安．拉德克利夫在她的驚悚小說中充斥著如畫風格的風景描述，曾在十八世紀引起熱烈的討論和大獲讚賞；在當時英國社會中，遊歷歐洲大陸蔚為風潮，旅遊文學也因此風靡一時，所以人們對於小說中的場景描述並不感到陌生。然而，這些風景描繪到了現代卻常被讀者抱怨過於冗長且內容相似，多數評論家也僅把它們視為一種製造小說中驚悚氣氛的手法。本論文從安．拉德克利夫兩本以義大利為背景的小說《奧多芙的神祕》及《義大利人》出發，來研究其中的風景描述與人物性格塑造之間的關係，並且進一步指出這段關係中涉及的十八世紀英國社會的普遍狀況。作為本論文的討論框架，第一章簡單介紹如畫風格旅行和十八世紀關於感性的討論，來解釋藝術欣賞與身體敏感性之間的關係。第二章分別以性別和階級的角度來討論小說中善良角色對於風景的反應和態度，並且證明他們的社會背景真實地反應在各自的藝術品味上。接著，為了說明安．拉德克利夫的道德觀，第三章轉而探討惡棍角色對於風景的冷漠和他們在小說背景中所扮演的角色。安．拉德克利夫透過她的風景論述，不僅成功地塑造小說中各個人物的角色形象，而且還在驚悚小說中樹立了她保守派的格調，不流於追求官能至上的寫作風格。

Ann Radcliffe’s landscape descriptions in her gothic fiction were widely discussed and praised among her contemporary readers at a time of the popularity of travel literature; however, modern readers often complain of its repetitive and over-abundant narration and critics nowadays seldom analyze the landscape decoration from a point of view other than its function of gothic atmospheric evocation. This thesis seeks to examine the relation between Ann Radcliffe’s literary portrayal of picturesque landscapes and the formation of her story characters and by extension, to reveal certain social conditions of eighteenth-century England as encrypted in that relationship. The discussion in the thesis is limited to the authoress’s two latest novels, The Mysteries of Udolpho and The Italian, in which scenic delineation is employed pervasively in a large extent and features the same country, Italy. Serving as a framework for the following discussion, the first chapter offers a brief introduction of William Gilpin’s concept of picturesque travel known as an inspiration for Mrs. Radcliffe’s creation of her Gothic setting; then the chapter brings out the eighteenth-century discourse of sensibility to emphasize the relation between aesthetic experience and physical susceptibility. The second chapter, in terms of two different concepts, gender and class, aims to explore the virtuous characters’ aesthetic responses to landscapes; with a reading of eighteenth-century British social context, the chapter means to further demonstrate that these characters’ different social backgrounds reflect faithfully on their aesthetic tastes. In order to illustrate Mrs. Radcliffe’s moral vision in her gothic romances, the third chapter turns to investigate the immoral characters’ apathy towards landscapes and their paradoxical affinity with the (wild) nature. Through her picturesque narrative, Mrs. Radcliffe not only successfully shapes each of her characters but also persists in her conservative strain of Gothicism that differentiates her work from the sensationalism of the school of horror.

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