LITERATURE QUESTIONS
CULTURAL AND LITERARY (18TH 19TH) CENTURIES
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Question
[CLICK ON ANY CHOICE TO KNOW THE RIGHT ANSWER]
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Its use of a medieval setting to reflect on rational progress
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Its focus on having readers vicariously experience the dangers that a heroine faces
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Its ambivalent treatment of its leading villain
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Its use of the sublime
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Detailed explanation-1: -Like other Gothic novels, The Mysteries of Udolpho contains ruined castles, beautiful countryside, a virtuous heroine and a villain. There are a number of strange occurrences in the novel which seem to be supernatural, but which are revealed to have rational explanations.
Detailed explanation-2: -Characteristics of the Gothic include: death and decay, haunted homes/castles, family curses, madness, powerful love/romance, ghosts, and vampires. The genre is said to have become popular in the late 18th century with the publication of Horace Walpole’s novel The Castle of Otranto in 1764.
Detailed explanation-3: -The novel, set in 1584 in Southern France and Northern Italy, explores the plight of Emily St. Aubert, a young French woman orphaned by the death of her father. She is imprisoned in Castle Udolpho by Signor Montoni, an Italian brigand who has married her aunt and guardian Madame Cheron.