The Tale of Terror - A Study of the Gothic Romance by Edith Birkhead
page 73 of 321 (22%)
page 73 of 321 (22%)
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ridiculous, ever condescends to use colloquial speech. Even in
moments of extreme peril the heroines are very choice in their diction. Dialogue in Mrs. Radcliffe's world is as stilted and unnatural as that of prim, old-fashioned school books. In her earliest novel she uses very little conversation, clearly finding the indirect form of narrative easier. Sometimes, in the more highly wrought passages of description, she slips unawares into a more daring phrase, _e.g._ in _Udolpho_, the track of blood "glared" upon the stairs, where the word suggests not the actual appearance of the bloodstain, but rather its effect on Emily's inflamed and disordered imagination. Dickens might have chosen the word deliberately in this connection, but he would have used it, not once, but several times to ensure his result and to emphasise the impression. This is not Mrs. Radcliffe's way. Her attention to style is mainly subconscious, her chief interest being in situation. Her descriptions of scenery have often been praised. Crabb Robinson declared in his diary that he preferred them to those of _Waverley_. When Byron visited Venice he found no better words to describe its beauty than those of Mrs. Radcliffe, who had never seen it: "I saw from out the wave her structures rise As from the stroke of an enchanted wand." In 1794 Mrs. Radcliffe and her husband made a journey through Holland and West Germany, of which she wrote an account, including with it observations made during a tour of the English Lakes. All her novels, except _The Italian_ and _Gaston de Blondeville_, had been written before she went abroad, and in describing foreign scenery she relied on her imagination, aided |
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