"The Politics of Narrative Picturesque: Gilpin’s rules of composition in Ann Radcliffe’s and Jane Austen’s Fiction"

The essay deals with the changes and transformations which affected the narrative techniques and structure of the romantic novel as a consequence of the widespread influence of Gilpin’s rules of composition for picturesque drawing. First applied to literature through Ann Radcliffe’s word-painting and romantic travelling, Gilpin’s principles and rules were transferred from natural landscapes to Austen’s social milieus and settings, where the well known “imprecision”, which is a basic characteristic of the picturesque (Garside, xv), appears to be realized in the “open” form of the six novels. Particularly, this essay dwells on the principles which are found at work in the construction of Radcliffe’s suspense as well as of Austen’s double writing.