The Gothic Shelf — Part 5: The Castle of Otranto — The True Heir of Alfonso

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! The Gothic Shelf — Part 5: The Castle of Otranto — The True Heir of Alfonso Manfred's suspicions ripen in the dark: a spy set at the convent door, a damsel's terror at the giant hand in armour seen upon the banister of the great stairs, and the hermit of the wood of Joppa returned in a shape no living man should wear, to warn Frederic away from Matilda. Then comes the night at Alfonso's tomb — a whisper overheard in the gloom, a blow struck blind, and a princess dying with forgiveness on her lips. What follows is the unmaking of a tyranny: thunder over Otranto, the castle walls thrown down, Alfonso himself standing immense in the ruins to name his true heir, and Manfred's confession, spoken aloud at last, of the poisoned cup and the forged will that founded his house. Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto (1764) concludes: the fifth and final chapter of the first Gothic novel ever written. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. Chapters 0:00 — Introduction 2:23 — The Castle of Otranto — Part Five Part Five is told from the novel's fifth and final chapter, with one named exception: the single paragraph in which Manfred's blow itself falls is not narrated. The blow's discovery, Matilda's dying and her forgiveness, and everything that follows — the apparition, the confession, the abdication — stand exactly as Walpole printed them. Nothing else in the chapter is cut. Challenges, threats and the language of menace stand as written; they are the chapter's matter, in the heightened language of 1764. The edition's own introduction and the author's period prefaces are apparatus, and are not narrated. With this part, the season's telling of The Castle of Otranto is complete; no completeness is claimed for any single part. Music: opening and closing themes from "Virtuoso Trio in Motion"; the quiet background bed under the reading is "Jardin au Clair de Lune 2". Source: Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto (1764), from Project Gutenberg eBook #696 (Cassell's National Library edition) — public domain. The Gothic Shelf is an ongoing KacheliTV season of classic Gothic tales, told in parts; no completeness is claimed for the season. Retold aloud by KacheliTV — World Classics, Read Aloud.