Horace Walpole and Eighteenth Century Critical Theory on the Novel
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Authors
Bergquist, Joan Fangman
Issue Date
1971
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Type
Thesis
Language
en_US
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Abstract
The English novel as a literary form began in the eighteenth century. This genre so familiar to twentieth century readers sprang from an age in which the social system was changing, with the middle class becoming more numerous and more important. Literary values were changing, too, from a classical approach to literature to a more romantic one. In such a time of change, of the polite struggle for power and influence between several groups, it is obvious that there would be varying critical views of life and of literature, especially of the novel, which had a strong appeal for the general public. | Of the many sources for eighteenth-century opinions on the novel the most fascinating is the familiar letter, Horace Walpole, Lady Mary Wortley Montague, Thomas Gray, William Shens tone, and others brought the art of letter writing to high perfection as they brilliantly reflected the age in which they lived. Their views on current news-items, from a new novel to the latest court scandal to the state of their gout are a personal, witty, entertaining, and informative look at life two hundred years ago. | Horace Walpole is a particularly intriguing character. Scholars have studied his influence in various fields, such as landscape gardening, English antiquities, and the history of fine arts in England, but the purpose of this paper shall be to examine his opinions on the novel of his time« He was a novelist himself, and since he lived a great many years spanning the period when the English novel was coming into being and his literary opinions are always interesting and elegantly expressed, such a study would seem worthwhile even though Walpole himself wrote little formal literary criticism. The prefaces to the first and second editions of The Castle of Otranto are his most public statements of novel theory; other comments are written casually, in letters to his friends.
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Creighton University
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