The First Chapter of Anne Radcliffe's THE MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO (1794), Genre, and Eco-Criticism

In the incredibly informative introduction to the World’s Classics Edition of Anne Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), Bonamy Dobree cites the novel's popularity as a product of its blending of three major genres, that of horror, sentiment, and picturesque. And Bonamy isn’t kidding; the first chapter of Radcliffe’s novel is all about the Aubert family’s sensitivity to each other and their remote natural surroundings. Aubert listens to the music of the nightingale, takes in the scents of the fresh water and plant life, and basks in the Burkean sublimity of the vast Pyrenees mountains. Emily starts crying over a sunrise. It's exhausting to read, really. I prefer my sentiment a little more dead, thank you. 

Of course, Udolpho is best known as the high water mark of Gothic literature. But after reading just the first chapter, the other generic activity Bonamy points out are just as strongly felt. And the specific mix of sentiment and nature loving, I think, results in something akin to a proto-eco-critical stance. Take, for instance, how St. Aubert reacts (sentimentally, of course) when his worldly, materialistic brother-in-law (and obvious foil), M. Quesnel, wants to do some gardening on Aubert’s ancestral property back home . . .     

'The ground about the chateau is encumbered with trees; I mean to cut some of them down.' 'Cut down the trees too!' said St. Aubert. 'Certainly.  Why should I not? they interrupt my prospects.  There is
a chesnut which spreads its branches before the whole south side of
the chateau, and which is so ancient that they tell me the hollow of
its trunk will hold a dozen men.  Your enthusiasm will scarcely
contend that there can be either use, or beauty, in such a sapless
old tree as this.' 'Good God!' exclaimed St. Aubert, 'you surely will not destroy that
noble chesnut, which has flourished for centuries, the glory of the
estate!  It was in its maturity when the present mansion was built.
How often, in my youth, have I climbed among its broad branches, and
sat embowered amidst a world of leaves, while the heavy shower has
pattered above, and not a rain drop reached me!  How often I have sat
with a book in my hand, sometimes reading, and sometimes looking out
between the branches upon the wide landscape, and the setting sun,
till twilight came, and brought the birds home to their little nests
among the leaves!  How often--but pardon me,' added St. Aubert,
recollecting that he was speaking to a man who could neither
comprehend, nor allow his feelings, 'I am talking of times and
feelings as old-fashioned as the taste that would spare that
venerable tree.'

The tree as “venerable” is laced with human virtue and St. Aubert is struck with sympathy or “feeling” for its pain and fate. Human consciousness and the natural world, in terms of Radcliffe’s idea of sentiment, are co-penetrative, which sounds a lot like eco-criticism, right? Whatever the case, Quesnel's reasoning that the venerable trees Aubert is so hot for "interrupt . . . [his] . . . prospects", denotes a proto-Marxist impulse to commodify the natural world that stands in opposition to Aubert's proto-eco-critical sentimento-preservationism. (#portmanteaucrazy)