ABSTRACT
Ann Radcliffe's Gothic is noted for its 'explained supernatural' in which every suspicion of ghost, fairy, or other manifestation of the spirit is strictly 'naturalized' as a misapprehension-a trick of the light or the nervous mind. Her 'explanations' can be interpreted as a straightforward rejection of supernatural agency. Understandably frustrated by having something seeming to be offered up only to be conjured away, critics consistently disparage Radcliffe's rationalizations of the supernatural. Coleridge's criticism has an intriguing double edge. On the one hand, the spell is not present; one 'looks about in vain' for what one wants but cannot find some adequate correlation between the narrative and the promise of the supernatural. The experience of terror and horror surrounds the central 'mystery of Udolpho' itself, the mysterious painting covered in a black veil with rumors concerning it that hint at something terrible and supernatural.
