Julia.Wright@dal.ca or, if Dal
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ENGL
5403
The Gothic Century:
Romanticism and Gothic Literature from 1764-1864
(this is a preliminary
coursepage only;
the official syllabus will be distributed in the first class)
"Midnight
Revels" (1795), aquatint etching by Richard Newton
Library of Congress
(LC-USZ62-86570)
|
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In recent years, scholars of Romanticism
have proposed the Romantic Century (1750-1850) as an alternative to
traditional dates of circa 1789-1837 in order to reorganize the field,
partly to account for significant changes in the Romantic studies over
the last thirty years. In this course, we will explore the
heuristic value of an overlapping Gothic Century, beginning with the
originary gothic, Walpole’s Castle
of Otranto (1764), and
ending with J. Sheridan LeFanu’s sensation novel, Uncle Silas
(1864). Issues to be considered include: the
relationship between gothic as a mode and various genres (lyric, novel,
short story, play, etc.); the relationship between Romanticism and the
gothic; the ideas of sensibility which undergird both modes and arise
from Enlightenment ideas of sensation earlier in the century
(particularly Burke’s Enquiry);
the ways in which the gothic
bridges conservative and radical Romantic politics; recent debates
about the value of periodization in the study of literary
history.
Required Textbooks:
• Horace Walpole, Castle of Otranto
(1764; Oxford UP edition)
• Matthew Lewis,
The Monk
(1796; Broadview edition)
• Mary W. Shelley, The Mary Shelley Reader
(Oxford UP)
• J. Sheridan LeFanu, Uncle Silas
(1864; Penguin edition)
• Wu, Duncan (ed.) Romanticism: An
Anthology (Blackwell, 3rd
edition)
• Coursepack and online readings
Recommended:
• Botting, Fred. Gothic.
Routledge Critical Idiom Series.
• Day, Aidan. Romanticism.
Routledge Critical Idiom Series.
Assignments:
• report (12-15 minutes) and
written version, 15%
• seminar (20-25 minutes) and
written version, 25%
• final essay (5000-6000 words,
due December 8th), 50%
• participation, 10%
All work must be fully and properly
documented according to a recent edition of the MLA Handbook.
Also see the Faculty of Graduate Studies calendar on the principles of
Intellectual Honesty for the importance of properly acknowledging
sources: both quotations and paraphrases must be followed by
page references and clearly indicate the author of the source; all
duplicated wording must be placed in quotation marks or, in the case of
quotations over four lines, offset as per MLA guidelines.
The report should, like a scholarly book
review, critically analyze the specified material, conveying the import
of the material to the class as well as your analysis of it. The
seminar is essentially a short essay, like a conference paper, and can
be used to address any course-related topic in connection with one, or
more, of the works of literature assigned for the week in which it is
presented; arguments may be tentative and questions may be raised as
well as answered, but the seminar should be helpful to the class and
facilitate class discussion. Both the report and the seminar must also
be submitted in writing to facilitate feedback on writing and
documentation as well as the quality of the presented argument and
evidence.
The final essay may be derived from the
seminar, but must be substantially different from it (that is, it must
further advance the seminar’s argument as well as expand on
its research and textual analysis).
The participation grade will be based on
contributions to class discussion, whether questions, comments, or
answers, and the quality of those contributions will be the primary
consideration.
Grading will follow the
department’s guidelines on the evaluation of graduate work
(http://english.dal.ca/Programs/Graduate%20Program/General%20Information/Evaluation.php).
Class Schedule &
Readings
Items marked with an asterisk are in Wu; those marked with two
asterisks will be provided either online or in a coursepack.
Report topics and seminar options are listed week by week.
Seminars can be presented on any of the literary readings for the week
(i.e., not critical readings).
Literary Coordinates:
Enlightenment,
Gothic, Romantic (1764-1798)
Sept. 14: Introduction; Radcliffe, “On the
Supernatural in Poetry” (in Lewis edition); English
translation of Burger’s “Leonore”**
Sept. 21: Walpole, Castle of
Otranto; Burke, selections from
Enquiry**; Michael Gamer, “Gothic Fictions and Romantic
Writing in Britain”**
Sept. 28: Robinson, “The Haunted Beach”*;
Coleridge, “The Dungeon”* and “Rime of
the Ancyent Marinere”* (1798 version); essays by Johnson,
Manning and Wolfson in “The Romantic Century: A
Forum” (ed. Susan Wolfson and William Galperin, European
Romantic Review, 2000).
Oct. 5: Lewis, The Monk;
Bruhm, Chapter 1 of Gothic Bodies**
Report 1: Max Fincher, “The
Gothic as Camp: Queer Aesthetics
in The Monk.” Romanticism and Victorianism on the Net
44
(November 2006) http://www.erudit.org/revue/ron/2006/v/n44/013997ar.html
Report 2 (Joel Faber): Jerrold
Hogle, “The Ghost of the
Counterfeit–and the Closet–in The Monk.”
Romanticism and Victorianism on the
Net 8 (November 1997)
http://www.erudit.org/revue/ron/1997/v/n8/005770ar.html
Seminar
Oct. 12: Robert Burns, “Tam
O’Shanter”*; Blake, Marriage
of Heaven and Hell*
and “The Mental Traveller”*; William Wordsworth,
“The Thorn”* and “The Mad
Mother”*
Report 1 (James Stevenson): Michael
Gamer,
“‘Gross and Violent Stimulants’:
Producing Lyrical Ballads 1798 and 1800” in Romanticism and the Gothic (pp.
90-116)
Report 2 (Adria
Young): John C. Weston, “The
Narrator of Tam O’Shanter.” Studies in English
Literature 8 (1968): 537-50.
Seminar
The High Romantic Gothic of the
1810s: Poetry, Drama, Fiction
Oct. 19: Maturin, Bertram** (students considering
writing on Bertram should use
the modern edition in Cox's Seven
Gothic Dramas, on reserve in the library);
Coleridge,
“Christabel”* and “Rime of the Ancient
Mariner”* (1817 version)
Report 1: Michael Tomko,
“Politics, Performance, and
Coleridge’s ‘Suspension of Disbelief.” Victorian Studies 49 (2007): 241-49.
Report 2: (Dancy Mason): Karen
Swann, “‘Christabel’: The
Wandering Mother and the Enigma of Form.” Studies in
Romanticism 23 (1984): 533-53.
Seminar: Emily Andersen
Oct. 26: Byron, Manfred*;
Keats, “Lamia”*
and “The Eve of St. Agnes”*
Report (Craig
Stensrud): William D. Melaney,
“Ambiguous Difference: Ethical
Concern in Byron’s Manfred.”
New Literary History 36
(2005): 461-75.
Seminars: 1. James Stevenson; 2.
Devin Ruelland
Nov. 2: Mary Shelley, Frankenstein;
P. B. Shelley,
“Mask of Anarchy”*; Hogle, “Frankenstein
as Neo-Gothic: From the Ghost of the Counterfeit to the
Monster of Abjection”**
Report (Kala
Hirtle): H.L. Malchow, “Was
Frankenstein’s Monster
‘a Man and a Brother’?” from Gothic
Images of Race in Nineteenth-Century Britain
Seminars: 1. Joel Faber; 2.
Adria Young
At the End of Romanticism:
The
Gothic Tale in the 1830s and
1840s
Nov. 9: Mary Shelley, “On Ghosts”; Banim
brothers, “The Church-Yard Watch”**; Carleton,
“Wildgoose Lodge”**
Report (Devin
Ruelland): Siobhán Kilfeather,
“Terrific Register:
The Gothicization of Atrocity in Irish Romanticism.” boundary
2 31 (2004): 49-71.
Seminar: Dancy Mason
Nov. 16: Landon, “Bride of Lindorf”**; Le Fanu,
“A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family”**;
Mary Shelley, Mathilda
Report (Emily
Andersen): Rajan, “Melancholy and
Mary Shelley’s
Mathilda: Melancholy and
the Political Economy of
Romanticism.” Studies in the
Novel 26 (1994): 43-68.
Seminar: Kala Hirtle
From Gothic to
Sensation: The
Return to
the Enlightenment’s Sensible Body
Nov. 23: Le Fanu, Uncle
Silas; Richard Haslam, "Irish
Gothic: A Rhetorical Hermeneutics Approach."
Report:
Marjorie Howes, “Misalliance and Anglo-Irish Tradition in Le
Fanu’s Uncle Silas.” Nineteenth-Century Literature 47
(1992): 164-86.
Seminar: Craig Stensrud
Nov. 30: Uncle Silas (cont.); Patrick
Brantlinger, “What is ‘Sensational’ about the
‘Sensation Novel’?,”** Nineteenth-Century Fiction 37
(1982): 1-28; Le Fanu, “Carmilla”
Dec. 7: Le Fanu, “Carmilla” (cont.);
Coleridge’s “Christabel,” redux; review