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English Literature / Unit 2   ENL 0127 short lesson, about 20 seconds

Epistolary, Picaresque and Gothic Novels

Captions available

The idea

An epistolary novel is told in letters; Samuel Richardson popularized the form in the eighteenth century. A picaresque novel follows a roguish, low-born hero through episodes, after the Spanish Lazarillo de Tormes. The Gothic novel began with Horace Walpole's Castle of Otranto, seventeen sixty-four.

In practice

Letters, a rogue's road, a haunted castle.

Where people slip

Each is a form, not merely a subject.

Your place on the trail

Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.

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