A Study Of Geographical Space Constructed In The Mysteries Of Udolpho From The Perspective Of Literary Geography

In the golden era of gothic novel, Ann Radcliffe was undoubtedly one of the pioneers. Being an expert in the combination between Gothic novels and romanticism, she is honored as "Mother of the Gothic", and "the Great Enchantress". Radcliffe produced six novels in total, in which she constructed a variety of geographic spaces, all reflecting the anxious and eerie mystery gothic emotional appeal. Radcliffe’s wild, often bleak sceneries, supernatural in the darkness, and gothic mysteries not only attracted many readers and scholars but also lived on in the works of Keats, the Brontes, Dickens and many others.Upon its publication in 1794, "The Mysteries of Udolpho" caused a wide public concern from the very beginning, and even won her the praise as "Mistress of Udolpho". In the book, Radcliffe made full paly of the gothic style, among which the description of natural scenery and cultural building grasped every reader’s attention.Literature geography, based on the relationship of literature and geographical environment, is a new discipline with wide research fields. It no longer treats the geographical environment description in literature as background and writing convention thus ignores its significance. In literary geography, the construction of geographical spaces often reflects the writer’s aesthetic tendency and aesthetic personality, as well as his writing ideal and goal, from this perspective, one can grasp the author’s writing psychology and aesthetic values, thus further interpret ideological value and aesthetic meaning of literary works.Literary geography in gothic novel, whose text paying much attention to the study of geographic space construction, belongs to a new research area. By close reading, this thesis proceeds with the natural geographical space, human geographical space and imaginary geographical space in the novel, penetrating into the three kinds of constructed geographical spaces. On one hand, the thesis aims to explore the motivation role of geographical space on writing skills, plot structure, artistic techniques, and aesthetic values and so on. On the other hand, it explores the cultural connotation from interdisciplinary perspective to seek the complex emotions of the novel.