106-277 Gothic Fictions

Note

Available as 106-377 at 3rd-year level.

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Subject Description

This subject offers an introduction to the contexts, nature, form and literary children of Gothic fiction. It studies the formal conventions and devices of Gothic fiction in relation to the social, cultural and political contexts in which it first appeared (the late eighteenth century) and then maps some of the ways in which the genre is reworked in the early nineteenth century, Victorian England, Modernism and Postmodernism. The subject studies changing conceptions of the heroine of sensibility, the paternal protector, the family, patriarchal and paternal structures of authority, horror, terror, monstrosity, the individual and sexuality.

Assessment

Written work of not more than 5000 words.

Prescribed Texts

• J Austen, Northanger Abbey. Penguin.
• A Carter, Heroes and Villains. Penguin.
• M Lewis, The Monk. OUP.
• E A Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Writings. Penguin.
• A Radcliffe, The Italian. OUP.
• M Shelley, Frankenstein. Penguin.
• R L Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
• B Stoker, Dracula. OUP.
• Films: F F Coppola, Bram Stoker's Dracula.
• F W Murnau, Nosferatu: Eine Symphonie des Grauns.
• J Whale, Frankenstein.
• J Whale, Bride of Frankenstein.