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Academic Year 2003/2004


Gothic Fantasy
COL 116 SP

Ghosts and graveyards; witches and werewolves; crumbling castles, cobwebbed crypts, and bloody chambers--"Things That Go Bump in the Night." We are all familiar with the iconography of Gothic fiction and with the thrills and chills produced by its storylines. But how familiar are we with the reasons why we seek Gothic satisfactions, and why we discover them so predictably? How well do we understand the psychological, social, and political motives that drive Gothic image and narrative? To develop this understanding, we return to a primary source, the emergence of the Gothic genre in European culture during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. We focus primarily, but not exclusively, on English society, where the Gothic emerged as a "far side" version of Romanticism and became a means of navigating social, economic, and political revolution. We then investigate the translation of the Gothic to American culture, beginning in the mid 19th century under the shadows of Puritanism and witch trials, gender rebellions, and racial divisions of the Civil War.
Among the questions we ask: How valid is the proposed distinction between "terror gothic" and "horror gothic"? Does this generic distinction, if valid at all, correspond to the distinction between feminine and masculine genders? Does Gothic fantasy support or censor forbidden sexualities and crossed genders? How do Gothic spaces and architectures represent the social, political, and economic concerns of an era? Most fundamentally, if Gothic fictions are fantasies of transgression, are they progressive or regressive fantasies and how can we tell?

MAJOR READINGS

Horace Walpole, THE CASTLE OF OTRANTO
Ann Radcliffe, THE MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO (excerpted)
Matthew Lewis, THE MONK
Jane Austen, NORTHANGER ABBEY
Mary Shelley, FRANKENSTEIN
Edgar Allan Poe, SELECTED STORIES and POEMS
Emily Dickinson, SELECTED POEMS
Henry James, THE TURN OF THE SCREW
Joyce Carol Oates, ed., AMERICAN GOTHIC (Hawthorne to Wharton and after)

EXAMINATIONS AND ASSIGNMENTS

Thoughtful preparation dedicated participation in class discussion, two or three interpretive essays and one creative project.

COURSE FORMAT: Seminar

REGISTRATION INFORMATION

Level: UGRD    Credit: 1    Gen Ed Area Dept: HA COL    Grading Mode: Graded   

Prerequisites: NONE Links to Web Resources For This Course.

Last Updated on MAR-19-2004


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