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In the first volume of CAPITAL, published in 1867, Marx writes that "capital has one sole driving force, the drive to valorize itself . . . . Capital . . ., vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more it sucks" (342). Thirty years later Bram Stoker's DRACULA, the famous vampire from Transylvania, comes to life. Why does Marx use a Gothic simile to characterize the workings of capital, and why do Stoker's vampires (to say nothing of Anne Rice's) still entrance readers? Gothicism is an 18th-century literary mode, yet it has a spectral second life in late 19th-century England and is not dead yet. How does "the Gothic" come to be a distinct mode, and how is it revived by the Victorians? What might the Gothic, w hich in its various forms is contemporaneous with the rise and triumph of capitalism, have to do with this revolutionary economic system? We will read Gothic novels and other texts of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries to learn not only about this long-l ived literary mode, but also to address large questions about the relation of the literary to the economic.
Unless preregistered students attend the first class meeting or communicate directly with the instructor prior to the first class, they will be dropped from the class list. NOTE: Students must still submit a completed Drop/Add form to the Registrar's Office.
COURSE FORMAT: Lecture
Level: UGRD Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: HA ENGL Grading Mode: Student Option
Prerequisites: NONE Links to Web Resources For This Course.
Last Updated on MAR-26-2001
Copyright Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459