"Fond of medieval romance and mystery as a dilettante's diversion, and with a quaintly imitated Gothic castle as his abode at Strawberry Hill, Walpole in 1764 published The Castle of Otranto; a tale of the supernatural which . . . was destined to exert an almost unparalleled influence on the literature of the weird." -- H. P. Lovecraft,"Supernatural Horror in Literature" (jacke...
"Fond of medieval romance and mystery as a dilettante's diversion, and with a quaintly imitated Gothic castle as his abode at Strawberry Hill, Walpole in 1764 published The Castle of Otranto; a tale of the supernatural which . . . was destined to exert an almost unparalleled influence on the literature of the weird." -- H. P. Lovecraft,"Supernatural Horror in Literature" (jacketless library hadcover)
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Since its first publication in 1764, The Castle of Otranto has rarely, if ever, been out of print, and over 130 editions precede this one. Few books of fiction have surpassed its sustained popularity in the history of literary publishing; even fewer can claim so central an Influence on the history of the novel or on late eighteenth century prose romance. Appearing a quarter of a century before Gothic fiction became a popular literary form, Walpoles story is startling for the way in which it assembles, almost prophetically, an array of generic devices recognizable to any reader familiar with Frankenstein (1818) Northanger Abbey (1818), Wuthering Heights (1847)or Dracula(1897). The fatal prophecy against Manfred's house, the supernatural visitations attending it, and the Draconian attempts... (查看原文)
Most influential and evocative of all, of course, has been the icon of the castle, transformed in Walpole's handling from a locus of safety into a place of sexual transgression and supernatural visitation, of secret passageways and political intrigue. With its adjacent monastery, it is a place that harbours guilt secrets and unlawful desires, a fortress not for keeping people out but for keeping them in. Modern readers, therefore, will find in Walpole's Gothic structures the prototypes not only for other Gothic fictions like The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794)and Melmoth the Wanderer(1820), but also for twentieth-century films as popular and disparate as Nosferatu (1922), Rebecca(1940), Alien(1979)and The Name of the Rose(1986).
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还没人写过短评呢