At first glance, Clara Reeve’s argument for the limitations of Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto is something I found myself agreeing with. As we have discussed in class, the biggest issue Reeve finds in the novel is that “the machinery is so violent, that it destroys the effect it is intended to excite” (Reeve 2). In other words, she believes that Walpole’s incredibly fantastic descriptions of certain events fail his very own intentions of producing a successful marriage of the romance and the novel. However, as I kept reading the preface, the following line puzzled me, “When your expectation is wound up to the highest pitch, these circumstances take it down with a witness, destroy the work of imagination, and, instead of attention, excite laughter” (Reeve 2). Reeve finds laughter as the wrong reaction the novel. I however, found it difficult not to laugh when a ridiculously mammoth helmet somehow squished a seemingly pivotal character in the first couple of pages of the novel. Here is where I found my alliances to begin to change. No response other than laughter seemed more natural and appropriate. I feel sorry for Reeve – she failed to comprehend the very essence of the novel. However, that may only be the case because unlike me, Reeve was not aware of camping. I would like to propose that Horace Walpole not only succeeded in combining the elements of the romance and the novel (and deeming such combination gothic), but in doing so, he gave way for camping. I think that if placed on a spectrum, The Castle of Otranto can be found somewhere between camp and the gothic. The two concepts definitely share a certain soft spot for aesthetics. On the one end, the origins of Goth in architecture point to its preoccupation with surfaces and the genuine capacity that architecture had to disturb. On the other there is camp and as Susan Sontag points out, “ It is the love of the exaggerated, the ‘off,’ of things-being-what-they-are-not” (Sontag). In combining the romantic with the novel, Walpole was not only able to evoke feelings (particularly those of terror and sublime), but he has done so in such a serious, sure-of-itself manner that gives way for comedic response. The ‘aesthetical’ manner of supernatural situations that Walpole creates is its very talent of going beyond any limits is absolutely genius.

As for my image, I of course chose Kim Kardashian. Completely fascinated with the philosophy of camp, I just wish we could know Susan Sontag’s opinion on her image in the media. Whoever came up with this idea for a shoot is a genius. The cover story isn’t just meant to be another way for the star to ‘flaunt’ herself, in fact, she is willingly objectifying herself and not taking the whole thing seriously, but it is the very fact that millions of people will take this as a serious attempt to ‘break the internet’ which makes for the whole joke. Camp. Absolutely amazing camp.

The Castle of Otranto is regarded as the Gothic novel and it has many supernatural elements. Reeve insists that this book has a redundancy in degree of the marvelous, to excite the attention, which palls upon the mind. Also she says the supernatural elements must keep within certain limits of credibility. However, ‘supernatural’ means ‘(of a manifestation or event) attributed to some force beyond scientific understating or the laws of nature’ and originally supernatural things are not existing in reality. A ghost, giant helmet which kills Manfred’s son, or enchanted sword that all of them do not exist in real life so that nobody sees actually even Horace Walpole who is the writer of this book. We, as adult-reader and grown up people who have less imaginative power than children, could say those supernatural and fanciful elements make a novel immature or childish, however, we cannot say ‘this element is out of limitation!’. Even though Reeve tells that imagination is destroyed because of redundancy, imagination has no limitation.

Clara Reeve mentions it in her preface of The Old English Baron (1778), I confess that it may be abused, and become an instrument to corrupt the manners and morals of mankind; so may poetry, so may every kind of composition; but that will prove nothing more than the old saying lately revived by the philosophers the most in fashion, “that every earthly thing has two handles”, and I couldn’t agree more with her. The one handle by which it can be carried and by the other one which it cannot. To elaborate, fiction is a double edge sword capable of transferring a moral message under the sugar coating entertainment. But when the duty of doing so is unsuccessful, one ends up using its attractions to corrupt instead.

As said by Clara Reeve in the novel, The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole, the opening excites the attention very strongly. Not many novels would have such a beginning where a certain homely young boy’s somewhat lengthy background is provided in the first page, making readers to perceive that character is to be playing the lead role. Few minutes later, only to find out, the same character dies in the very page. If opening such as this doesn’t excite readers, God knows what will. Furthermore, Clara also praises the artful and judicious conduct of the story, admirably drawn characters; polished and elegant diction. Thus, “every earthly thing has two handles”, can be understood in depth with the same example. Impeccable advantages were available to make The Castle of Otranto an amusing, fun and readable novel

However, the overdoing of supernatural manifestations in the story stood out as a distinct reason for losing its credibility. An amusing event of the young prince who is about to marry dies in the beginning , but a helmet so giant that could force a passage through a court-yard falls from the sky and crushes the young prince to death. A helmet so huge in appearance and weight is flying up in the sky before it lands on the court-yard and yet nobody saw it is one of the many oddities in the novel.Furthermore, series of ghostly manifestation, for instance a picture that walks out of its frame, a skeleton ghost in a hermit’s cowl comes out, happens in the story but readers get a very short time span to play with their imagination. Next thing you know, narrator lays out all the exciting work of imaginations out there for its readers. Thus,  Clara Reeve criticizes, the term mentioned “Enchantment” vanishes so quickly in no time, killing the surprise/suspense down with a witness leaving no room for its readers to be excited about.

While reading through The Castle of the Otranto, these unsettling disappointments were the common grounds of my siding with Clara Reeve’s criticisms as mentioned on her preface.

The mask depicts horror with the devil horns and evil glare and also it has evil laugh at the same time.

Picture found online(Just a mask tattoo design)

The 18^th century definition of “romance” differs from the commonly understood modern definition of the word (i.e. love) in that it describes stories with royal and/or mystical characters and improbable events (Romance vs. Novel). Conversely, the 18^th century definition of “novel” describes stories with normal, everyday people and realistic events (Romance vs. Novel). In The Castle of Otranto, Horace Walpole attempts to unite the 18^th century definitions of “romance” and “novel” by combining supernatural events with royal characters, like Prince Manfred and his family, and normal characters such as Theodore the peasant. In the preface to her novel The Old English Baron, a text inspired by The Castle of Otranto, Clara Reeve argues that literature that attempts to be both a romance and a novel should ideally have a fair balance of mythical and realistic characters and events. Although Reeve praises The Castle of Otranto for being well written with interesting characters, she critiques Walpole’s work for containing too many over exaggerated supernatural events, like when Prince Manfred’s son, Conrad, dies after a massive helmet falls on him: “He (Manfred) beheld his child dashed to pieces, and almost buried under an enormous helmet, a hundred times more large than any casque ever made for a human being” (Walpole 28). Reeve argues that it is over exaggerated events like these throughout Walpole’s novel that make readers mock the story instead of paying attention to and analyzing the plot’s meaning: “These circumstances … destroy the work of imagination, and, instead of attention, excite laughter” (Reeve 1-2).

Reeve is correct in that the high frequency of supernatural events throughout The Castle of Otranto distracts readers from focusing on important plot developments that foreshadow future events. For example, after his son Conrad is killed by a large helmet randomly falling from the sky, Manfred becomes so consumed with anger and grief that he disowns his daughter, Matilda, when she attempts to comfort him: “‘Begone! I do not want a daughter’; and, flinging back abruptly, (Manfred) clapped the door against the terrified Matilda” (32). Manfred’s hostility throughout the novel, especially toward his daughter, inadvertently comes full circle when he accidentally stabs and kills Matilda thinking she is Isabella meeting with Theodore the peasant (101). Due to the frequent and over exaggerated events throughout the novel like Conrad’s violent death, readers may find it difficult to pay attention to recurring themes in The Castle of Otranto.

Works Cited

Reeve, Clara. The Old English Baron: Preface to Second Edition. Print. 2 Nov. 2016.

Romance versus Novel. Print. 2 Nov. 2016.

Walpole, Horace. The Castle of Otranto. New York: Dover Publications, 2004. Print.

“The Castle of Otranto” is the first Gothic novel that greatly creates sublime emotions for its readers. Warpole, already in his preface suggests that the story is filled with many unrealistic, supernatural elements. He demonstrated for a reader how regular person would act in this extremely extraordinary event and realistically believe that this unrealistic event was true. This behavior relates to astonishment. Edmund Burke describes astonishment in” A philosophical enquiry into the origin of our ideas of the sublime and beautiful (1759)” as a “state of the soul, in which all its motions are suspended, with some degree of horror”.

At the beginning of a novel, on the night of the wedding, horrible tragedy has happened. Conrad, Manfred’s son was being crushed to death by gigantic helmet covered with feathers. Servants were the first ones in the courtyard that spotted the whole incident. Their immediate reaction was horror and fear “The company were struck with terror and amazement” (28). They didn’t know what to say. They were horrified and stoned to death. Then they start screaming, crying “Oh! My lord! the prince! the prince! the helmet! the helmet!” (Warpole 28). The witnesses were paralyzed, somehow beguiled by the supernatural event. Manfred was captivated as well as the rest of viewers “his silence lasted longer than even grief could occasion (Warpole 28). He was speechless, stoned and enthralled. This supernatural event is linked to the part “Of the passion caused by the sublime” when Burke talked about astonishment.  All these people were “suspended”. I could picture this event when something that horrific has happened, that nobody could say a word. Their hearts climbed up to their throats that unable any words to come out. They experienced passion caused by the astonishment due to unusual situation.

In Edmund Burke’s A philosophical enquiry into the origin of our ideas of the sublime and beautiful, he discusses the relationship between what he calls the sublime, how it is invoked, and how it effects people. Burke describes sublime as being sourced from “whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain, and danger” and “whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror” (Burke 131). He also states that sublime is “the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling” (Burke 131). In other words, sublime is a particularly strong feeling of dread, revulsion or terror. It can be invoked though literature, such as in the gothic novel The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole.

In Section III, titled “Obscurity”, Walpole argues that “to make anything terrible, obscurity seems in general to be necessary” (Burke 133). Here he is saying that there usually needs to be an air of mystery in order for something to be scary. This is seen in the novel in the first few pages when suspense is built up by the servants shrieking in horror at something the main characters, and the audience, have yet to find out about. The element of the unknown makes the situation scarier as anything could have happened and it prompts your imagination to run wild with possibilities. Another example of this is when Isabella runs from Manfred and is hiding in a vault, but then sees “a human form, standing close against the wall” (Walpole 37). She screams because she initially thinks that it is “the ghost of her betrothed Conrad” (Walpole 37), and based on the weird happenings in the novel thus far this seems plausible. However, it is later revealed that it is not a ghost or anything supernatural but is instead just a peasant boy. The initial angst felt by Isabella and the audience when she did not know who was in the vault is another way in which obscurity can prompt fear.

The image I chose to accompany this post is a manifestation of the aura associated with gothic novels and their mystique. The painting has a mysterious and creepy appearance due to it’s use of colors and shading. The darkness of the sky and the surroundings makes it hard to see anything in detail and makes it look intimidating. The mysterious figure in white is also hard to identify as a person or as something not human. This ambiguity adds to the aura of creepiness in the painting.

It is very interesting how Clara Reeve respects The Castle of Otranto and criticizes it at the same time. The writer mentions several similarities between The Castle of Otranto and The Old English Baron. According to the preface to second edition, “this story is the literary offspring of The Castle of Otranto, written upon the same plan, with a design to unite . . . the ancient Romance and modern Novel”. What it means is that both works of literature are examples of a “romance-novel” combination: there is a very fine line between fantasy and reality, immodesty and morality, imagination and nature. The characters look pretty real to me but the plot itself is very unrealistic. For example, we can assume that there was a real man named Manfred Martino who had a son, Conrad Carlo. Maybe his son even died… But, frankly speaking, his son could not be squished with a huge helmet… So quite real characters have magical thing happening in their lives – that is what Clara Reeve finds similar to The Old English Baron. Next, I think that both novels can be called “Gothic”. The atmosphere in The Castle of Otranto is important: dark and intensive. The castle itself is not a very light building – this fact help readers feel the “Gothic” in the novel. But the only thing that Clara Reeves does not like about The Castle of Otranto is that “the machinery is so violent, that it destroys the effect it is intended to excite”. I absolutely agree with this statement. All those “mysterious moments” seem to be too unreal. If Walpole had not exaggerated some details (the size of the helmet and the sword, the ghosts etc.), readers would have had a better impression while reading the novel. As a result, Reeve decided to write “a work upon the same plan, wherein these defects might be avoided; and the keeping, as in painting, might be preserved”.

In Horace Walpole’s novel, The Castle of Ontranto, he pioneers in joining two works of literature, the romance and the novel. In doing this however, he doesn’t let the reader’s imagination be persuaded too much, by the idea of fantasy. Walpole tries to portray the novelistic aspects of his fantastical story by including a lot of detail to explain supernatural events. In doing this, he is attempting to create a vivid picture of what he is trying to convey to the reader. There is no need for the reader to use their imagination to create pictures of these fantastical creatures, because Walpole gives distinct details of what these creatures look like. “… and the figure, turning slowly round, discovered to Frederic the fleshless jaws and empty sockets of a skeleton, wrapt in a hermits cowl”. (99) Here, Walpole is giving readers the descriptive details they need to mentally picture the ghost that Frederic sees. However, in doing this, he eliminates the obscurity of the ghost to the readers. In turn, he explains the fear and terror Frederic feels from experiencing this ghost, but this causes the readers to lose that same sense of fright. All the details of the ghost makes the reader lose that sublime feeling Walpole created during the anticipation of Frederic meeting Hippolita at the altar. “”Hippolita!” replied a hollow voice…” (99) Walpole did not use any description for the ghost before it was fully seen by Frederic. Walpole’s description of the voice as hollow, allowed the reader to assume that the voice was not that of Hippolita. This allowed the reader to anticipate a revelation of something other than Hippolita being in front of the altar. He also explains, “… the evening gloomy, and overcast”. (99) His description of this dark setting helps readers anticipate something eerie, or extraordinary. Darkness often leads to fear because of the inability to see, and the reader can feel the same fear as Frederic at this moment. As the reader, I felt a sense of suspense for a moment, only for it to be ruined by the overly descriptive details of what the ghost looked like once it was discovered by Frederic. Throughout this novel, Walpole is constantly battling between introducing full-fledged fantasy and realism.

Are we destiny to fail or do we chose to fail?

Can curses be true or rather do we make it true? The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole and supplementary source by Edmund Burke share many similarities with each other. But if I had to pick which source that can relate is to the question is section 4 of the difference between Clearness and obscurity with regard to the passions. What makes this section the somewhat similar to the novel is the fact that when they talk about “affecting to imagination.”(Page 134) it plays a part in the story because Manfred is one of the character that hopes the family curse does not happen. Which is stated “That castle and Lordship of Otranto should pass from the present family whenever the real owner should be grown too large to inhabit it.”(Page 27) Manfred the prince “dread of seeing accomplished an ancient prophecy.”(Page 27) He’s shown love to other to his son mostly and not much to the other people in his family because he wants his son to continue on the legacy. When Manfred sees his son dead and huge helmet is on top of him; he kind of loses reality “He fixed is eyes on what he wished in vain to believe a vision and seemed less attentive to his loss.”(Page 29) I bring this quote up because he lost a sense of reality can’t comprehend the fact that is son is actually dead and hoping he is alive. This can relate to the section 4 “clearness of imagery from being absolutely necessary to an influence upon the passions that they may be considerably operated upon without presenting any image at all.”(Page 134) He loses his path by going crazy and that’s when the story showing him lose his sanity; from trying to divorce his wife because she can’t get him another son. So he decides to marry the girl that his dead son was going to marry. He goes insane in the process of losing himself and doing whatever he feels like, for instance he put Theodore to jail just because he helped Isabella escaped and accused him for murdering his son. Later in the story he loses his sanity when he stabbed his daughter Matilda as it is stated in the novel “Manfred walking from a trance, beat his breast.”(Page 101) This going back to the sublime where he is literally losing himself and trying just seeing things his way not realizing it costed his daughter’s life. Realizing the mistake he’s done; he later replaced for Theodore to be prince as the true prince. To get back to the original question, Manfred knew the prophecy and was sole goal was to make sure it didn’t come true and have his generations to continue on. I believe that what if he didn’t go crazy and gave love to others than maybe the prophecy wouldn’t have come true; all he had to do is not rush things. Maybe the thought of the prophecy itself started making him have a twisted mind and made him go crazy; which makes me lean toward that it was he, himself that made the prophecy to come true rather it being the other way around. We all have choice in life it’s up to you do something about, Manfred tried but ended up causing himself to fail.

Edmund Burke’s section The recapitulation points out passion with regards to pain and danger, society and sympathy (131).  First, Burke explains how passion relates to self-preservation and how it can affect us in different ways depending on the outcome of our passions. We saw in Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto how Manfred reacted to his only son Conrad being killed under the giant casque (28). He was less concerned about losing his son than he was about losing his only heir. Manfred then makes the startling decision to divorce his wife Hippolita and marry Isabella, his son’s bride.  When Manfred says to Isabella, “My fate depends on having sons; and this night, I trust, will give a new date to my hopes.” (34), you can tell he’s desperate. His actions are fueled by self-preservation even if it would hurt his family.

Burke’s second point of passion is in regards to society, specifically love (132). When Burke says, “when an idea of its object is excited in the mind with an idea at the same time of having irretrievably lost it” (132), it’s similar to Theodore and Matilda’s first meeting. Matilda in a sense worships a picture Alfonso’s in the gallery and then meets a young peasant whom looks exactly like him. The sublime here is realizing you’ve found your love only to learn he will be killed by Prince Manfred. “’Bear him away into the court-yard,’” said Manfred: “’I will see his head this instant severed from his body.”’ Matilda fainted at hearing these words.” (58).

Burke’s last point on passion is on sympathy and he states sympathy is “a choice in which we are directed by the pleasure we have in the object” (132) “The nature of this passion is to put us in the place of another in whatever circumstances he is in, and to affect us in a like manner” (132). We can see this in Theodore’s behavior towards Isabella. Theodore was already Manfred’s prisoner but put his life in danger in order to help her escape in the cloisters. We see this when Theodore tells Isabella “’I value not my life,”’ said the stranger, “’and it will be some comfort to lose it in trying to deliver you from this tyranny.”’ (37). We also see it when Theodore fights and nearly kills Frederic “He assured her he would die rather than suffer her to return under Manfred’s power” (75). He has selflessly protected Isabella numerous times out of sympathy even if it means his demise.