{"title":"The Castle of Otranto and the Whig Fantasy of History","authors":"Kay Chronister","doi":"10.1353/ecs.2023.a900659","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"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.","PeriodicalId":45802,"journal":{"name":"EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY STUDIES","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4000,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY STUDIES","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ecs.2023.a900659","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"N/A","JCRName":"HUMANITIES, MULTIDISCIPLINARY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
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.
期刊介绍：
As the official publication of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ASECS), Eighteenth-Century Studies is committed to publishing the best of current writing on all aspects of eighteenth-century culture. The journal selects essays that employ different modes of analysis and disciplinary discourses to explore how recent historiographical, critical, and theoretical ideas have engaged scholars concerned with the eighteenth century.
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
分享
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：
扫码关注我们
