Literature and Languages
Postgraduate Applicants
M.Litt in the Gothic Imagination
Core Programme - Autumn 2007
Semester One (Autumn)
GOIP01 - Late eighteenth and nineteenth-century Gothic
In this semester's core programme we will be examining the concept of the Gothic with reference to late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century texts, tracing the development of the genre from what are generally considered the three 'classic' Gothic novels of Walpole, Radcliffe, and Lewis, through to the Victorian Gothic decadence of Dracula. Seminar discussion will alternate between close readings of the primary texts and more general discussion of theories relevant to the Gothic, including Burke and the sublime, Freud and the uncanny, and Todorov and the fantastic. Both Gothic Documents: A Sourcebook, 1700-1820 and Gothic Readings: The First Wave, 1764-1840 will be key resources for understanding the historical context in which the Gothic emerged and circulated. In addition we will be investigating such key terms as monstrosity, transgression, paranoia, barbarism, taboo, abjection, degeneration, terror and horror. The course aims to provide the student with a basic understanding of a variety of critical approaches to the Gothic and the opportunity to examine contesting definitions of the form.
Primary texts:
Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto (World's Classics)
Ann Radcliffe, The Mysteries of Udolpho (World's Classics)
Matthew Lewis, The Monk (World's Classics)
William Godwin, Caleb Williams (World's Classics)
S.T. Coleridge, Christabel
John Keats, Lamia
Charlotte Dacre, Zofloya (World's Classics)
William Beckford, Vathek (World's Classics)
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (World's Classics) 1818 edition.
James Hogg, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (World's Classics)
Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (World's Classics)
George Eliot, 'The Lifted Veil' http://gaslight.mtroyal.ab.ca/gaslight/
Elizabeth Gaskell, 'The Old Nurse's Story' http://gaslight.mtroyal.ab.ca/gaslight/Oldnurse.htm
Elizabeth Gaskell 'The Poor Clare' (handout)
Wilkie Collins, 'The Dream Woman' (handout)
Mary Elizabeth Braddon 'The Cold Embrace' http://gaslight.mtroyal.ab.ca/gaslight/coldembr.htm
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 'The Haunted and the Haunters; or, The House and the Brain' http://gaslight.mtroyal.ab.ca/gaslight/haunters.htm
Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Lady Audley's Secret
Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White.
Sheridan Le Fanu Carmilla (In the collection In a Glass Darkly)
http://gaslight.mtroyal.ab.ca/gaslight/carmilla.htm
Arthur Machen, The Great God Pan
ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext96/ggpan10.txt
Vernon Lee 'A Wicked Voice'
http://www.indiana.edu/~letrs/vwwp/lee/hauntings.html
Bram Stoker, Dracula (World's Classics)
Secondary Texts
Clery, E. J. and R. Miles (eds.), Gothic Documents: A Sourcebook, 1700-1820
Norton, Rictor (ed), Gothic REadings: The First Wave, 1764-1840
Prescribed Introductory REading
Fred Botting, Gothic
Clery, E J The Rise of Supernatural Fiction, 1762-1800
Punter, David The Literature of Terror, Vol. I
Assessment
Assessment will be based on two coursework essays of 4000 words, equally weighted.
Schedule of Seminars
Seminar 1.
Part 1. Background, Criticism, and Key Terms: The Goths; Gothic architecture http://www.litgothic.com/LitGothic/general.html. Recent critical approaches: Psychological, historical, structural and feminist approaches. Key terms: the uncanny; the fantastic; abjection; the other; the double.
Part 2. The early Gothic romance: Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto. Also read Part 2, Gothic Origins, from Gothic Documents.
Themes: the usurped house; genealogy, legitimacy and the nation; romance contra novel; anti-Catholicism; the European other.
Seminar 2.
Part 1. The Aesthetics of Terror: Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful; J and A.L. Aikin, 'On the Pleasure Derived from Objects of Terror; with Sir Bertrand, a Fragment' (both from Gothic Documents). Themes: sublimity and beauty: gender and power; the marketing of terror; the fragment and the non-finito; paradoxes of subjectivity.
Part 2. Gothic and gender: Ann Radcliffe, The Mysteries of Udolpho.
Themes: the Female Gothic; the politics of sensibility; Maternity and abjection.
Seminar 3.
Gothic and Religion: M.G. Lewis, The Monk; William Godwin, Caleb Williams. Themes: the politics of sensibility; violence and revolution; the supernatural; conspiracies and the inquisition.
Seminar 4.
Gothic Poetry: Burger, 'Lenore'; S.T. Coleridge, Christabel; John Keats, Lamia. Themes: the female body and the self's divisions; the ballad and medievalism; desire, sexuality and the Gothic.
Seminar 5.
Gothic Orientalism: William Beckford, Vathek; Charlotte Dacre, Zofloya, or the Moor. Themes: the orient and excess; sensuality and the mobility of sexual identities; Orientalism and the Gothic; the Gothic sublime; libertines, liberty and license.
Seminar 6.
Gothic and Science: Mary Shelley, Frankenstein. Themes: the uncanny, the double, science, monstrosity, abjection.
Seminar 7.
Doubles: James Hogg, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner; Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Themes: the double, the primitive,
Seminar 8.
The Ghost Story: George Eliot, 'The Lifted Veil'; Elizabeth Gaskell, 'The Old Nurse's Story' and 'The Poor Clare'; Wilkie Collins, 'The Dream Woman'; Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 'The Haunted and the Haunters; or, The House and the Brain'; Mary Elizabeth Braddon, 'The Cold Embrace'. Themes: the ghost story, the occult.
Seminar 9.
Gothic Sensation Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Lady Audley's Secret; Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White. Themes: sensation, crime and detection, identity, madness, the family.
Seminar 10.
Fin de Siecle Gothic: Sheridan Le Fanu, Carmilla; Arthur Machen, The Great God Pan, Vernon Lee, 'A Wicked Voice'; Rudyard Kipling, 'The Mark of the Beast'. Themes: science, degeneration, female sexuality, perversion, vampirism.
Seminar 11. Gothic and Modernity: Bram Stoker, Dracula.
Themes: Miscegenation, nationalism, vampirism and monstrosity
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