Name : Putri Yustika Tambunan

NPM : 220110001

Morning Class

THE CASTLE OF OTRANTO

Gothic Novel

In The Castle of Otranto, Walpole combines ancient and modern literary motifs. Walpole
draws fantastic and supernatural elements from the medieval romances of the 12th and 13th
centuries and blends them with elements of contemporary realist fiction of the 18th century. As
he explains in the preface to the second edition (1765) of his novel:

[The Castle of Otranto] was an attempt to blend the two kinds of Romance, the ancient and the
modern. In the former all was imagination and improbability: in the latter, nature is always
intended to be, and sometimes has been, copied with success

Walpole maintains a pretense of reality in The Castle of Otranto. In the preface to the first
edition, he establishes a plausible history for the manuscript, and he suggests that “the ground-
work of the story is founded on truth.” He builds a realistic world populated by realistic
characters and grounded on realistic premises. But, by introducing elements of the supernatural
into this world, Walpole effectively bends reality. He reconciles the natural and the supernatural,
in essence creating a new genre of fantasy: fantasy grounded in reality.

In many respects, The Castle of Otranto resembles Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Both works address
questions of marriage, bloodlines, and familial bonds. The central issues in the works are the
same: in each, a prince struggles to secure his lineage and maintain his power. The princes even
experience similar supernatural phenomena: Hamlet is haunted by the ghost of his father and
Manfred by the ghost of his grandfather. As in Hamlet, deception plays a central role in The
Castle of Otranto, formally and thematically. In the preface to the second edition of his novel,
Walpole acknowledged his indebtedness to Shakespeare. He praised Shakespeare as a literary
genius and drew connections between his work and that of the playwright—perhaps hoping to
elevate his work to the level of Shakespeare’s.

Place in the Gothic tradition

Walpole was a pivotal figure in 18th-century England. He wore many hats in his lifetime: a
member of Parliament, an English historian, an architect, and an author. Before The Castle of
Otranto, Walpole published the biographical compendia Anecdotes of Painting in England
(1762–71), and he was considered an expert source on antiquarian artifacts and Gothic
architecture. Walpole himself lived in a Gothic-style mansion. In 1747 he acquired a small villa
in Twickenham, England, and subsequently transformed it into a grand estate featuring cloisters,
turrets, and battlements. The estate, fondly called Strawberry Hill House (or simply Strawberry
Hill), suggests in its atmosphere the setting of The Castle of Otranto. According to Walpole, The
Castle of Otranto was in fact inspired by a nightmare he experienced at Strawberry Hill House.
Walpole claimed he saw a ghost in the nightmare—specifically, a “gigantic hand in armour.”
Walpole incorporated imagery from his dream into the novel, and he drew on his knowledge of
medieval history to supplement the story.

Many of Walpole’s plot devices and character types became typical of Gothic literature. Hidden
identities, secret passageways, supernatural forces, and virginal damsels in distress all feature
prominently in later Gothic novels. Indeed, The Castle of Otranto marked the beginning of a
vogue for this type of novel. Despite mixed reactions from readers and critics, Walpole’s novel
went into a second print run in April 1765, just a few months after its initial publication in late
1764. In 1765 Walpole added the subheading “A Gothic Story” to the title. The Castle of
Otranto inspired a slew of imitators, including Matthew Gregory Lewis, whose seminal novel
The Monk: A Romance (1796) was modeled on the formula of The Castle of Otranto. Walpole
also likely influenced Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) and Mary Shelley’s
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818) as well as Jane Austen’s satirical take on the
genre, Northanger Abbey (written c. 1798 or 1799, published 1817).

Horace Walpole, in full Horace Walpole, 4th earl of Orford, original name Horatio Walpole,
(born September 24, 1717, London, England—died March 2, 1797, London), English writer,
connoisseur, and collector known for his novel The Castle of Otranto (1764), the first Gothic
novel in the English language and one of the earliest literary horror stories. He was perhaps the
most assiduous letter writer of his era, and he built Strawberry Hill, a Gothic Revival mansion.

The youngest son of the prime minister Robert Walpole, he was educated at Eton and at King’s
College, Cambridge. In 1739 he embarked with his Eton schoolmate, the poet Thomas Gray
(later to write “An Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard”), on a grand tour of France and
Italy, in the midst of which they quarrelled and separated. They were later reconciled, and
Walpole remained throughout his life an enthusiastic admirer of Gray’s poetry. On his return to
England in 1741, Walpole entered Parliament, where his career was undistinguished, although he
attended debates regularly until 1768. In 1791 he inherited the peerage from a nephew, a
grandson of Robert Walpole. He remained unmarried, and on his death the earldom became
extinct.

The most absorbing interests of his life were his friendships and a small villa that he acquired at
Twickenham in 1747 and transformed into a pseudo-Gothic showplace known as Strawberry
Hill. Over the years he added cloisters, turrets, and battlements, filled the interior with pictures
and curios, and amassed a valuable library. The house was open to tourists and became widely
known in Walpole’s own lifetime. He established a private press on the grounds, where he
printed his own works and those of his friends, notably Gray’s Odes of 1757. Strawberry Hill
was the stimulus for the Gothic Revival style in English domestic architecture.

Walpole’s literary output was extremely varied. The Castle of Otranto, which Walpole published
in 1764 under a pseudonym (though the first edition is dated 1765), succeeded in restoring the
element of romance to contemporary fiction. In it he furnished the machinery for a genre of
fiction wherein the wildest fancies found refuge. He also wrote The Mysterious Mother (1768), a
tragedy with the theme of incest; amateur historical speculations such as Historic Doubts on the
Life and Reign of King Richard the Third (1768); and a work on art history, Anecdotes of
Painting in England, 4 vol. (1762–71).

Walpole’s private correspondence of some 4,000 letters constitutes a survey of the history,
manners, and taste of his age. He revered the letters of the 17th-century French writer Marie de
Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sévigné, and, following her example, consciously cultivated letter
writing as an art. His most substantial correspondence was with Horace Mann, a British diplomat
whom Walpole met on his grand tour and with whom he maintained contact for 45 years,
although the two never met again. Walpole’s correspondence, edited by W.S. Lewis and others,
was published in 48 volumes (1937–83).

Walpole also left Memoirs (first published 1822–59) of the reigns of George II and George III, a
record of political events of his time.