[a seminar paper for Fall semester 2013 at WMU]
These picturesque visions,
in which the imagination so much delights, and every discovery, however remote,
awaken a peculiar kind of interest, and of sentiment no less delightful, which
render antiquity, of all studies, the least liable to the epithet of dry,
though dull and dry people so liberally bestow it. Antiquity is one of the
favourite regions of poetry.’
‘Nay,’ said Mr. Simpson,
‘your woods and your meadows are the reign for that. Who ever thought of looking
for a muse in an old castle?’ (Radcliffe Gaston
de Blondeville 47)
Though part of a scholarly trend that
has tended to be dismissive of the works of ‘Mrs. Radcliffe,’ David Durant has
accurately stated that “aspects of the novels of almost every member of the
Gothic clan emerge again in Mrs. Radcliffe’s six novels; to study her work has
been to study the genre” (Durant 4). Ann Radcliffe, in part responsible for
popularizing the Gothic in the 1790s, wrote a total of six extant novels in her
lifetime. Five of these novels were published between 1789 and 1798. The last, Gaston de Blondeville, was written in
1802, but was not published until 1827, after her death (Radcliffe Gaston de Blondeville ii). Many reasons
have been given for why Radcliffe left off publishing, but all of them are
necessarily speculative. Standing apart from her other novels in many, Gaston de Blondeville, in a genre that
relies on a medieval setting, is the most insistently ‘medieval’ an
eighteenth/nineteenth century novel could be. In the above extract, Willoughton
and Simpson, two characters who are wandering from Coventry to Warwick, stop to
see the ruins of Kenilworth castle in the Arden forest. What follows is an
unrelenting exploration of the role of the past in works of ‘fiction.’ Durant
has criticized the work for being too bogged down in the rituals of the past to
be good fiction. Radcliffe’s insistence on the past, her construction of a
history, brings to the forefront a sense of lost. Elizabeth Fay, in Romantic
Medievalisms argues that this idea of loss is “a concept peculiarly suited to
the sentimental.” (Fay 49) Clare Simmons, in Popular Medievalisms in Romantic
Era Britain, has also noted this sense of loss: “the present has lost
something, generally something value-related that the past once had” (Simmons
7). But while the English medieval past is forefront, Radcliffe does not forget
her present. As Simmons has noted, “medievalism is persistently comparative,
compelling some level of conscious contrast between the reader’s (or
observer’s) present and the recreated medieval past” (Simmons 12). Radcliffe is
using the past as a meaningful mode of expression, literally finding her muse
in the old castle.
Of
all her other works, Gaston de
Blondeville contrasts nicely in its use of the medieval with her first
novel, The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne.
While Gaston de Blondeville insists
on a separation of the present and the past, The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne collapses the two like a
telescope. On either side of her body of work, these may be the two most
dissimilar texts, and yet both are set in the Middle Ages on British soil,
while her other works are usually set in Mediterranean, Catholic countries on
the cusp of the medieval and the modern. In addition, they are the only two
works that are not about daughters who are searching for mothers or clashing
with father figures (Miles 4,18). They also go together as her least well
received works. Durant says that her “most obvious borrowings are in her worst
novels – in The Castles of Athlin and
Dunbayne and in Gaston de Blondeville”
(Durant 11). Robert Miles, rescuing Radcliffe’s reputation, says that The Castles are both the shortest of her
works, but also a little ‘thin’ (73). In his book Ann Radcliffe: The Great Enchantress Miles doesn’t even talk about Gaston de Blondeville because his
interest is in the works she was best known for, a.k.a. those published in her
lifetime.
The
Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne and Gaston de Blondeville buttress
Radcliffe’s work with two medieval turrets. While both texts represent the
medieval differently, they both comment on the power of ancient privilege to
oppress those in the here and now. This paper will first examine why the Middle
Ages was particularly appropriate for Radcliffe’s work, and then will examine
the use of it in both texts, before showing how both texts use the medieval as
a setting which confirms the oppression of ancient privilege, although in
neither case very simply.
Radcliffe
herself wouldn’t have considered her works to deal with the ‘medieval.’ The
first recorded use in English was actually the same year that Gaston was published, and so after
Radcliffe’s death (Alexander xxv). Michael Alexander identifies the 1830s as
the period when the word ‘Gothic’ came to be replaced with ‘medieval’
(Alexander xx). It is not a straight word for word substitution however, as
Gothic did have negative undertones (Alexander xx). The Goths were known for
overthrowing classical structures, though they were also thought of as
ancestors to the English (Simmons 146). Trying to link the word to the movement
of Gothic literature Miles posits:
Where, then, did the Gothic romance stand
regarding the ideological meaning of ‘Gothic’ there is no set answer to this
for the basic reason that the figure of the Goth is ideologically
overdetermined: one encounters a number of conflicting positions crowding
around it (Miles 69).
Gothic as a period term
came to refer strictly to architecture but also, as we have seen, as whole
genre of fiction that ultimately did not have to relate directly to the Middle
Ages (Alexander xxv-i). Therefore for this paper medieval is a better
descriptor than Gothic, since the current conceptual understanding of the time
period that is being referred to in these texts is defined by medieval rather
than Gothic. Nor does thinking of the use of the period with negative
undertones necessarily help to understand the way that Radcliffe uses the past.
Radcliffe made use of medievalisms by intentionally referring to that part of
the past, though she would use different terms.
The interest in the Middle Ages – literature and
history, had been building through the eighteenth century. Alexander identifies
the 1760s as the beginning of what he calls the ‘Medieval Revival (Alexander
8). Part of the movement was that, searching for a literary past, the Middle
Ages offered literature, like romances, that were available to audiences,
larger than just those who could read the classics. Trying to define
Englishness, England looked back to medieval history and literature. Miles also
sees an increased interest developing throughout the eighteenth century that
led on a trajectory to Ann Radcliffe:
It was a nationalist movement in that ‘Gothic’ designated, not just
the ‘Middle Ages’, but the racial past that gave birth to Englishness.
According to the outlook of the later eighteenth century, the Middle Ages came
to an end with the death of Queen Elizabeth ; Shakespeare and Spenser were
‘Gothic’ (i.e. English) writers uniquely expressing the national genius (Miles
30).
In addition, more women
could read Shakespeare than Virgil, giving the movement impetus from that group
of readers and writers (Miles 30). Interest in the medieval was generated by
recovery of material from that time period and people’s interested in using the
materials they found there (Alexander xxii). Amongst those who borrowed forms
or subject matter from the Middle Ages in the Romantic era, Fay has identified
a chivalric and troubadour medievalisms, sometimes complimentary and sometimes
adversarial (Fay 4). Writers were now finding lively and particularly engaging
what had been sneered at only a generation before (Alexander xxiv)
Horace
Walpole wrote The Castle of Otranto
(1765) in the climate of this Medieval Revival. The genre is now called
‘Gothic’ because his second preface called it “A Gothic story.” As Alexander
notes:
In style and incident, The Castle of Otranto is an eclectic
medley of elements supposedly found in medieval romances. It is made up of five
chapters, mirroring the five acts of a play. It is a hybrid of various genres,
both a precious pastiche and a fantastic spoof (Alexander 5).
The first preface to the tale said that it was a
manuscript, found and transcribed from the ‘actual’ Middle Ages. For Walpole,
Simmons notes that he uses the medieval in two ways. He sets his tale in the
Middle Ages, in the Gothic era, because he needed structures of oppression, and
a society that was imagined to be quite oppressive (Simmons 142). However, his
use of the medieval also contained “a self-ironizing awareness of the aesthetic
and social appeal of the Middle Ages” (Simmons 143). Therefore, he has it both
ways; Walpole chooses the medieval as both a repulsive and appealing setting
for his ‘romance.’
While twenty four years separate Otranto from Castles, Radcliffe makes obvious references to that medievalist
work. Miles makes a case for Radcliffe’s involvement in propagating the Gothic
genre that Walpole starts (Miles 2). Whatever Walpole’s use of the medieval in
his texts, much of that spills over in Radcliffe’s work. That her first work
also contains ‘Castle’ in the title is but one of the clues that show the
similarities (Durant 22). Gaston de
Blondeville also picks up on themes directly out of Otranto, although usually very different ones from The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne. For
instance, The Castles of Athlin and
Dunbayne has Otranto’s
underground passages, has the same dithering servants, has a similar style and
is also about forcing women to marry men they do not love. Gaston de Blondeville contains the text of a ‘found’ manuscript, has
underground passages that specifically connect a castle with a Priory, and
takes up the plot of a man who cannot prove he is innocent, despite the fact
that he is factually so, because of the prejudices of his royal judge.
In The
Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne and Gaston
de Blondeville Radcliffe uses both this medievalized form of the romance
from the Walpole tradition, as well as the medieval setting, characters and
ideologies. Even if scholars like Durant find, possibly justifiably so, these
two works by Ann Radcliffe derivative of sources like Otranto, this does not negate the interesting features of
Radcliffe’s unique use of these themes, including the Middle Ages. Miles puts
succinctly the historical, literary and social advantages Radcliffe found in
Gothic literature:
Radcliffe’s preferred wing of the house of
fiction accommodated her practice of this ‘peculiar art’. By choosing new,
Walpolian romance (recently made respectable by Clara Reeve, Charlotte Smith
and Sophia Lee), Radcliffe ostensible avoided the political controversy endemic
in the novel’s realistic depiction of modern manners; and yet, subtextually,
there was ideological advantage to be had from the myth of the Goth. The
sublime and the picturesque codified conservative values, but by the same token
these values were now placed within the unstable realm of representation, where
interpretation becomes ungovernable (Miles 55-6).
Radcliffe was both
part of and a propagator of this intellectual rebranding of the Middle Ages
that made peculiar use of the old branding. Gothic literature allowed her to
pursue themes of oppression and to engage with an aesthetic that had popular
appeal, while the specific use of the Middle Ages allowed her to cast social,
domestic and legal oppression into the language of ‘ancient privilege.’ The
advantages of this, as will be seen, is that it gives a realism to the type of
oppression short of drawing on real instances, which heightens the effect. It
also allows her to be simultaneously conservative and subversive. The
condemnations of the oppressive, patriarchal society are mitigated by placing
it in a geographical and temporal remove. The condemnations seem subversive,
but have conservative tones because of their setting. Conversely, the solutions
to the problems imposed by the oppressive society seem conservative because
they restore a normal, conservative world order. However, the setting of the
past likewise tempers this with a subversive undertone, by suggesting that
these solutions represent the only way these problems could be resolved in such
‘times,’ times we no longer live in.
Of course, in The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne this is not abundantly clear.
The text has quite a few signifiers of the medieval, not least of which is that
it is written in the style of The Castle
of Otranto, recalling for readers that setting. The text opens: “On the
north-east coast of Scotland, in the most romantic part of the Highlands, stood
the Castle of Athlin; an edifice built on the summit of a rock, whose base was
in the sea. This pile was venerable from its antiquity, and from its Gothic
structure; but more venerable from the virtues which it enclosed (721).
Radcliffe describes both castles several times in terms of the ‘Gothic’: “the edifice was built with Gothic magnificence,
upon a high and dangerous rock. Its lofty towers still frowned in proud
sublimity, and the immensity of the pile stood a record of the ancient
consequence of its possessors.” (725)There is also the ruined abbey that Count
Santmorin uses as a hideout when he abducts Mary. The medieval makes its
present felt on the landscape of the novel. However, as Miles notes, the
presence of these structures is not necessarily medieval, especially not such
edifices as a ruined abbey, since presumably (though not necessarily) it would
be new in that time period (Miles 78). The description of the ruined abbey
confirms the ‘ruin’ of the medieval signifiers in the test:
the ruins of an abbey,
whose broken arches and lonely towers arose in gloomy grandeur through the
obscurity of evening. It stood the solitary inhabitant of the wastes, - a
monument of mortality and of ancient superstition, and the frowning majesty of
its aspect seemed to command silence and veneration (759).
How, in the context of this text, is the abbey a
monument to ‘ancient superstition,’ when presumably it is set in the Middle
Ages, when there was only one Church.
The
medieval structures that dominate the landscape, while invoking a sense of the
past, would not be enough to show that Radcliffe deliberately set the text in
the Middle Ages. Instead, it is joined with several other details. First, as
Miles notes, the only law seems to be that of feudal might, as the Earl of
Athlin and the Baron of Dunbayne are constantly conducting raids on each
other’s castles (Miles 78).
The descriptions of warfare also appears to be
deliberately medieval: “the archers who had been planted behind the walls, now
discovered themselves, and discharged a shower of arrows; at the same time
every part of the castle appeared thronged with the soldiers of the Earl, who
hurled on the heads of the astonished besiegers lances and other missile
weapons with unceasing rapidity” (753). Laura is described as being
particularly fond of the lute, which is a medieval instrument which, like the
castles, did persist into a later time, but with the other details is a
signifier of a medieval setting. Therefore, this text is intentionally
medieval, or ‘Gothic,’ in its setting, but it has collapsed the concept of
time, giving the reader no clear indication that they are in the past, but a
definitely feeling that that is where they are.
Durant’s
major criticism of The Castles of Athlin
and Dunbayne is its reliance on sentimental moralisms to define actions,
instead of character development (Durant 203). Instead, it may help to understand
the plot as dependent on Radcliffe’s construction of an old, sometimes
chivalric, code that imposes ideals on the characters. Radcliffe is placing
this code on the characters, which she has tentatively placed in the Middle
Ages.
We
can argue that it is a chivalric code because it does involve ideals for
knights and for those in a martial context:
in the morning were performed the martial
exercises, in which emulation was excited by the honourary rewards bestowed on
excellence. The Countess and her lovely daughter beheld from the ramparts of
the castle, the feats performed on the plains below. Their attention was
engaged, and their curiosity excited, by the appearance of a stranger, who
managed the lance and the how with such exquisite dexterity, as to bear off
each prize of chivalry (723).
Alleyn, one of our heroes, is the stranger. He is shown
to be worthy for his deference to these ideals. He is fiercely loyal to Osbert,
his earl and feudal superior. Even when he is torn between love of Mary and
loyalty to Osbert and his family, his loyalty and sense of duty trumps his
sentiments of love. Both Osbert and Alleyn show a desire to fight for the
honour of their names, with Alleyn also fighting for the honour of his lord and
Osbert fighting to revenge his father. Radcliffe constructs a narrative where
the characters are motivated by adherence to such chivalric ideals.
However,
this is also a source of tension in the novel, since there are implications of
honour not just on the battlefield, but in marriage alliances as well. This is
how women are pulled into the chivalric ideal. There will be loss of honour to
the family if Mary is forced to marry the Baron of Dunbayne to ransom Osbert,
her brother. There will also be loss of honour if she is allowed to marry
Alleyn, who is below her in station. If Alleyn and Osbert’s sense of honour and
martial prowess will allow them to overcome the Baron of Dunbayne, their same
sense of honour will be a source of oppression almost harder to deal with than
the Baron, because there is no solution. They must do the impossible, which is
to keep the two from loving each other:
The Countess admired
with warmest gratitude the noble and inspiring virtues of the young Highlander,
but the proud nobility of her soul repelled with quick vivacity every idea of
union with a youth of such ignoble birth: she regarded the present attachment
as the passing impression of youthful fancy, and believed that gentle
reasoning, aided by time and endeavor, would conquer the enthusiasm of love
(734-5).
Radcliffe sets in opposition meritocracy and a chivalric
system. The whole family is tormented that Alleyn cannot have what he clearly
merits: “all these circumstances arose in strong reflection to the mind of
Osbert; but the darkness of prejudice and ancient pride opposed their
influence, and weakened their effect” (762). Mary tries to be strong but “his
disinterested and noble conduct excited emotions dangerous to her fortitude,
and which rendered yet more poignant the tortures of the approaching sacrifice”
(746). Her mother tells her “you do well to remember the dignity of your sex
and of your rank; though I must lament with you that worth like Alleyn’s is not
empowered by fortune to take its standard with nobility” (752). Osbert is
tortured by the puzzle and laments “O! that I could remove that obstacle which
withholds you from your just reward!” (762). It is not just that Radcliffe
touches on this opposition, but she returns over and over to the injustice of
it.
Even
though Radcliffe returns the status quo at the end, and shows that Alleyn has
been the rightful Baron of Dunbayne all along, this doesn’t negate the
injustice that Radcliffe has harped on throughout the ordeal of the characters.
In the system that Radcliffe is describing there is no other way to bring about
a solution that would bring Alleyn and Mary together at the end. While it would
seem that Radcliffe is using a construction of a chivalric code in a
conservative way, in fact it also shows how the ‘ancient pride’ and prejudices
inherent in this code are oppressive. Mary herself is oppressed on all sides by
this societal structure. She cannot adopt the martial part of the code, and so
can only honour the family by making marriage alliances. The Baron of Dunbayne
can demand her hand because of the victories he has won over Osbert in battle.
When that threat is removed, she cannot rely on love to decide whom she will
marry. Indeed, like the castles and the abbeys that are in part ruined, these
oppressive systems are, as Miles terms it, parasitic parts of the past preying
on the present (Miles 78). The phrase ‘ancient pride’ really drives this home.
The very loose delineation of time period for the setting helps to make this
point relevant to Radcliffe’s readers. The ‘ancient pride’ which leads to
oppression is meant to resonate with her audience.
If The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne is suggestive of medieval
history, ideals and literature, Gaston de
Blondeville is insistent upon it. The whole title, Gaston de Blondeville or The Court of Henry III: Keeping Festival in
Ardenne: A Romance, makes this point very well. We have the name of our
anti hero attached to a specific historical figure, attached to a specific
medieval practice, with a mention also of the specifically medieval form of
literature that is being used. In this text Radcliffe is intentionally engaging
in two kind of medievalism trends of the eighteenth century. Alexander has
noted that correctitude was highly prized, so that “it was usual to correct older
texts when reprinting them” (Alexander 18). Willoughton, the antiquarian who
frames the narrative of the text, is shown to be reproducing the text by
changing the letters from black face and updating some of the words so we can
read it. However, Alexander also says that “the outbreak of medievalism in the
1760s was in part simply the result of the melting away of the prestige
attached by neo-classical literary theory to notions of correctitude”
(Alexander 20). Sometimes we see interiority of Willoughton, such as in those
instances, although his narrative, as well as that of the text, is told in
third person. The issue of narrator is extremely complex, since we presumably
have a manuscript, transcribed by Willoughton, although we also have a third
person narrator who is also telling us Willoughton’s story. In addition, within
the ‘manuscript’ the narrator of that tale sometimes gives us asides to
indicate his status as someone who is telling the tale in a wholly other time
period than either King Henry III’s or Willoughton’s:
but what would such have said, had they
lived now, in our King Richard’s days; who, the second of his name, is first in
every kind of new extravagance, the like of which was never seen afore, and
what it may end in, there is no one that dare yet say (30).
This narrator’s identity as a monk is confirmed by
statements by the narrator such as “and over all she wore the veil of a sister,
and pity it was, that so fair a vestal should be relinquished to this world,
instead of being retained in the community, which had once looked to have her
their own,” which praises convent life, instead of calling it ‘ancient
superstition,’ as was implied in The
Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne (II.8). The narrators themselves are very
concerned with the idea of correctitude themselves, but their interesting
relation to each other compromises the very notion of correctitude. The
complexity of the narration as well as the fact that this is a story about
ghosts, the only one of Radcliffe’s novels to make use of actual supernatural
events, complicates the idea of correctitude that is invoked by the authority
of Willoughton as a source and the manuscript and by the long lists of well
described medieval details such as armour, tapestries, decorations, historical
battles, tournaments and feasting.
The
verification of historical details becomes a predominant theme of the text. Part
of this comes from Willoughton, who ironically always is correcting the facts
of those around him. When a local comes to give Willoughton and Simpson a tour
he describes part of the castle: “‘It was just opposite the Pleasant, yonder,’
said the aged historian. Willoughton retorts “‘The Pleasant!’” to draw attention to the mistake: “‘Yes, Sir; if you
look this way, I will tell you where it stood: it was a banqueting-house on the
lake.’” Willoughton can not help but reply “‘O! the Plaisance!’”(27). Willoughton questions the ‘aged historian’ as a
source, and the veracity of the text. In the main narrative the merchant
Woodreve accuses the Baron Gaston de Blondeville of murdering his (the
merchant’s) kinsman in a robbery. It is later discovered that the Prior was
part of that murderous gang. They keep trying to get Woodreve to change his
story, and Woodreve must insist on the details “The four! I saw but three,’
said Woodreeve, eagerly” (II. 168).
Ultimately,
this parade of sources, of facts and of the medieval is used ironically in Gaston de Blondeville because it is a
text about stories that will not be believed. Woodreve has the facts on his
side, but there is literally nothing that he can produce that will corroborate
his story since he has to compete against the prejudice of the King against
him. Unlike Manfred in The Castle of
Otranto, King Henry is not trying to suppress the truth, but does so
unintentionally through his prejudices. Woodreve’s eye witness account is not
believed because of how dark it was, so he cannot provide demonstrable proofs.
Likewise, when the supernatural intervene on his behalf, every instance is
construed by Henry, at the instigation of the Prior, as the work of witchcraft
by Woodreve. As evidence is piled in Woodreve’s favour, everything that could
clear him is used to condemn him.
Willoughton
mirrors Woodreve in his insistence on the facts, but ultimately he mirrors King
Henry who has already made up his mind, despite what the evidence tells him:
But at whatsoever period this ‘Trew Chronique’
had been written, or by whomsoever, Willoughton was so willing to think he had
met with a specimen of elder times, that he refused to dwell on the evidence,
which went against its stated origin, or to doubt the old man’s story of the
way in which it had been found (III. 53-4).
In this text there is an
interest in what is medieval, of what can be found out about the Middle Ages,
but there is also an undercutting of stories that rely too heavily on
antiquarian material. The text both presents details from the Middle Ages as
facts and also comments on the impossibility of truly knowing what has happened
in the past.
In this text history is a ghost, which haunts the
present. This is no doubt why it is also the only text that has a real ghost,
possibly more than one. The aged historian says that Queen Elizabeth is
haunting the ruins of Kenilworth, although this is not verified by Willoughton
or Simpson. She has, however, clearly left her mark on the castle, so even if
she is not really haunting it, the castle brings up the memory for the local
villagers, who are haunted by the history of when Queen Elizabeth came to stay.
On the walls of the castle hangs tapestries that depict the story of Troy and
the story of Richard the Lion-Heart, both of which shape the way that the King
and the court think of themselves. In the main narrative the wicked murder of
Reginald de Folville literally comes back to haunt Gaston de Blondeville.
Reginald and his lady (who is still alive, though that does not stop her spirit
from visiting Kenilworth) not only hint at the truth of Woodreve’s story, but
forcefully intervene in the narrative. Reginald de Folville’s ghost kills Gaston de Blondeville at the tournament
and the Prior in his bed. Ghosts in the narrative cannot be fully reclaimed by
the present, but they haunt the present with real consequences.
Even though it exists in ghost
form, or ruin form in the case of Kenilworth castle, the past cannot really be
reclaimed, creating the sense of loss Fay and Simmons indicate is an important
part of such clear medievalisms. Reginald’s loss is still greatly felt by
Woodreve. King Henry will never come back to Kenilworth after the events that
transpire there. In the ballad that Pierre the minstrel sings to Barbara on the
eve of her wedding to Gaston de
Blondeville, he recalls the detail “Faint on the arras’d walls were shown/
The heroes of some antient story,/ Now faded, like their mortal glory” (164). For
Willoughton, his engagement with ruins and the medieval brings home for him his
own mortality:
Those walls, where gorgeous tapestry had
hung, showed only the remains of door-ways and of beautiful gothic windows,
that had admitted the light of the same sun, which at this moment sent the last
gleam of another day upon Willoughton, and warned him, that another portion of
his life too was departing (20).
The people of the narrative are both oppressed by their
past and oppressed by the loss of it. This is why the text is so insistent to
make that past real for the reader.
Durant
is incorrect when he states that “the sources betray Mrs. Radcliffe’s
historicist bias: they contain no description of the broad sweep of historical
events, nor the deeds of heroes, not the politics of nations; they concentrate
on everyday rituals” (Durant 191-2). First because the deeds of heroes, sweep
of historical events and politics are mentioned, if in somewhat less detail
than the rituals of dress or food. But second because of what Miles has noted
about the difference between Radcliffe’s surface narrative and the subtext
(Miles 176). Comparing it to The Castles
of Athlin and Dunbayne, it is easier to see again the focus on the place of
a meritocracy in a system that oppresses it. Woodreve, who is continuously
referred to as ‘the merchant’ throughout the text, is the most upstanding
character. He continuously is reassured that despite his suffering he is doing
the right thing:
yet did he not repent the effort he had
made, so honest was his grief for the fate of his kinsman; so much was his mind
possessed with the notion, that he has accused his very murderer; so confident
was he that he was performing a duty; and, what is more, so sure was he, that
to perform his duty in this world is the wisest, the most truly cunning thing a
man can contrive to do (I.182).
Prince Edward and the
Archbishop of York are also cast in a good light by believing him, making the
merchant (and the ghost) the focal points of honour in the text. While the rank
that one holds is important in the text, it is not as important as being able
to see the truth, yet Woodreve is still oppressed by a social system that
favours the opinion of people with a high rank.
Both
The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne
and Gaston de Blondeville phrase the
oppression in the novels as products of the ‘times,’ of the medieval period
that is being depicted. The Castles
refers to the oppression as the result of “the darkness of prejudice and
ancient pride” (762). Gaston is more
insistent on the effects of the period: “Nor was that so wonderful in times,
when lawless violence had almost overrun the whole land” (II. 256). However,
both bring that oppression into the present, though in very different ways. The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne
collapse the medieval and the present together. Gaston de Blondeville shows how the past actively haunts, with
active consequences, the realm of the present. Simmons calls this “the true
medievalist moment: a supposed medieval air and historical incident provide the
means of commenting on current oppression” (Simmons 72). The air of the
medieval is important to both texts in different ways, but ultimately the past
gives to both novels a sense of oppression, one that puts those whose only
claim to honour is merit underfoot of those unjustly given privileges.
Paralleling
the two medievalisms Alexander mentions, Fay says that there is “medievalism as
an anachronism – as a vaguely past state that encompasses everything up to the
Enlightenment initiation into modernity” in addition to the medievalism of
antiquarianism, as represented by the character Willoughton (Fay 13). According
to Fay:
the conflict between
anachronism – the disruption of temporal sequence – and antiquarianism – its
preservation – can be seen in the difference between Horace Walpole’s
antiquarianism, which leads to the creation of the Gothic, and Walter Scott’s
antiquarianism, which leads to the creation of the historical novel. The Gothic
is an Enlightenment revision of medieval superstition and fantasy; the
historical novel is a Romantic revision of antiquarian collection that makes
use of history to create a temporal identity rather than fabricating it for
mere escapism (Fay 13).
The Castles of
Athlin and Dunbayne clearly fit into this category
of anachronism. However, Gaston de
Blondeville fits neatly into neither, straddling the two. Gaston represents the impulse to gather
the nationalistic details of English history, while also exploiting it for that
sense of the past as an oppressive structure on the individual psyche. Gaston be Blondeville is an historical
novel in the style of Sir Walter Scott, as well as a Gothic novel in the style
of, well, Ann Radcliffe, or perhaps we should say Horace Walpole. Durant says
that “it is usual to think of the Gothic as an intermediary step towards
Scott’s novels,” though this is not fair on the Gothic (Durant 212). Radcliffe
self-reflexively brings the two genres together, showing that history is an
effective and disturbing ghost. Radcliffe is intentionally reflecting on both
genres when her manuscript narrator says:
We vouch not for the
truth of all here told; we only repeat what others have said and their selves
credited; but in these days what is there of strange and wonderful, which does
not pass as current as the coin of the land; and what will they not tell in
hall, or chamber, seated by night over blazing logs, as if their greatest
pleasure were to fear? (II. 257).
Radcliffe’s use of the medieval is very intentional,
even in The Castles of Athlin and
Dunbayne, as she brings home for their readers just what it is about the
past we have to fear.
Bibliography
Alexander, Michael. Medievalism:
The Middle Ages in Modern England. London: Yale University Press, 2007.
Print.
Durant, David S. Ann Radcliffe's
novels: experiments in setting. New York: Arno Press, 1980. Print.
Fay, Elizabeth. Romantic Medievalism.
New York: Palgrave, 2002. Print.
Miles, Robert. Ann Radcliffe: The
Great Enchantress. New York: Manchester University Press, 1995. Print.
Radcliffe, Ann. Gaston de Blondeville
of The Court of Henry III Keeping Festival in Ardenne. Vols. I,II. New
York: Arno Press, 1972. Print.
Radcliffe, Ann. "The Castles of
Athlin and Dunbayne." Ann Radliffe: THe Novels, Complete in One
Volume. New York: Georg Olms Verlag Hildesheim, 1974. 720-64. Print.
Simmons, Clare. Popular Medievalisms
in Romantic Era Britain. New York: Palgrave and Macmillan, 2011. Print.
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