The only novel that Horace Walpole ever wrote, The Castle of Otranto is famously
celebrated as the text that announced the arrival of the Gothic genre in
literature in 1764. It was the first novel to feature madness, violence, and
the supernatural and being set in a medieval castle in Italy, it became the
guidelines that other gothic works followed.
There is a prophecy that proclaims
that the rightful heir to the province of Otranto will someday return. For the
tyrannical prince Manfred, currently ruling the dominion, this is fearful news
but the efforts he takes to prevent its fruition are what ensure his and his
family’s destruction. After the mysterious and grotesque death of his son
Conrad on the day of his nuptials, Manfred determines to keep his bloodline
going by marrying Conrad’s bride-to-be Isabella. Poor, terrified Isabella flees
through the secret passages of the castle and Manfred’s pursuit of her comes to
further terror when ghostly images appear to haunt the castle’s inhabitants.
During his writing of this book, Walpole was so concerned about its reception
that he released it under a pseudonym and claimed that it was a translation of
an old 16th-century Italian transcript. These actions are
understandable when we consider that the story was quite different during the
time of its release, but then again English audiences had seen castles, murder,
and the supernatural in Shakespeare’s plays prior to the novel so one can’t
help but feel that he needn’t have worried. Right from the start of this story,
you’re hooked. Beginning with a most gruesome and mysterious death, the story
is as labyrinthine tangle of horror, madness, misinterpretations and
coincidences, familial dysfunction, and the supernatural.
It’s probably best to
look at this book as a web made up of finer singular stories that all run in a
parallel pattern to the centre point, Manfred.
Written in the third person
register, there is one part of the writing that I found a little confusing to
start with: the dialogue. Walpole doesn’t separate his dialogue from the
narrative, as in there is not a quotation mark to be seen. Yes, this is
confusing at the start, but once you get used to it, you’re fine.
Because the
book is not very lengthy, there is a lot of stuff that’s crammed into it and
sometimes it’s almost impossible to find a breathing space and take stock of
what’s going on, who’s who, and all that jazz, but the setting, the mystery,
and the characters make it all worth it.
Filled with action, violence, death,
drama, romance, misinterpretations, coincidences, horror, madness, and the
supernatural, The Castle of Otranto
is a wonderful book that sits in a very important chair in literary history.
The first Gothic novel, inspiring later such celebrated works like that of Poe,
Shelley, Doyle, and du Maurier, it deserves an accolade for that alone.
Seriously, we owe a lot to Horace Walpole and this little novel.
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