The Supernatural Subject of the Sublime in Burke and Radcliffe: A Reading of The Mysteries of Udolpho
abstract
The article aims to explore how the supernatural is represented in Ann Radcliffe’s Gothic novel, The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), arguing that it reflects Radcliffe’s ideas on the matter, described in her theoretical work On the Supernatural in Poetry (1826). Following Walter Scott’s representation of Radcliffe in his work Lives of the Novelists (1825), her works have been associated with the concept of the explained supernatural. The articles argues that the supernatural present in The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) complicates the subjective safety implied by the explained supernatural, a complication visible in the novel’s narrative closure.
Keywords: The Mysteries of Udolpho • Empiricism • The Sublime • Narrative • Gothic novel • Ann Radcliffe • Supernatural • Edmund Burke