Abstract

Dr Howard uses Bakhtin's concepts of heteroglossia and dialogism in specific historical analyses of key works of the genre. Her discussions of Ann Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho, Matthew Lewis's The Monk, Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey, and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein demonstrate that the discursive ambiguity of these novels is not inherently subversive, but that the political force of particular discourses is contingent upon their interaction with other discourses in the reading process.