I found The Castle of Otranto to be a fantastic read. Once
starting the book I will admit that I had trouble putting it down. The almost
comical chain of events which happens in the book kept me enthralled. However,
it makes me wonder what the author had in mind when he originally set out to
write the book. He published the first edition in 1764 under an alias,
providing with it a letter regarding the origins of the story, which would
later turn out to be false. It wasn't until the second reprint a year after, in
1765, that he published with it a new letter explaining his reasons for,
"having offered his work under the borrowed personage of a
translator." He was afraid of how the public would react to such a new
genre of writing, so to protect his reputation he created the elaborate guise
of an Italian book translated into English. No doubt taking some of the things
which made Shakespeare famous, Walpole, expanded on the idea of tragedy and
mistaken identity, then adding a dash of mysticism, ghosts and giant projectile
helmets created a unique genre that would kick start the age of Gothic
literature.
 |
| Public Domain http://uwacadweb.uwyo.edu/numimage/5000-093.htm |
Walpole, Horace, and Michael Gamer. The Castle of Otranto.
London: Penguin, 2001. Print.
No comments:
Post a Comment