Horace Walpole - The Castle of Otranto
QUESTIONS
1. What is the purpose of the prefaces to the novel? What is the difference between the preface to the first and the second edition? What does Walpole mean, when he refers to the “old” and the “new“ romance?
2. What is the setting of the novel? Why did Walpole choose that particular period and place?
3. Does Walpole make any attempts to establish elementary verisimilitude of the events?
4. What is the narrator's attitude towards the depicted events and characters? What language does he use?
5. What kind of characters appear in the novel? Who is its protagonist?
Are they individuals or types?
6. How are the emotions of the characters shown?
7. What is the plot of the novel based upon?
8. What is the role of the supernatural elements in the novel?
9. Does the novel have any underlying moral, intellectual, or philosophical purpose?
What is the purpose of the novel?
10. What is the function of the ending? Is it expected and logical or unexpected and arbitrary?
11. What is the purpose of this novel (and others like it)? How does the Gothic novel generally seem to relate to the development of the English novel?
12. How does the novel compare to other 18th-century novels (Defoe, Swift, Richardson, Fielding, Sterne)? What are the similarities and the differences?
1