Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto, and the Rise of the Gothic Novel

I. Horace Walpole

A. 1717-1797

1. son of Robert Walpole, Prime Minister

2. career in Parliament undistinguished

3. Strawberry Hill

B. The Castle of Otranto & the Gothic

1. Medieval & Romantic elements

a. chivalry, hyperbole

b. Ian Watt’s formal realism

i. psychological complexity

2. Presence of the supernatural

a. ghosts, prophecy, mystery, etc.

3. Geography as plot device

a. castle

b. legacy to literary tradition

II. Gothic Time: The Old Made New

A. OED ‘gothic’

1. dreamlike nature of time

a. past reenacts itself in present

b. dream landscape=unconscious

2. The Old New, the Old Made New

3. The Enlightenment Method

a. Why must the old be made new?

III. The Gothic Unconscious

A. Geography of Castle

1. dream/unconscious

2. triumph of chaos over reason

B. The Gothic Unconscious

1. physical Environment

2. psychological environment

C. The Castle as Character

D. Dream World and the Absurd

IV. Navigating in the Gothic Unconscious

A. Character types

1. “ego” characters

2. “id” characters

	EGO (CONSCIOUS)	ID (UNCONSCIOUS)
Governed by	Reason	Passion
Motivation	Safety and well-being of most people	Satisfaction of own desires; acquisition and retention of power (political & sexual)
Relationship to castle	Tripped up by castle	Know geography & use to own advantage
Religion	Catholic; highly religious, always praying	Not interested in religion; subject to superstition and pagan ritual
Examples	Matilda Hippolita Theodore Father Jerome	Manfred Isabella Fredric

B. Character types & realism

C. Examples from Text

a. Hippolita

b. Manfred p. 28 (115R): “The horror of the spectacle . . .”

c. Isabella and Theodore p. 37 (119R): “Sir, whoever you are, take pity on a wretched princess . . .”

V. Concluding Remarks