The Sublimating and Suspending Uses of Music in Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho

This article focuses on the use of music in Ann Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho and claims that music, as sense and sensation, mediates between the various stylistic and thematic levels of the novel. More specifically, it shows how music functions as a structural element, mediating thematically between city and nature, and stylistically between description and plot. It discusses the thematic loci of the novel (nature, castle, city) and the disparate styles (descriptive and narrative) with respect to which music functions as structural mediator. It illustrates two specific functions in Radcliffe's use of music, sublimating and suspending, through analysis of musical passages from the novel.