The Italian in Detail
Do It Yourself
Add your own examples to the
various headings
Structure
• Three volumes and three, noncorresponding, narrative blocks.
• Three protagonists.
• Central theme: Love of a nobleman for a
girl of an inferior social class and obstacles
that have to be surmounted before the happy
end.
• Secondary plot: The mysteries and horrors
surrounding Schedoni.
Masterplot: from medieval romance
Vivaldi is “like a knight of chivalry” ch. 11, 141 . Quest:
reunion with Ellena after travelling throughout Italy.
–Obstacles (dragons!)
• Social : class difference.
• Human: villains
– The Marchesa
– Schedoni, his mother’s confessor
• Supernatural (apparition of the monk)
• Suspense.
–Both characters’ adventures.
–Heroine braves her enemies.
–Hero overcomes terror to deliver woman.
–Alone and together they fight to remove Obstacles
Romance
• Characters ignorant of their birth.
– Mistaken identities
– Agnitions (anagnoresis)
• Coincidences (e.g. fishermen in conversation give
hints of where Ellena has been carried (Ch. 9, 1256); Vivaldi reaches the convent on the day E. is
forced to become a novice (CH. 11,139)
Narrative blocks
• 1st block: Love story in Naples, with
threats and final separation. Dynamic.
• 2nd block: on the road (NaplesManfredonia-Rome): succession of reunions
and losses. Happiness and misery. Plans to
escape and failures. Dynamic
• 3rd block: In the dungeons of the
Inquisition in Rome. Focuses on revelations
about Schedoni. Static.
Sources and influences
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•
•
•
Schiller Der Geisterseher
Diderot La Réligieuse
Lewis, The Monk
Various travel books, e.g. Mrs ThralePiozzi.
• Probable influence on Manzoni’s Promessi
sposi .
– Ellena, prototype of Lucia.
– Villains, abduction.
The Prologue
• An English gaze
– Them vs. us
– Casts positive characters as very English
middle-class (i.e. tourists in Italy)
• Ellena proud of being a working-woman
• always proper, preserves her identity
• End: English garden vs Italian landscape.
• Who is the Italian? Schedoni? Vivaldi? The
Italian Other? A novel about Otherness-
The Love Story
• Falling in love in church (like Petrarch with Laura) Ch.
1,p.9
• Love at first sight ("amor che a cor gentil ratto
s'apprende")
• Window / garden scene scene.Ellena pronounces his name
p.17; Ch. II, p. 34
– Cf. Romeo and Juliet
• Love: access to Paradise Ch. II, p. 35.
• V. is “like a knight of chivalry” ch. 11, 141); ready to
brave obstacles (father p. 50, monk,
• A succession of meetings and separations; joy and longing.
• No dramatic evolution in love story. Fixity. No courtship,
no conquest. Dynamic momentum given by travel
metaphor.
• Platonic reunion of two halves.
Italy as source of horrifying otherness
• Evident links with Elizabethan tradition.
• Machiavellian characters
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–
–
–
Schedoni
Spalatro
The marchesa
The Inquisition
• Forces of oppression and containment
– convent discipline,
– The Inquisition,
– patriarchal families
• Intrigues, poison
– Schedoni and the Marchesa
– Schedoni and Spalatro
Cruelty, Horrors
• Few episodes of real horror. Most of them
imaginary
– Intrigues to separate lovers: family pride
– Mysterious apparitions and voices under the arch (17,
20, 25)
– Sig.ra Bianchi’s suspect death
– Vivaldi’s imprisonment—darkness, creaking doors,
blood. Mysterious story of terrible confession told by
Paulo. Ch.VII
– Ellena’s abduction—dark carriage (72-73)
• Forcing her to take the veil against her will
• Enclosure in “hideous chamber” “a stone chamber,
secured by doors of iron” (Ch.11, 146)
The Villains
• Aristocratic characters
– The marchesa (Ch. 1 p. 12); hypocrisy
(ch.9,119)
– The marchese (Ch. 2 p. 37)
• Bandits, ruffians etc.
The Villains
• Ecclesiastical characters
– The mysterious monk (ch. 1 and 3)
– Schedoni (Ch. 2, p. 42)
• Prototype of dark fascinating villains.. Byronic heroes
• Heir to Milton's Satan (Fallen angel)
– The friar with “a ruffian’s heart” (Ch. 6, p. 78)
– The nun guiding Ellena in convent: a countenance of
“gloomy malignity” a spectre newly risen from the
grave”(Ch. 6, p. 79)
– The Abbess of San Stefano: a woman of some
distinction cares a lot about “noble families” (ch.6, 80)
can “proceed to extremities”, has “the power of
injustice and depravity” “Imagination cannot draw the
horrors” which she might inflict on Ellena if she resists
(ch.8, 112-13)
– The Inquisition (an anachronism in the XVIII cemt.)
Schedoni: Radcliffe’s most successful
creation.
• Model of the Byronic hero.
• “A man of birth and of fallen fortune” “impenetrable veil
upon his origin” “gloomy pride of a disappointed” spirit ,
“haughty and disordered spirit” frequent penances maybe
“the consequences of some hideous crime” “many
passions” “habitual gloom and severity” (Ch. 2 p. 42-43)
• “a man whose passion might impel him to the perpetration
of almost any crime, how hideous so ever” (Ch. 4, 62)
• Pious and admired for his piety. Instruments of torture and
devotion in his cell (ch.9, 120)Torments of the minde and
penance made him “resemble a spectre rather than a
human being … exhibited the wild energy of something
not of this earth” (ch.10, 128)
• V. considers him “the prophet and the artificer of all my
misfortunes” (ch.9, 121)
Schedoni 2
• After V. has insulted him, meditates “a terrible
revenge”. Tempted to kill V. but fears vengeance
of V. family
• Ambitious. He had long assumed a character of
severe sanctity chiefly for the purpose of lifting
him to promotion. (ch.10, 127)
Sublime Settings (architectural)
• The arch Ch. 1 p. 17
• Roman tower and arches, “a mass of ruins near the edge of
a cliff” (Ch 1, p.27) and Ch. 4, p. 60.
• Vault underneath the tower, walls stained with blood,
staircase, creaking closing door, strongly grated casement,
garment covered with blood on the floor
• “Spires and long terraces of a monastery” on the “jaws of
a terrific defile” (76)
• Solitary passages of the convent “painted with subjects
indicatory of the severe superstitions of the place tending
to inspire melancholy and awe” (Ch. 6, p. 79)
Sublime Settings (natural)
• Naples and the Vesuvius Ch 1, p.15
• Mountains and precipices along the way of E.’s carriage
drive (Ch. 6, p. 74-76); around the monastery:
insurmountable ramparts, gigantic masses (77)
• Vivaldi’s trip “over some of the wildest tracts of the
Apennine, among scenes which seemed abandoned by
civilized society to the banditti who haunted their
recesses” (Ch. 10, p. 131)
• View from the turret (Ch. 8, pp. 105-7)
Sublime fear:The Monk
• A “demon in the garb of a monk” haunting
Vivaldi
• 1st appearance of the monk under “dark arch of a
ruin” at midnight” Ch. 1 p. 17, 2nd appearance p.
20; 3rd appearance “glides” in silence and
disappears (Ch.2 p.25-7); 4th appearance(Ch. 1 p.
12); death prophecy (Ch.3 p.50); 5th appearance
and flight followed by V. and Paulo (Ch. 7, p.86
ff.)
• Imprisonment in vault under tower: darkness,
blood on walls, bloody clothes on ground (ch. 7)
Effect of fearful events on V.
• “His imagination, elevated by wonder and painful curiosity,
was prepared for somehting above the reach of common
conjecture and beyond the accomplishment of human
agency” …. “he had soared” to a “region of fearful
sublimity” (Ch. 6, p.70)
• When looking for Ellena views “with pleasing sadness the
dark rocks and precipices, the gloomy mountains and vast
solitudes… nor was the convent he was approaching a less
sacred feature of the scene, as its gray walks and pinnacles
appeared beyond the dusky groves” (Ch. 11, p. 135)
Sublime fear: the abduction
• Knocking and screams (Ch. 6, p. 72-73)
• Masked men throw a veil over her head and
drag her to carriage (Ch. 6, p. 73)
• Carriage drive among “towering tops of
mountains, or sometimes veiny precipices
and tangled thickets” “ pinnacles and vast
precipices”(74)
Effect of fearful events on Ellena
• “Her spirits were gradually revived and elevated by the
grandeur of images around her… Here the objects seem to
impart somewhat of their own force, their own sublimity to
the soul. It is scarcely possible to yield to the pressure of
misfortune while we walk, as with the Deity, amidst his
most stupendous works!” (Ch. 6, p. 75)
• Experiences a “dreadful pleasure in looking down upon the
irresistible flood” “emotion heightened into awe” as she
crosses bridge. (76) It is as the passage from “the vale of
death to the bliss of eternity” (76)
Effect of fearful events on Ellena. 2
• At the gate of the convent experiences “luxurious and
solemn kind of melancholy, which a view of stupendous
objects inspires” (77)
• E. escapes her cell and ascends to a turret to see “the wide
and freely sublime scene without” so that “the
consciousness of her prison was lost”. Looks down
precipices with “dreadful pleasure”. Her mind was capable
of being highly elevated or sweetly soothed by scenes of
nature” (Ch. 8, p. 105-7)
• Retreats into poetry (Tasso) “wandering in the imaginary
scenes of the poet”
Picturesque Scenery and Cicumstances
• Serenade in the garden and fireworks on the bay Ch. 1 p.
21
• Vivaldi sets off for Altieri: “Soothing twilight”,
“enchanting climate”, “Vesuvius dark and silent”
Lazzaroni playing morra (Ch. 2, p. 33)
• Excursions with Ellena in moonlight with music and
fishermen dancing (Ch.3 p. 46)
• Sunset with fishing-boats as Mrs. Bianchi accepts to let
Ellena marry Vivaldi (Ch.3 p. 47)
• Scenery in Abruzzo: snowy mountains, “majestic grace of
the palms”, cathedral with spires, “narrow pointed roofs of
the cloisters” (Ch. 6, pp. 76-77)
• Church ceremonies: “the lady abbess leading the train,
dressed in her pontifical robes etc.” (Ch 11, p. 137).
• Arcadian setting V. playing the flute on a rock Ch. 11, p.
143-4).
Picturesque characters
• Beatrice the servant: wordy like Juliet’s
nurse (Ch.3 p.51-2)
• Paulo
• The pilgrims
Intrigues
• Schedoni and the Marchesa make plans to prevent
Vivaldi’s marriage. “they concerted in private the
means of accomplishing their general end” (Ch. 2,
p.44) .
• Someone is calumniating Ellena to the Marchese
• The Marchesa and the Abbess have planned to
make Ellena either take the veil or marry someone
chosen by them (Ch. 8, p. 99)
Mysteries
• Who and what is the Monk? One of the banditti
(p. 24) or a supernatural being? Vivaldi was “led
on as by an invisible hand” (24) and 94. Or
Schedoni himself? (Ch. 3, p.56-57. Ch. 4, p.59).
Or someone masked as a monk?
• Has Mrs Bianchi been poisoned? (Ch. 3, p.56-57)
How did the Monk know about her death?
• Who abducted Ellena? Where did the third
abductor go? Is he the same man as the Friar at the
Monastery? (Ch. 6, p. 78)
• Who keeps V. and Paulo prisoners? The Monk?
Robbers? A superhuman being? (Ch. 7, p. 98)
• The Confession at S. Maria del Pianto (Ch. 7, p.
94-96)
Music
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•
•
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Ellena’s singing in church (ch.1 p.9)
Divine melody in garden (ch.1 p.)
Serenade; duet
Singing of vespers in cathedral among Abruzzi
mountains (Ch. 6, p. 78)
Music 2
• Singing of sister Olivia reveals “superior degree of
fervency and penitence” and attracts Ellena (Ch. 8, p. 101)
• “sound of instruments and voices” directs V. to convent
where E. is a prisoner.
• In the church V. hears “such full and entrancing music as
frequently swells in the high festivals of the Sicilian courts,
and is adapted to inspire that sublime enthusiasm which
sometimes elevates its disciples.” (Ch 11, p. 136)
• Scenery has the same effect on E. as music “it was to her
like sweet and solemn music” a prelude to hearing V. play
the flute Ch. 11, p. 143-4). Arcadian setting
Violation of human rights.
Ellena’s protest p. 139