Democratic Sublime in The Romance of the Forest by Ann Radcliffe

I’ve always been interested in Edmund Burke’s discussion on the sublime in A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. The sublime, as Burke describes, is a mixed feeling of pleasure and pain. He situates the sublime as a masculine quality. Ann Radcliffe, in The Romance of the Forest, reshapes Burke’s notions of the sublime as a masculine experience. To do this, she utilizes the features he discusses that help invoke the sublime, but reshapes their purpose. Radcliffe empowers her heroine, Adeline, by allowing her to indulge in an experience that was previously stereotyped as male. Radcliffe creates a more democratic sublime, in which females may partake. Thus, she reforms the sublime’s historical context and empowers her female heroine; simultaneously, she illustrates her ability as a female author to utilize and reshape a male-dominated experience and a male-originated genre (the Gothic).

Adeline experiences the sublime early on in the novel. After Peter applied the light upon the ruins, “The partial gleams” and the “obscurity of the greater part of the pile heightened its sublimity, and led fancy on to scenes of horror” (18). To experience this sublimity is Adeline:

Adeline, who had hitherto remained in silence, now uttered an exclamation of mingled admiration and fear. A kind of pleasing dread thrilled her bosom, and filled all her soul. Tears started into her eyes: - she wished, yet feared, to go on...(18).

 Burke discusses the influence of “obscurity” in creating the sublime. He states, “To make any thing very terrible, obscurity seems in general to be necessary” (Burke xix). Although Radcliffe utilizes this notion of obscurity, she reshapes it by allowing a female to experience it. In this instance in the novel, Adeline is the only character to have reached this level of sublimity, highlighting her elevated role as a female, while the others simply stood by. Furthermore, after having experienced the sublime, Adeline looked at La Motte with a “hesitating interrogation” (18). She is now accessing reason and questioning whether to proceed further into the abbey with La Motte. In stark contrast with La Motte’s earlier experience of sublimity, where he simply “conveyed the vastness of the place,” Adeline’s experience resulted in rationale (16). This is in defiance of 18^th century gender constructions that insist women cannot or should not access reason.

Radcliffe continues to use this notion of obscurity to demonstrate her empowerment of the female character. Adeline is described to have had “uneasy dreams” causing her to recollect her “sorrows” and cry (22). To calm herself, Adeline proceeds to the window and the morning scene is described as thus: “The dark mists were seen to roll off to the west, as the tints of light grew stronger, deepening the obscurity of that part of the hemisphere...” (22). Although Radcliffe is attributing Burke’s notion of obscurity onto the scene of nature, she is manipulating its effects. Because of nature, “Adeline’s heart swelled too with gratitude and adoration” and “the scene before her soothed her mind...” (Radcliffe 22). Thus, Radcliffe has allowed Adeline to calm herself by accessing strength from nature. Radcliffe demonstrated Burke’s discussion of obscurity to empower the female heroine. Thus, she has challenged the notion of a masculine sublimity.

Reading Burke’s Enquiry really helps you to put into context how Radcliffe is creating the sublime experience, and also helps you to see how she takes the sublime even further than Burke and makes it democratic. Here is a link to Burke’s Enquiry:

 http://www.bartleby.com/24/2/

Part II focuses heavily on the sublime and its various attributes.

Citation:

Burke, Edmund. A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime

and Beautiful. UK: Basil Blackwell Ltd, 1987.

Arabella's Power in The Female Quixote by Charlotte Lennox

Arabella’s reading of Romances has given her a sense of power. She believes she can control situations just by commanding. When Arabella hears of Mr. Hervey being sick in bed, she insists that her letter to him will help him recover. She says, “he will recover, if I command him to do so” (16). Arabella really believes she has the power to stop death if she only commands. She derives this power from reading romances. For example, she gives an account of Mazares and Mandana, and Oroondates and Statira, where the heroines command their lovers to live (47, 48). Arabella tells Lucy that in Romances, the heroine’s lover does not die if she insists he lives (16).  

In another encounter, Arabella tells Mr. Hervey “you are now wholly in my Power” and “I’ll give you Freedom” only if he obeys her commands. Because of her romantic notions, Arabella assumes authority over situations, believing it is her right to do so. She also has power over people. She even convinced the servants to hold Mr. Hervey back even though he offered no sign of threat and no pistol was in sight.

Arabella also controls Lucy. As ridiculous as Arabella sounds, Lucy is easily convinced by her and does as Arabella commands. Lucy does not simply obey Arabella because of her rank, but admits to even agreeing with her. Early on in the novel, Arabella convinces Lucy that the gardener is a man of higher degree in disguise to pursue Arabella. Lucy says she thought him to be a simple gardener but instantly changes her mind when Arabella asks her a series of questions. Lucy then says to her, “now you open my Eyes” (24). Lucy is continually fooled by Arabella’s ridiculousness and believes in her imaginations (for example, Arabella fools Lucy into thinking a man is there to steal her away, 93).

Throughout the novel, Arabella asserts herself one way or another, and even makes commands. She speaks freely to the men she encounters (which are of course based off of her reading of romances), and even to her own father. She openly confronts Sir Charles about his intentions towards her! Arabella, using her knowledge from reading romances, even corrects and embarrasses Mr. Selvin during his discussion of ancient history (265). She is verbally expressive. It is also a sort of empowerment for a woman to correct a man’s knowledge when it is generally believed that men are the more knowledgeable sex.

In another earlier occasion, Arabella tells Mr. Glanville “I am rather to accuse the Slowness of your Understanding, for your persisting in treating me thus freely” (36). As ridiculous as her notions are, she nonetheless voices her opinions and thoughts freely. The narrator states, “strange as her Notions of life appeared, yet they were supported with so much Wit and Delicacy” (45). The narrator notes on several occasions how Mr. Glanville finds Arabella’s behavior strange and yet “smiles” at her. Arabella asserts a strange power over those around her and Mr. Glanville is “in the Possession of a Woman” (118).

A scene that I found to be very strange was in the conversation between Arabella and her father. It is common for heroines in distress to take their own life in 18^th century literature. Arabella is aware of this and desires to “imitate” these women of “Courage” to avoid marrying Mr. Glanville. Arabella finds power in taking her own life, claiming that she is just as “capable” in doing so as the romantic heroines she reads (54). When her father threatens to burn her books, Arabella laments the fate of the heroines who “were going to be cast into the merciless Flames” (55). Arabella’s imagination is so strong that she believes the characters in her books to be real and suffer a true fate caused by events outside the books themselves. The fact that Arabella sees power in deciding to take her own life away, and laments the powerlessness of her heroines (or “innocent Victims” 57) who will suffer at the hands of someone else, is a fascinating and strange part of the novel.

An interesting addition to this is Arabella’s imaginative thought that the men who cross her path will commit suicide upon her rejecting them. She makes sure to tell her father if Mr. Glanville has taken his life, she did not “desire” for him to do so (38, 39). She actually believes she has the power to push men into suicide over their supposed grief, just as I observed earlier that she believes in her power to command men to live (for example, she commands Sir George, who plays along with Arabella’s fancy, to live too).

In the end, Arabella is reformed and is no longer disillusioned. Thus, she has lost her power. Is Lennox indicating that female power is unrealistic? Is female power unacceptable and made ridiculous by society? Though her heroine loses power, has Lennox gained her own sense of power by writing in a male-dominated form to explore a female realm?

I have been interested in RED every since Professor Maruca introduced us to it. I decided to search "The Female Quixote" in the UK RED and came across Jane Austen's reading experience and how it helped shape her Northanger Abbey. I always read Northanger Abbey in response to Ann Radcliffe's Romance of the Forest, so I am definitely looking forward to keeping Lennox and the issue of education in mind as we end the semester with Austen. 

Here's a link to Austen's reading experience: http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=132