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- Title
The Castle of Otranto and the Whig Fantasy of History.
- Authors
Chronister, Kay
- Abstract
In this paper, I argue that Horace Walpole's use of historical allusions in The Castle of Otranto undermines the Whig political ideology which this seemingly straightforward narrative of usurpation and vengeance has often been seen to support. Many of the allusions in the novel center on figures who occupied an ambivalent position in the Whig historiography of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, appearing in some contexts as Gothic crusaders for freedom and in others as tyrants or usurpers. What's more, Walpole layers these allusions in the text of the novel so that a palimpsest of competing interpretative possibilities—rather than a clear sequential narrative of triumph over tyranny—emerges from The Castle of Otranto.
- Subjects
WALPOLE, Horace, 1717-1797; CASTLES; EIGHTEENTH century; POLITICAL doctrines; SEVENTEENTH century; HISTORIOGRAPHY; ALLUSIONS; FANTASY (Psychology)
- Publication
Eighteenth-Century Studies, 2023, Vol 56, Issue 4, p567
- ISSN
0013-2586
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1353/ecs.2023.a900659