Most people who are attracted to Ann Radcliffe writings only relate her with the Gothic world of mystery and dark magic forces, of haunted castles and mystical night landscapes, of graveyards, gargoyles, souls in pain and all the paraphernalia associated with this genre. That is why I avoided all those pages, because there are enough of them already.

But, after having gone through the most reliable pages I found about Ann Radcliffe I realised that in the literary scene Ann Radcliffe was more than a Gothic writer. I discover with delightful surprise that she was an innovator. Radcliffe modified both the structure and the theme of the novel. Her most valuable contribution to the novel was her use of natural scenery and of Nature. In her novels Nature was one more character. It reflected the mood and feelings of the main characters. Nature was alive in Radcliffe novels and change as the human characters changed combining in a way it was not done before the natural and the supernatural.

Thus, being Nature the principal character of the novel she developed her most important feature: Ut pictura poesis or word-painting, which is mainly an imitation of painting with words. As Sir Walter Scott said, Ann Radcliffe had “the eye of a painter with the spirit of a poet” (Prefatory Memoir to Mrs. Ann Radcliffe). Ann Radcliffe innovative technique was also a great influence in many authors’ style of writing, such as Jane Austen, William Wordsworth, Mary Shelley and Charles Dickens.  We can see a clear example of that in Austen’s Northanger Abbey.

To conclude, you can have a go with the word-painting technique with a didactic practice on it. This site is a good example on how electronic devices can help in education with practical exercises on line which allow also the interaction between student-professor.

I hope you enjoy it!

Wikipedia

Victorian Web

Brooklyn College

Chawton House Library