106-052 Gothic Fictions

Formerly available as 106-277/377. Students who have completed 106-277 or 106-377 are not eligible to enrol in this subject.

Usually 25 points of first-year English, see Prerequisites.

This subject offers an introduction to the contexts, nature, form and literary children of Gothic fiction. Students should become familiar with the formal conventions and devices of Gothic fiction in relation to the social, cultural and political contexts in which it first appeared (the late 18th century) and some of the ways in which the genre is reworked in the early 19th century, Victorian England, modernism and postmodernism. Students will encounter 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.

Class participation, and written work totalling 4000 words.

• J Austen, Northanger Abbey. Penguin.
• R L Stevenson, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. World's Classics, OUP.
• M Lewis, The Monk. OUP.
• Edgar Allan Poe, Selected Tales. The World's Classics, OUP.
• A Radcliffe, The Italian. OUP.
• A Rice, Interview with the Vampire. Penguin.
• M Shelley, Frankenstein. Penguin.
• B Stoker, Dracula. OUP.
• F F Coppola, Bram Stoker's Dracula. (Film).
• F W Murnau, Nosferatu: Eine Symphonie des Grauns. (Film).
• J Whale, Frankenstein. (Film).
• J Whale, Bride of Frankenstein. (Film).
• J Whedon, Buffy. (selected episodes).