Critical Analysis of a Passage from Horace Walpole's Castle of Otranto

In Ellen Moers’ critical essay Female Gothic: The Monster’s Mother (1974) on Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, she argues that Mary Shelley’s story is greatly influenced by her experience of motherhood. This essay uses the historical approach, biographical, and formalist approach at point. Moers references the cultural context of the novel, Mary Shelley’s experience as a woman and mother and how that influenced her writing, and focuses on the genre of the novel quite a bit.

The Castle of Otranto was written in 1764, by Horace Walpole. This novel is a Gothic novel, and I will be writing an essay about this novel to show, and explain how Gothic it is. I will be picking a specific character to explain and compare to another book to show how both are Gothic, but in their own way. This essay will seek and unfold the differences of Manfred in Otranto, and General Tilney in Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen. When Northanger Abbey was written is

“The Enlightenment” or “Age of Reason”, was a period roughly around 1685 to 1815 during which, movements such as the rise of empiricism, natural philosophy and modern scientific inventions were quite prevalent - especially preceding and during the Victorian era. Literature written within the Victorian period of 1837 to 1901 was largely influenced by these movements and often portrayed an opposition or alignment towards them. Dracula and Frankenstein can be great examples, both written during, or slightly after “The Enlightenment” and Victorian era, while being great examples of “Gothic Fiction”. As such, today’s discussion will summarize the way in which Victorian literature - specifically Dracula and Frankenstein - were both influenced by movements during the “The Enlightenment”.

Various authors develop their stories using gothic themes and characterizations of this type to lay the foundation for their desired reader response. Although Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” and Peter Taylor’s “Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time” are two completely different narratives, both of these stories share a commonality of gothic text representations. The stories take slightly different paths, with Poe’s signifying traditional gothic literature and Taylor approaching his story in a more contemporary manner.

Gothic literature has an incredibly vast and important history. It is based off of gothic architecture and became a genre in literature in the late 1700s. This genre was created by the rejection of predictability and this sent writers to the “murky past”, The Middle Ages, to write about (Snodgrass). Overall, this time period provided substantial inspiration for gothic literature because it was highly contrasting with its prominent improvements and horrible crimes. Later on, in the 18th century, gothic literature evolved from being about the Middle Ages to current problems with contemporary culture and social problems of the specific time era. Each time period and each different place in the world had different subjects that gothic literature

Since the 19h century, American Gothic fiction started to exist independently from the British type. In fact, the latter was marked by its use of fantastic, externalized and metaphysical elements as opposed to the boundaries of American Gothic fiction in which were expressed by historical, internalized, racial and psychological characteristics. (Edwards, XVII) In Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven, Fall of the House of Usher and The Tell-tale heart and The narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym and in Charles Broken Brown’s Edgar Huntly expresses a transformation of certain gothic conventions to an American setting which are the result of 19th century

Most Gothic novels aim to show the sinister side of human nature. They depict the dark terrors which lie beneath the reader 's mentality. The term "Gothic" suggests a genre which deals with frightening and mysterious settings by giving connotations of ghostly castles and supernatural events. The Sublime experience as stated by the critic Longinus is, "…a matter of treatment. The particular form of the sublime experience that requires prepossessing objects is not only the form; it is simply the form in which enthusiasm preponderates over irony" [1] . The Castle of Otranto is the first Gothic novel written by Horace Walpole in which the idea of the Sublime is presented through its physical, transcending and overpowering imagery. This

Dark, gloomy castles, noble peasants and virginal maidens are all staples of typical gothic literature. Without Horace Walpole’s, The Castle of Otranto, gothic literature would not be what it is today. While there is a plethora of recurring elements in gothic literature, the damsel in distress has been a founding staple of the genre and has persisted through time.

Walpole's The Castle of Otranto was the first example of a Gothic novel. Gothic, by definition, is a genre of literature characterized by a brooding, gloomy setting, and mysterious, sinister, or violent events. Lady Croom's reference to The Castle of Otranto and to The Mysteries of Udolpho, which is another Gothic novel by a later author, Ann Radcliffe, is one technique used by Stoppard to describe Noakes' style. In 1809 Gothic novels were widely popular so it is safe to assume that all of Stoppard's seventeenth century characters would have heard of the

Gothic literature flourished during the medieval period, and it extended off romanticism. "Gothic" has come to mean a number of things by this time. It could mean a particular style of art, in the form of novels, paintings, or architecture; it could mean "medieval”. It could even mean a type of music and its fans. What it originally meant is, relating to, or resembling the Goths, their civilization, or their language. “Gothic mood” is an expression in literature that is relating to a style of fiction that emphasizes the grotesque, morbid, and the mystery in a novel. It highlights the darkness and coldness to

Gothic literature, which developed during the 17th century, was based on the surreal. When the Gothic literature started, it was apparently more about supernatural and horror, but it was depicted in such manner that it was amusing and terrifying at the same time. Therefore, the concept of sublime emerged, which was actually finding harmony in chaos and pleasure in horror. For instance, the gothic literature, gave birth to characters like Dracula, which were beyond death and which were intriguing, not like classical villains from medieval era. The changes, decline of religion and rise of state, also shaped gothic literature and provided motifs, which continue to occur. However, in late 18th century, the age of rationalism, gothic literature

The concept of writing about haunted castles, weeping statues and so forth, has led to the subsequent expansion of different locations over time, such as forests and houses, to be included in the more modern gothic novel. However, the vast majority of gothic elements in horror novels originated from Walpole’s, The Castle of Otranto, such as the setting usually being decaying or ruined. Writers such as Edgar Allan Poe and Stephen King have accredited the novel’s impact on their own works from the gothic and horror genre. Also:

One of the most well known and popular English literature movements out of the many that have progressed throughout history, is gothic romanticism. Also known as dark romanticism, it is a movement that rose during the eighteenth century whose origins come from northern Europe, emerging after the ‘light romantics’. This movement consists of gothic writers who prominently focused on phenomenons, melancholy emotions, darker insights and provided elements through their works based off these characteristics of darkness. It has become a trend in which heavily influenced, not just writing, but as well as architecture, attire, and the perspective of individuals who experienced this time of gothicism. Gothicism had

Many great authors such as Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker indulged in the world of the supernatural with gothic novels such as Dracula and Frankenstein. However the origins of such tales and the Victorian obsession with the paranormal are not commonly explored. The gothic genre in fact dates back as far as 1765. The classic English gothic novel began with the author Horace Walpole and his novel, “The Castle of Otranto: A Gothic Story.” Walpole claimed that he had found an ancient manuscript which he then translated, thus creating his story. However, from what seems to be a recurring theme in Victorian spiritualism, this also was revealed as being false.

The Castle of Otranto is a 1764 novel written by Horace Walpole. It is regarded as the first Gothic novel, initiating a new literary genre which became extremely popular in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.