In the beginning, there was ‘A Gothic Story,’ and it
was…entertaining, to say the least. Or, to quote a recent review of this
Eighteenth Century Gothic novel, The Castle of Otranto, its ‘not “good,”
exactly […] If you’re not engrossed, you may be, at least, instructively
perplexed.’[i]
(Original cover page for The Castle of Otranto (left) and cover page of the third edition (right) with the added subtitle of 'A Gothic Story) |
First published in 1764, this novel typically leaves its readers baffled, and
many critics will briefly cite it as the origin of the Gothic genre, before
swiftly moving on to focus on the more celebrated Gothic novels that followed
it, such as the works of Ann Radcliffe and Matthew Lewis. For example, David
Punter writes that:
To put it simply […] the works of Radcliffe and Lewis are dark
books, heavy books, where Otranto is light and airy, a fairy-tale rather
than a nightmare, even when it strives for the horrific. What is vital about Otranto,
though, is the fact that it was the earliest and most important manifestation
of the late eighteenth-century revival of romance.[ii]
However
odd and baffling, and light and airy The Castle of Otranto is, this
Gothic manifestation is a beginning nonetheless. Walpole’s Gothic story sparked
a mass of intrigue and curiosity when in was published and which continues to
this day, due in part to the novel’s deceptive publication history. This
strange novel was actually written by the MP Horace Walpole, son of the first
British Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole, but he did not declare his
authorship until the second edition. The first edition actually purported to be
a genuine translation of a 16th Century Italian monk, Onuphrio
Muralto, which had been recently discovered in the library of ‘an ancient
Catholic family in the north of England’ and translated for the British public
to devour.[iii]
Confessing
his deception in the second edition, Walpole also attaches the subtitle ‘A
Gothic Story’ to his work, and thus coins the name of the genre. Through his
narrative, Walpole also laid out many of the foundations of the Gothic that
have since proved integral parts of the genre. Creating the castle of Otranto,
and influenced by his own Gothic villa in Twickenham ‘Strawberry Hill,’ Walpole
ensured his fictional castle was foundationally linked to a church as he
writes:
Lift up the door, said the princess. The stranger obeyed; and
beneath appeared some stone steps descending into a vault totally dark. We must
go down here, said Isabella: follow me; dark and dismal as it is, we cannot
miss our way; it leads directly to the church of saint Nicholas.[iv]
Thus,
in its very foundations, Walpole links the Gothic genre with religion. The
secret passageway that connects his fictional castle to the church of saint
Nicholas functions as a foundational connection that links the Gothic and
religion. The fictional deceit originally employed to first publish the novel
locates the narrative in both the library of a religious family, but more
importantly identifies it as a genuine narrative written by an Italian monk.
And, it is perhaps a coincidence that the oldest Roman Catholic University in
England, St Mary’s, now adjoins Strawberry Hill, although this connection
nonetheless reaffirms the foundational link between the Gothic and religion.
This
Special Gothic Bible blog series will be devoted to exploring the foundational
links and ties between religion, the Bible, and theologies and the Gothic.
Although the secret passageways may appear ‘dark and dismal,’ they are
definitely worth exploring; following Isabella through this secret passageway,
you never know what you might uncover, or even who might be lurking here.
Mary 'Slayer' Going is a PhD researcher at the University of Sheffield exploring depictions of Judaism and Jewish characters in late-eighteenth and early- nineteenth century literature, and co-director of the Gothic Bible Project. She is interested in depictions of religion within Gothic literature of all periods, with a particular soft spot for vampires. Mary is also Sheffield Gothic's current Vampire Slayer and spends her free time fighting evil.
[i]
<http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2014/01/22/a-mountain-of-sable-plumes>
[ii] David
Punter, The Literature of Terror, (Essex: Pearson Education Ltd, 1996),
p. 44
[iii] Horace
Walpole, The Castle of Otranto (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008),
p. 5.
[iv] Horace
Walpole, The Castle of Otranto (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008),
p. 30.
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