The Surprising Mrs Radcliffe: Udolpho's Artful Mysteries

Abstract

This essay argues that despite the tendency of modern scholarship to resist the condescension of much of the early criticism of Radcliffe, there is still a lack of appreciation for the surprising complexity of her art. The reception history of the explained supernatural may be taken as a case in point. Sir Walter Scott cited it as an example of what made Radcliffe's model of fiction a dead end in the history of the novel. In particular, he argued that the explanation of the mystery behind Udolpho's black veil was an exercise in fatal bathos. Modern criticism has tended to overlook the alleged deficiencies in Radcliffe's method, rather than defend it. Taking The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) as an example, this essay argues to the contrary that Radcliffe's method of the explained supernatural is at the satisfying core of Radcliffe's complex art. Rather than a cheap “get out of jail” card, the device is artfully managed to build meaning. Radcliffe's novels are minutely structured in a highly sophisticated fashion—one that works by keeping antithetical meanings in solution, creating internal difference where the meanings are.