual adultery far more profound than the actual
lasciviousness ascribed to the Marchioness Mazzini in The_
'Sicilian Romance.")

14It is surely significant that this crucial meet-
ing during which Schedoni and the Marchesa determine upon
Ellena's murder is the only conference that takes place

226

not in the Marchesa's chambers, but in a church. It a1-
so seems meaningful that Radcliffe drops the titles of
Schedoni and Father in this scene, and rather refers to
her villain repeatedly as "the Confessor."

15The contention that the "lawn" which covers
Ellena's breasts would obstruct the course of a razor-
sharp dagger seems unfounded. Is this merely a weakness
in detail, and one that could easily have been avoided, F
or does Radcliffe mean to suggest that Schedoni is moved
by a sexual impulse to violate his victim's body with his
eyes before stabbing her with his dagger.

16Murray, p. 138.

 

17Frederick Garber, "Meaning and Mode in Gothic
Fiction," in Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture:
Racism in the Eighteenth Century, ed. Harold E. Pagliaro,
Vol. 3 (Cleveland: Press of Case western Reserve Univer-
sity, 1973), p. 163.

 

 

18Garber makes this point in "Meaning and Mode"
when he asserts that "Lewis went far, but he still had
to end up doing as Beckford did, that is, protecting the
human against itself and not against the supernatural.
Without Mrs. Radcliffe's decorum g£_her courage," Garber
continues, "Lewis backed off from attributing the full
motivation for evil to Ambrosio, and made of Matilda's
supple sexuality a supernatural trick from the Devil's
workshop to entice the proud monk to Hell" (p. 168).

19The practice of ascribing a very vague setting
to the Gothic romance begins with The Castle g£_0tranto.
In the "Preface to the First Edition," Horace Walpole
sets up the pretense that the narrative which follows was
"printed at Naples, in black letter, in the year 1529
. . . . If the story was written near the time when it
is supposed to have happened," Walpole continues, "it
must have been between 1095, the era of the first cru-
sade, and 1243, the date of the last, or not long after-
wards. There is no other circumstance in the work that

 

227

can lead us to guess at the period in which the scene is
laid" (ed. W. S. Lewis, New York: Oxford University Press,
1964, p. 3). Over the years following this first Gothic
romance, there was a clear tendency to indicate place and
time more exactly, and to move the action ever closer to
the England of the day, both in geography and chronology.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Many Pieces in Prose and Verse Never Before Pub- .
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“‘1 e...

 

Birkhead, Edith. The Tale of Terror: A Study of the Gothic
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"5...“-..

Booth, Wayne C. The Rhetoric of Fiction. Chicago: Uni—
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Brooks, Peter. "Virtue and Terror: The Monk." ELH, 40
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Coleridge, Sameul Taylor. Review of The Monk: A Romance,
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Dobree, Bonamy. Introduction to The Mysteries of Udolpho,
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Garber, Frederick. Introduction to The Italian, by Ann
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Lovell, Ernest J., Jr. (ed.). Medwin's Conversations of
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Brauchli, Jakob. Der Englische Schauerroman um 1800:
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