The castle of Otranto
The Castle of Otranto (English original version: The Castle of Otranto , German also The Castle of Otranto and The Castle of Otranto ) is a novel by the British politician and writer Horace Walpole from 1764. Walpole thus founded the later very successful novel genre of the horror novel (English: "Gothic Novel"). The novel broke with the ideals of the Enlightenment , which placed naturalistic representations and natural explanations in the foreground in literature. It is the forerunner of the romantic stories and narratives of the late 18th and early 19th centuries and has influenced literature up to our time.
content
In The Castle of Otranto , the destructive work of a powerful father figure (Manfred) is portrayed for his family, who tyrannically and scheming worries about the genealogical succession when his weak son is slain by a mysterious giant helmet. Manfred, now without a son and heir, then chases after Isabella, his son's promised bride. He had previously had her kidnapped for him in order to establish a connection between his principality of Otranto and the territory of the Marchese of Vicenza , whose daughter the bride is. Now Manfred wants to rape Isabella, then expel his submissive wife Hippolyta in order to be able to marry Isabella. Isabella, however, dreads her old, sinister persecutor and she tries to flee from the castle of Otranto shortly after Manfred's "application". She is helped by a noble peasant lad who has been sentenced to death by Manfred's tyrannical lack of control and injustice.
First edition
The first edition appeared in 1764 under the title The Castle of Otranto, A Story. Translated by William Marshal, Gent. From the Original Italian of Onuphrio Muralto, Canon of the Church of St. Nicholas at Otranto . Already in the title of this edition, Horace Walpole stated that the book was a translation from Italian and that the Italian original was written by the monk Onuphrio Muralto in Otranto. Walpole wrote the preface under the pseudonym of the alleged translator William Marshal. In this preface he noted that the Italian original was printed in Naples in 1529, recently rediscovered in the library of an old Catholic family in northern England and translated by him, Marshal. But it is a story that was probably written around the time of the Crusades , i.e. between 1095 and 1243 or soon afterwards.
This preface, which was supposed to shed some light on the history of the manuscript, was, however, already part of the novel invented by Horace Walpole. Marshal explains the motivation of the monk with his intention to counter the aspirations of his time:
“At that time the sciences in Italy were in their most prosperous state, and their contribution contributed to the destruction of the realm of superstition which was so violently attacked by the reformers. Is it not possible to think that a clever priest might dare to try to fight the innovators with their own weapons and use his literary talent to reinforce the mob in ancient errors and superstitions? "
Walpole denies having authored the book and places it in the time of the Crusades. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, this trick gives the story a certain authenticity; secondly, it bridges the gap to the Dark Ages and prepares the reader for the unusual things that may come. In the course of the book it becomes clear why the author does this, since many things happen that are more likely to happen in the Middle Ages than in Walpole's lifetime. This makes it easier for the reader to forget the norms, values and ideas of his time and to empathize with history.
Second edition
In the second edition of 1765, Horace Walpole avowed himself to be authorship. He wrote in a new, additional foreword: “The inclined reception, which the reading world has appreciated this little story, calls on the poet to explain the principles according to which he wrote it. But before he gets involved in it, it seems appropriate to ask his readers forgiveness for appearing before them in the borrowed form of a translator. "
In addition to the apology for the concealment of the actual authorship, Walpole had to justify himself for having presented such a horror novel in an enlightened time. What he was able to attribute to a “clever priest” in the first preface, he now had to defend himself as an author: “His attempt was to unite both types of novels, the old and the new. In the former everything was imagination and improbability, in the latter nothing should be imitated but nature, and this sometimes happens with luck. It is not lacking in invention, but through strict adherence to ordinary life, the great sources of the imagination dry up. "
In the second half of the 18th century there was a heated discussion about the role of literature between natural poetry, based on early naturalism, and art poetry. This discussion continued into the 19th century when the naturalists fought against the spirit of Romanticism.
In his foreword, Walpole even attacked Voltaire , one of the most influential authors of the European Enlightenment, calling him a "French art judge" and contrasting him with William Shakespeare : "Shakespeare, this great master of nature, was the pattern I imitated."
reception
The first edition was received favorably by the critics because they believed that the work was actually a translation of a piece of medieval literature, and they praised the ingenious translator. Most of these literary critics, however, reacted with disappointment when Walpole revealed his authorship and the novel emerged as contemporary fiction.
Nevertheless, the success of the novel was unstoppable. In 1766 the third edition followed, which was already subtitled "A Gothic Story".
In one of his numerous letters, Walpole named the castle-like country house Strawberry Hill, which he designed, as a model for the representation of the rooms in the castle of Otranto . Just as Strawberry Hill inspired numerous similar buildings across Europe, the novel was both the forerunner of a series of narratives in which the supernatural and irrational again played an essential role, as well as of historical novels that transfigured the Middle Ages.
In the 1924 edition of The Castle of Otranto , Montague Summers , an expert on gothic novels , pointed out some parallels between Walpole's main character Manfred and the Hohenstaufen King Manfred of Sicily , who owned the medieval castle of Otranto.
In 1977 the Czech filmmaker Jan Švankmajer made a short film of the same name in which a Czech scientist believes he has discovered the model for the castle of the novel in the Czech Republic.
Web links
- Horace Walpole: The Castle of Otranto in Project Gutenberg ( currently usually not available for users from Germany )
- Images of the medieval castle of Otranto
expenditure
- The Castle of Otranto . London 1764 [2. London 1765].
- The Castle of Otranto, a Gothic Story . 3rd edition London 1766.
- Otranto Castle. A Gothic story . Translation: Friedrich Ludwig Wilhelm Meyer . Berlin 1794.
- Otranto Castle. Berlin 1810 full text at zeno.org .
- Otranto Castle. A fantastic story . Translation: Joachim Uhlmann . Frankfurt am Main 1965.
- Otranto Castle. Novel . Translation: Helmut Findeisen . Leipzig 1979.
- The Otranto Castle. Horror novel . Translation: Hans Wolf . Munich 2014. ISBN 978-3-406-65994-2 .