Semester Offered: II (2005/06)
I've organised some supplementary material according to the following sub-headings. These are ideas, points, suggestions for some further readings or lines of research, etc. which may give students more ideas or help clarify certain things raised in lectures or tutorials. Since the gothic is a very complex field of study, particularly in light of the ambivalences of many gothic narratives, this supplementary material is designed primarily to provoke thought and further investigation, and to offer other perspectives. It is NOT designed to merely repeat and reinforce lecture ideas (although seminar handouts are also posted, immediately below, for the convenience of students who may have missed receiving these in class).
Module Description and Reading List
Current Lecture Handouts: Lecture 1 (Introduction to Gothic)
Current Lecture Handouts: Lecture 2 (Frankenstein)
Current Lecture Handouts: Lecture 3 (Frankenstein)
Current Lecture Handouts: Lecutre 4: (Jekyll and Hyde)
Current Lecture Handouts: lecture 5: (Jekyll and Hyde, "Bottle Imp," "Olalla")
Current Lecture Handouts: Lecture 6: (Dracula)
Current Lecture Handouts: Lecture 7 (Dracula, "Mark of the Beast")
Current Lecture Handouts: Lecture 8 (Hound of the Baskervilles)
Current Lecture Handouts: Lecture 9 (Hound of the Baskervilles)
Current Lecture Handouts: Lecture 10 (Uncle Silas)
Current Lecture Handouts: Lecture 11 (Uncle Silas/"Carmilla")
Current Lecture Handouts: Lecture 12
(She/Conclusion)
Presentation Topics:
After signing up for presentation slots, choose the presentation topic
you want from the list below (choose from amongst the topics given for
the seminar in which you will be presenting). Presentations are to
be no longer than 10 minutes, to the point of your particular topic (no
summaries of the novel, or longer digressions), with 5-10 minutes of discussion
following - so I'm giving the following topics, precisely because they
are specific enough for you to speak intelligently on, within 10 minutes.
A presentation handout would help your classmates, but I'm not going to
insist on it. It's ok if more than 1 person picks the same presentation
topic for that day, but do please co-ordinate with each other to ensure
that you don't repeat points. It's also ok if you want to devise
your own topic, but please clear it with me. Please email me, informing
me of your topic, 1 week before your presentation.
Seminar 3 (7 Feb - Frankenstein): symbolism of the monster; science and "scientism"; fathers and sons; gender; journeys and movements; "God" and Belief; "Satan"; Prometheus
Seminar 4 (14 Feb - J and H): social pressure/influence; Utterson; the narrator; crime and legal issues; Biblical echoes; houses; streets
Seminar 5 (21 Feb - J and H, short stories): social others; racial others; money; magic and supernatural; houses/architecture; colonialism; madness; desire; sexuality
Seminar 6 (28 Feb - Dracula): "east" and "west"; "civilisation"; city and country; the asylum; science and technology; the "new woman"; the family
Seminar 7 (7 Mar - Dracula/"Mark"): racial others; culture wars; colonialism; bestialism; blood; appetites; brotherhood and social bonds; the adventure story
Seminar 8 (14 Mar - H of B): deductive method; semiotics and knowledge; detective and criminal; Watson; technology; narrative; landscape; science
Seminar 9 (21 Mar - H of B): city and country; homosocial bonds; women; monstrosity; bestialism; regression; geography
Seminar 10 (28 Mar - Uncle S): child; manor house; property; father figures; social class; religion and belief; authority
Seminar 11 (4 Apr - Uncle S/"Carmilla"/She): monstrosity; the family/relationship; domesticity; evil "within"; marriage; longevity/time; civilised and barbaric; matriarchy
Seminar 12 (11 Apr - She/conclusion): colonialism; desire; adventure;
travel; geography; nationalism; authority; religion/faith; race
Past Lecture Material:
The texts and main concerns covered by this module change from time
to time, to prevent things (and lecturers!) from getting stale, and
to reflect new research interests, recent scholarship, etc. Rather
than just deleting past lecture material, I've placed it in another part
of the webpage - click on the links below to take you to the lecture
material on the respective texts/authors/themes.
Past Lecture Material - Introduction to the Gothic/Coleridge
Past Lecture Material - Frankenstein
Past Lecture Material - Jekyll and Hyde (In relation to the Detective Novel)
Past Lecture Material - Sherlock Holmes (Return of Sherlock Holmes)
Past Lecture Material - Dorian
Gray
Further Reading, Links, Ideas:
Link to searchable Poems site (including some Coleridge poems) - Courtesy
of Tammy Thiang
http://www.emule.com/poetry
Link to Robert Louis Stevenson
Website:
Comprehensive site (maintained by Richard Dury) with life, bibliographies,
other links etc. Lots of stuff on Jekyll and Hyde, of course.
Link to the "Literary Gothic" page, with lots of author bios, bibliographies
etc
http://www.litgothic.com/index_fl.html
Gothic architecture, romantic sublime art and aesthetics:
1. Horace
Walpole's gothic residence, Strawberry Hill (background and some pictures)
2.
J. M. W. Turner, Buttermere Lake (1798)
3.
George Fennel Robson, Skye
4.
Pre-romantic, "Royal Academy" style (mostly portraiture) - Joshua Reynolds
5.
Pre-romantic, "Royal Academy" style - Thomas Gainsborough
6.
Grant Wood's "American Gothic"
Article on Jekyll and Hyde
I've got an article entitled
"Textual Hyde and Seek: 'Gentility,' Narrative Play and Proscription
in Stevenson's Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde," which appeared in Journal
of Narrative Theory 1999 29:2. I've placed the full text of the
manuscript on this web page (click on link above), in case students are
interested. Any use of or reference to this version of the article
must be properly cited.
Article on Kipling's Colonial
Gothic
My article entitled
"Shame, Soil and Spectres - Kipling's Colonial Gothic Narrative" appeared
in Ariels: Departures and Returns - A Festschrift for Edwin Thumboo,
ed. Tong Chee Kiong et al (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 2001).
It deals with some of the issues of race and power, as they are reflected
in the colonial unconscious of a writer like Kipling. Any use of
or reference to this version of the article must be properly cited.
Article on Stevenson's "Financial Gothic" in "The Bottle Imp" and other stories
Article on Angela Carter and Postmodern (Pseudo-)Gothic
Past/Possible Questions, Topics for Further Research/Thought
Talking Point: Some Questions from
Students, and Brief Responses
Module Description (Semester II 2005/06)
The module aims at training students in the reading and analysis of ninteenth-century gothic narratives. Students will learn to identify gothic narrative strategies not only in the well-known gothic texts of the period, but also in related sub-genres like the detective, and to bring these strategies to an interrogation of "mainstream" nineteenth-century narratives and culture. Major tropes to be covered include the "monstrous," "gothic fragmentation," "patriarchy," "doubling," "the uncanny," "dialogical narratives," "gender/sexuality," and related terms and issues.
Primary texts
Short Stories (Le Fanu, "Carmilla"; Stevenson, "Olalla," "Bottle Imp";
Kipling, "Mark of the Beast")
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
Sheridan Le Fanu, Uncle Silas
Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
Bram Stoker, Dracula
Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles
H. Rider Haggard, She
Secondary texts
Williams, Ann Art of Darkness: A Poetics of Gothic
Sedgwick, Eve K. The Coherence of Gothic Conventions
Howard, Jacqueline Reading Gothic Fiction: A Bakhtinian Approach
Baldick, Chris In Frankenstein's Shadow: Myth, Monstrosity,
and Nineteenth-Century Writing
Bloom, Clive (ed.) Nineteenth-Century Suspense: From Poe to Conan
Doyle
Peterson, Audrey Victorian Masters of Mystery: From Wilkie Collins
to Conan Doyle
Bargainnier, Earl (ed) Twelve Englishmen of Mystery
Veeder, William and Gordon Hirsch (ed) Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde After
One Hundred Years
Maixner, Paul (ed) Robert Louis Stevenson: The Critical Heritage
Ousby, Ian Bloodhounds of Heaven: The Detective in English Fiction
from Godwin to Doyle
Assessment
Presentation (10 percent)
General participation in classes (5 percent)
Essay project of student's own devising, in consultation with lecturer
(25 percent)
One "keywords" short assignment (10 percent)
Total: 50 percent. The remaining 50 percent of the final grade
will come from the final exam