Fear and Wish-fulfilling Flights of Fancy: Walpole’s Nightmare of Class Conflict and the Restoration of Aristocracy in The Castle of Otranto

• Authors: Ertuğrul Koç , Neslihan Atcan Altan
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

This article discusses The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole as the first gothic work dramatizing, through the theme of “usurpation”, the emergence of the new but “greedy” bourgeoisie in England in the eighteenth century as a threat against the long-established, and from Walpole’s perspective, “divinely ordered” aristocratic system. Au fait with the worries and expectations of aristocracy, for he is the son of Robert Walpole (the first Prime Minister of England), and a member of nobility and the Parliament, Walpole, in his work, cannot help defending the established system against the emerging bourgeois paradigm. In the article, Walpole’s concern with the chaotic state of his country, which he reveals through building a devastating class conflict in Otranto, will be analyzed with the help of biographical, historical, and Marxist approaches. Finally, by referring to the Freudian theory of “wish-fulfillment through dreams”, Walpole’s solution for the conflict will be shown to be a self-gratifying one, satisfying the author’s aristocratic self.

Keywords

EN

Horace Walpole; gothic literature; bourgeoisie; aristocracy; Marx; Freud

PL

Horace Walpole; literatura gotycka; burżuazja; arystokracja; Marks; Freud

• Publisher: Łódzkie Towarzystwo Naukowe
• Journal: Zagadnienia Rodzajów Literackich
• Year: 2014
• Volume: 57/113 z. 1
• Pages: 75-88

Dates

published

2014

Contributors

author

Ertuğrul Koç

• Department of Translation and Interpreting Studies, Çankaya University Eskişehir Yolu 29. km, 06790 Etimesgut / Ankara, Turkey

author

Neslihan Atcan Altan

• School of Foreign Languages, Yildirim Beyazit University Halil Sezai Erkut Cad. Sazak Sok., No: 2 Keçiören / Ankara, Turkey

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