Comparison Of Magical Realism In The Castle Of Otranto Gothic

As defined by The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature, magical realism is “frequently portraying the imaginary, the improbable, or the fantastic in a realistic or rational manner. Magic realist novels and stories have, typically, a strong narrative drive, in which the recognizably realistic mingles with the unexpected and the inexplicable, and in which elements of dream, fairy story, or mythology combine with the everyday.” (Drabble). Conversely, in the introduction to the novel The Castle of Otranto gothic is defined “indicated a confabulation of incongruous aesthetic elements…a tale where intense, tragic passions interplay with comic repartee between masters and servants.” And as, “the oscillation between the ‘real’ and the ‘supernatural’.” (Mandell, xx-xxi). While each can be argued to be their own genre, there are similarities within each that tie them together, and as Botting suggests in his Introduction to Negative Aesthetics the genre of the gothic has transformed through the ages wherein numerous subsets such as magical realism questions whether each were separate to begin with. (Botting, pg15). Though magical realism can be argued to have been a subset of the gothic and that each of the definitions share certain similarities; magical realism can be seen as more prevalent then the gothic in The Castle of Otranto. Principally when considering the use of the …show more content…
That each can thus be applied to highlight a difference in this manner and as such that The Castle of Otranto shows a prevalence for magical realism as opposed to the gothic. With this being predominant in the rationalistic manner of those beholders towards the improbable specter of