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Article: Ann Radcliffe and natural theology.
- Article from:
- Studies in the Novel
- Article date:
- June 22, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 University of North Texas. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Even within a critical climate largely sympathetic to its aspirations, the eighteenth-century Gothic is still perceived as fluctuating between peaks of rhetorical hyperactivity and valleys of intellectual torpor--almost as if a Radcliffean villain and heroine, each more caricatured than anything actually seen in Radcliffe, were alternately in control. When we do think of Gothic authors themselves as being in control, we have practical motives for deemphasizing their personal claims: even where biographical concerns are clearly present, the novels are often more convincing as registrants of cultural anxieties than as portraits of literary artists. This tendency has ...