Description
This thesis reads Ann Radcliffe’s The Romance of the Forest (1791) as a key transitionpoint in the Gothic novel as a historiographical form. Beginning by considering the
reviews of Radcliffe’s novels widely attributed to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, I
demonstrate how The Romance of the Forest is an underappreciated text within
Radcliffe’s oeuvre as it offers a unique sense of progression in romance narratives. Each
chapter of the thesis considers a different theme in Radcliffe’s novel, which builds into
an original reading of temporality and method. The opening chapters begin by
establishing what Radcliffe’s version of Romanticism might entail. Chapters Two
through Four explore the use of historically informed (and shifting) spaces and figures,
such as architectural ruins and patriarchs, which configure competing socio-political
structures and constitutions. Drawing on a new historical philosophy proposed by Eelco
Runia (2014), this thesis also engages with the ways Radcliffe constructs a non-linear,
layered, and generative historiography. The final chapters extend discussions around
‘failed’ heroism and the role of women in Radcliffe’s novel, anticipating discussions of
Edmund Burke, masculinity, and (gendered) narrative coherence into the nineteenth
century. This thesis strengthens existing scholarship on Radcliffe within the Romantic
movement more broadly by relating The Romance of the Forest to early nineteenthcentury Coleridgean discussions of the Gothic and method, demonstrating the text to be
more than a conventional romance. Whilst challenging some recent critics of Radcliffe’s
‘radical’ modernity, this thesis contends that The Romance of the Forest is an organised
text which offers progress, writes women as methodical narrative agents, and does this
through a sense of history in the present.
| Period | 6 Nov 2023 |
|---|---|
| Examinee | Roslyn Irving |
| Degree of Recognition | International |