“The Mysteries of Udolpho”, a romance by Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823) published in 1794, is one of the best examples of Gothic fiction. This literary and aesthetic style uses fear, threats of supernatural events, terror, haunting, and the intrusion of the past upon the present as driving motives. Characteristic settings include castles and religious buildings. The atmosphere is claustrophobic, and typical plot elements include persecutions, imprisonments and murders. The depiction of horrible events can serve as a metaphorical expression of psychological, familiar or social conflicts. The style was much developed between the middle of the 18th and the end of the 19th centuries. Ann Radcliffe’s novels display a Romantic sensibility within the typical Gothic’s terror and suspense. In “The Mysteries of Udolpho”, a novel set in 1584 in Southern France and Northern Italy, Emily St. Aubert, a young French woman orphaned by the death of her father, is subjected to cruelties by guardians, threatened with the loss of her fortune, imprisoned in Udolpho Castle by Montoni, an Italian villain who has married her aunt, but finally freed and married with her lover, Valancourt. Strange and fearful events take place in the solitary Udolpho Castle, set high in the majestic Apennines. Radcliffe presents extended descriptions of exotic landscapes in the Pyrenees and Apennines, as well as of Venice, none of which she had visited. The narrative is full of references to the moon, many dozens, as typical of the style and Romanticism.

I retain in particular the description of Emily's escape from Udolpho Castle accompanied by Monsieur Du Pont, the maid Annette and the servant Ludovico, setting off “as fast as the broken road, and the feeble light, which a rising moon threw among the foliage, would permit”. “The moon has now risen high over the woods, that hung upon the sides of the narrow glen, through which they wandered, and afforded them light sufficient to distinguish their way, and to avoid the loose and broken stones, that frequently crossed it. They now travelled leisurely and in profound silence, for they had scarcely yet recovered from the astonishment into which this sudden escape had thrown them”.

I remembered this description a few weeks ago, at July’s full moon, when I saw the moon behind two large evergreen oaks full of the common smilax vine that hung from their branches. There was still a faint light - the sunset had occurred many minutes ago. Stars were beginning to appear in the sky. The moon, huge, shone behind the smilax vines. The atmosphere was one of mystery and expectation but also beauty, concentration and introspection. It felt like I was living a moment from Ann Radcliffe’s novel.