106-052 Gothic Fictions

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Prerequisites

Usually 25 points of first year English, see Prerequisites

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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 totalling 4000 words.

Prescribed Texts

• J Austen, Northanger Abbey. Penguin.
• A Carter, Heroes and Villains. Penguin.
• M Lewis, The Monk. OUP.
• A Radcliffe, The Italian. OUP.
• M Shelley, Frankenstein. Penguin.
• 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.