She also belongs to that first wave of Gothic writers that Watt identifies as "loyalist" for their nostalgia for the historical heyday of England's feudal medieval past (68).
in Tompkins 248), and in extensive praise, J.M.S.Tompkins argues that the author was very conscientious about the way she crafted her novels in order that they "could be enjoyed by statesmen and head-masters without embarrassment" (249). Mathias describes Radcliffe as "the Shakespeare of Romance-writers" and "the first poetess of Romance fiction" (qtd.
There is also a notable difference in their perspectives regarding the contextualization of their work and its socio-political implications. The contrast between the two writers is obvious in their approach to the Gothic, and more particularly, in the explicitness of content and in their use of certain Gothic conventions. To this effect, James Watt contends that Gothic fiction is "constituted or structured by the often antagonistic relations between different writers and works" (6). Within the specifics of the Gothic genre, Matthew Lewis' The Monk stands in sharp contrast to the more popular novels of Ann Radcliffe. The second one, embodied by Lewis, was influenced by the German Shauer-Romantik (horrorRomantic), labeled "horror-Gothic" and subject to much controversy, for even though it was regarded as more daring, innovative, and more "masculine" (Watt 84, 87), it also acquired a reputation for being immoral and scandalous, obscene and perfidious, seditious and revolutionary (McEvoy vii-xi).
The first one established by Radcliffe, which was molded to popular favor, labeled "terror-Gothic" and/or "loyalist," considered "feminine," and drew its inspiration from French sensationalism and Elizabethan Dramatists. It is widely recognized that there are two stages in the development of the Gothic.
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