ENGL311

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ENGL311

Victorian Gothic (Before and Beyond) ENGL311 FA

Section	Class Size	*Available	Times
1	15	0	Times: ..W.... 1:10PM-4:00PM;

*The number of spaces listed as available is based on class seats open for the current phase of registration. Some seats may be taken in previous phases while others may be held out for subsequent phases of registration. (Last Updated on Wed Mar 4 05:01:03 EST 1998 )

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 eighteenth-century literary mode, yet it has a spectral second life in late nineteenth-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, which 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-lived literary mode, but also to address large questions about the relation of the literary to the economic.

MAJOR READINGS

Gothic (and proto-Gothic) novels, including:
Radcliffe, THE ROMANCE OF THE FOREST
Austen, NORTHANGER ABBEY
Shelley, FRANKENSTEIN
C. Bronte, JANE EYRE
Stoker, DRACULA
Anne Rice, INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE
some of CAPITAL, v. I.
Other reading will be drawn from pertinent critical and
theoretical texts.

EXAMINATIONS AND ASSIGNMENTS

An oral presentation to the seminar; a 5-page paper based on that presentation; a 15-20 page final paper.

ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS and/or COMMENTS

This course counts toward the English Department's historical knowledge requirement. 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: Seminar

REGISTRATION INFORMATION

Level: UG Credit: 1.00 Gen Ed Area & Dept: HA ENGL

Prerequisites: None

Section 01: Crosby, C; Times: ..W.... 1:10PM- 4:00PM;; Grading Mode: Mixed; Registration Preference (1 high to 6 low, 0=Excluded) Sr: 1, Jr: 1, So: 2, Fr: 0; Major Preference Given

Last Updated on MAR-03-1998

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