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Energies of Mind: Plot's Possibilities in the 1790sPatricia Meyer Spacks No one would locate the 1790s in a great age of the English novel. The novelists who flourished most conspicuously during the period—Ann Radcliffe, of course; Mary Wollstonecraft; William Godwin—either made their reputations in forms of writing other than fiction or, if they produced Gothic novels, they do not seem quite serious . Nevertheless, I wish to claim the decade's importance for the history of the novel by focusing on some aspects of plot in the fiction of the period . I shall use a group of late-century novels to explore ideas about the kinds of meaning plot embodies—plot considered not in its technical sense, but more generally as the large structural principle of narrative that organizes representations of sequence and causality. The novels that interest me contain characters who plot—bad characters. Plotting makes things happen within the narrative, but it does not alone determine outcome . More effective, ultimately, is a quality novelists ofthe time referred to as "energy of mind." Its role in these texts suggests important new attitudes toward story and plot, a new view of gender relations, and a new understanding of the human psyche. These are the matters I want to look into. Let me start with Thomas Holcroft, in the twentieth century an almost completely neglected author. ("I know of no reader who has admitted enthusiasm over the novels of Thomas Holcroft," Harrison Steeves writes.)1 1 Before Jane Austen: The Shaping of the English Novel in the Eighteenth Century (New York: Holt, Rinehart, Winston, 1965), p. 292. EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION, Volume 1, Numberl, October 1988 38 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION In 1792 Holcroft—forty-seven years old, previously employed as shoemaker , strolling player, secretary—published a seven-volume novel called Anna St. Ives.1 Its plot at the outset would have sounded familiar to its first readers. Anna, a young woman of aristocratic family, loves, without quite knowing it, Frank Henley, son of her father's steward, who also loves her. Her father, however, wishes her to marry a man of high birth, Coke Clifton, brother to her best friend, handsome, intelligent, and rich. Believing in her obligations to her family, Anna agrees to this match, although she has become aware by the end of the first volume of Frank's virtues and of her feeling for him. Appropriate twentieth-century terms for discussing this fictional situation come readily to mind. We might speak of female masochism or of female oppression; or allude to eighteenth-century conventions for novelistic plots; or examine changing familial arrangements of the late century and comment on the persistence of old family patterns in fiction. Holcroft , however, conscious of such issues himself, forestalls us. His plot soon assumes an unexpected shape. Before Anna agrees to marry Clifton, Frank proposes to her, claiming her on the basis of their shared social commitments and convictions. She refuses him, but acknowledges that she loves him, kisses him (this in an eighteenth-century novel!), and—demands his help in elevating Clifton's character. Clifton, she explains, has great human potential. Properly educated , he might do immense good. Frank will fulfil a social responsibility by helping to turn his rival's energies toward virtuous ends. This strange alliance does not end the novel's unexpected twists. Ever more intimate with Frank as they pursue their common purpose, Anna tells her fiancé about the relationship, including the proposal, the confession of love, the kiss, and the shared intent of reforming Clifton himself. Pretending to accept her high-minded plan but consumed with rage, he decides to seduce her by drawing on her progressive beliefs and then to abandon her: he has his own eighteenth-century novelistic plot in mind. She indignantly rejects him and turns to his rival. Clifton, sounding more and more like Lovelace, plans to imprison and rape her. He manages to confine her and Frank in separate strongholds, but both, drawing on what Anna calls their "energy of mind" (p. 423), escape. (Anna, in the process , climbs over a high wall, commenting that people who think only 2 Anna St. Ives, ed. Peter Faulkner (London: Oxford University Press...

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