ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -Ann Radcliffe (née Ward; 9 July 1764 – 7 February 1823) was an English novelist and a pioneer of Gothic fiction. Her technique of explaining apparently supernatural elements in her novels has been credited with gaining respectability for Gothic fiction in the 1790s.

Detailed explanation-2: -Her first novels, The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne (1789) and A Sicilian Romance (1790), were published anonymously. She achieved fame with her third novel, The Romance of the Forest (1791), a tale of 17th-century France. Her next work, The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), made her the most popular novelist in England.

Detailed explanation-3: -Edgar Allan Poe managed to condense elements of gothic horror within his short stories, starting in 1839 with the release of “The Fall of the House of Usher.” For more information on the Father of American Goth, check out our post: Where to Start with Edgar Allan Poe.

Detailed explanation-4: -For most contemporary readers, the charm and much of the originality of Radcliffe’s novel lay in her descriptions of landscape, which were influenced by her favorite painters–Salvator Rosa, Claude, and Gaspar Poussin.

Detailed explanation-5: -Radcliffe single-handedly changed the gothic novel; it was by her inclusion of original poetry as part of her novels and as epigraphs, as well as her elaborate descriptions of landscapes, that she elevated the form.