A comparison of Walpole's The Castle of Otranto and Mrs Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho Item Type text; Thesis-Reproduction (electronic) Authors Mathews, Willa Frances, 1914- Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 03/10/2021 06:25:54 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/553510 A COMPARISON OF WALPOLE'S THE CASTLE Q? OTRANTO AND MRS. RADCLIFFE'S THg MYSTERIES OF UDOUNHO by Villa Frances Mathews A Thesis submitted to the faculty of the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Graduate College University of Arizona 1940 Approvedi Director of Tl^sis Date £ 9 7 9 / / f V Y ) C (rp . Z t a b u : of c o n t e n t s page CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION....................... ♦ 1 CHAPTER 8 DIPFSRimCES BETWEEN T£E T O NOVELS . 16 CHAPTER 3 SIMILARITIES BETWEEN THE TWO NOVELS, , , 41 CHAPTER 4 EVALUATION OF THE T O N O V E L S .......... 94 CONCLUSION............ ............................ Ill \ BIBLIOGRAPHY . ....................... ............117 132934 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION . The purpose of this thesis is to make a comparison of Walpole’s The Castlo of Otranto and Mrs., Raflellffe’s . The Mysteries of Udolnho for the purpose of discovering something about the nature of the formula of the Gothic novel, of determining the relative literary merit of the two novels, and of deciding to what extent Mrs, Radellffe was influenced by Walpole. The method of treatment is to record the differences and likenesses between the two novels in treatment of character, in plot, in the use of the supernatural, etc,, and to weigh these differences and similarities in order to fora an opinion with regard . to the extent of the influence of The Castle of Otranto on The Hysterias of Udolnho. After analysis of the novels an attempt will also be made to state the formula of the Gothic novol and to make a literary evaluation of the two novels. In the eighteenth century there arose a great interest in the Gothic, lino Railo says, "The attention of those days was in general, and in a manner expressly calculated to inspire authors, directed towards the Gothic,"! 1, The Haunted castle (hew York. m k v/j. b. b. Wearied by the balance, harmony, and elegance of prevailing pseudo-classic taste, the English public adopted v/ith rapidly growing enthusiasm the new fad of 'Gothic' ideas. In 1741 Batty Langley tried to combine both Greek and 2 Gothic forms in his Gothic Architecture. In 1750 Walpole, in the posteript of a letter to Sir Horace Mann, a kinsman in Italy, remarked that he meant to build a 'little gothic 3 castle at Strawberry Hill.' In 1756 appeared Edmund Burke's study of the sublime and the beautiful, which expressed an idea made use of by the terror school of! 4 fiction, the idea of the sublime having its foundation in terror (pain and danger). Bishop Hurd's Letters on Chivalry and Romance. 1762, furnished considerable support for the Gothic enthusiasts. With this renewed interest in the Gothic came a taste for ballad literature and a revival of interest in the older poets— Spenser, Shake- 5 speare, and Milton. G. H. Mair remarks, "For Percy and his followers medievalism was a collection of what actors call 'properties'— gargoyles, and odds and ends of 2 . C. von Klensej From Goethe to Hauptmann (New York, 1926) p. 72. 3. A. Dobson, Horace Walpole (Hew York,1890),1. 113. 4. Railo. Op. Cit., p. 3. 5. H. Walpole, The Castle of Otranto. Introduction by Sir Walter Scott. Preface by Caroline Spurgeon. (Hew York, jn pp. xv-xvi. , 5 amour and oastl® keops with secret pnaeagec, banners and gay colours, and gay shimering obsolete xrords*”6 Caroline Spurgeon calls Walpole the "eafoodinont of this particular antiquarian aspect of the early romantic revival, for he illustrates, and Indeed largely initiated, all three sides of it; the delight in collecting old things, the revival of Gothic architecture, and the taste for the Gothic tale ii of chivalry,”7 According t o Cambridge History, it should be added that the romantic writers are of far less importance for their own sake than for that of the writers who followed during the next fifty years."8 For in the story of The Oaatle of Otranto is found the first real example of one phase of the romantic movement. Defined in few words, the Gothic romance is simply the romance of terror. Characterisation becomes secondary to the machinery of the story* Blood-curdling incidents are the chief feature* George Dolman in "The Will" writes$ A novel is nothing more Than an old castle and a creaking door, A distant hovel, Clanking of chains, a gallery, a light,. Old armor and a phantom all in white, And thoro's a novel.9 6. Modern ^nsillsh Literature (Hew York, 1914). n. 209. 7. WglnoleV On. Pit., on. ;cvi-xvli. 8 . 0 . 3. Vaughn,"Stern@, and the Hovel of His Time" The Cembridpre'History of -English "Literature,Vol. X,111, 52. 9. Beers, AlTTstory~oi: Englishliomantloism in the Eighteenth Century UioxiTYork. 1899), p. 255. 4 Befbro boglnalBg the study of the two novels, it would he interesting to know something about the lives and the backgrounds of Valpole and Mrse Radeliffe, and something about the novels themselves* Horace Walpole, the ’’clever, dilettante, unromantio eighteenth-century man of fashion,”10 was born In 1717, the fourth son of the famous minister of George II, As a member of a prominent family, he had the usual educa­ tional advantages, the Grand Tour upon graduation from Cambridge, membership in Parliament, the friendship or acquaintance of almost everyone of any importance in England, several important political sinecures, and, late in life, the Earldom of Orford.H A neighbor of Y/alpole, Miss Hawkins, describes him as having a long, slender body, complexion and hands of an unhealthy paleness, dark, penetrating eyes, a faint but pleasant voice and a mincing, affected way Of walking,12 Dorothy M, Stuart says, ’’Walpole, indeed, walked through life as he did into Sir John Hawkins* withdrew!ng-room, •on tip-toe, as if afraid of a wet floorV1”3-® Walpole is unsurpassed as a letter writer, both as 10111213 10. !fa Ip ole, "Os, * 0 it.. p , xl, 11. 'Dobson, 0t>. Cjt.Passlia.— 12. Ibid., pp. 2 W *278w— 13. Horace Walpole^. (New York, 1927), p. 213. 5 to the qmmtity and no to th® ,fvivid, brilliant panorama of nutohlogrephleal, soolal, and political life" which he gives of his century-14 T. Backus calls Walpole th© "fastidious dilettante and brilliant chronicler of the court scandal of his day, a man of singularly acute pen­ etration, of sparkling epigrammatic style, but devoid of enthusiasm,"2.5 Walpole had returned from Europe in 1741, and "we can dimly guess at the feelings of a delicate young gentleman who had just learnt to talk about Bomenohinos and Guidos, and to buy ancient bronzes,"16 The hard-rldlng, hard-drinking set in England did not appeal to the delicate young gentleman, "When you can only join in male society on palm of drinking yourself under the table, the safest plan is to retire to tea-tables and small talk#"-3'7 The eighteenth century lives again la the letters of the "clever retailer of gossip,"18 Bellly remarks! And what letters they were, deservedly accounted among the most fascinating ever written! Rich in irony, in arch humor, in a delectable sense of the ludicrous, in vivid lights on men and things, and spiced with an inimitable malice which keeps them ‘ ~ ■ ■ . :* . • ~ ■ • ■■ - - ■ • id. M,' W, Meedliann and W, B,r Otis, An Outline of -inglish .11, WP, ^110, 1 A 6 as fresh today as when they first left the nimble pen and slender fingers of Walpole himself*3-9 Interested as he was In writing, Walpole, not long after the acquisition of Strawberry Kill, set up a private printing press, where ho printed not only his own writings but also those of Gray and others of his friends. Hero he printed his ^isoellaneous Antiquities, the Catalogue of Engravers. tho Aneedotes of Painting, and A Catalogue of the Royal and Noble Authors of England.80 As his father’s son he had a respeot for the Importance of ped­ igree* His Catalogue of Authors shows his attitude toward antiquity and genealogy. Few of them are worthy of remembrance today*83- During this period Strawberry Hill had grown In alma and in repute* Horry’s play-thing house grew slowly— * gallery, round tower, great cloister* In 1784 a visitor to Strawberry might have walked across the lawn to linger at a email oratory there or to gaze at the flower garden protected by an iron screen copied from the tomb of a Bishop of London. Inside the door might be seen the staircase with its antelopes and Gothic lantern of japanned tin. At on® side wore tho great parlour with 19. b o aI r m___ l a_ m m d (" ^aw York,1 1938 /, pp* 310-311. 20. Dobson, On. Pit., pp. 299-323, 21. Walpole, On. Pit.. pp» rxvi-xrvil, 7 Its family portraits, and a china oloset with oollestions of &iglish, French, end oriental china* On this floor were also the pleasant hlue and v/hite breakfast room, the green closet and blue bedchamber, all of which ware deco- ratod with portraits of famous people.