The Gothic Tradition in Literature Fall 2012 Class Lecture and Discussion Notes

Important End-of-Semester Stuff:

Here's a link to the final paper requirements for the Gothic course.

Here's a link to information on how to do reasearch for the final project.

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I'll keep this updated with lecture notes and other items related to our class discussion. Links are clustered under the titles of the novels we're discussing.

How do you define the Gothic? What do you think of when you hear "Gothic"?

Perhaps you've seen the painting, American Gothic, by Grant Wood?

for The Castle of Otranto

Here are a few notes about Horace Walpole (author of Otranto).

for The Monk

We'll need to talk a bit more about ROMANTICISM versus GOTHIC.

Here's some info about the cover image for our (Dover Thrift) edition.

There are three known portraits of Lewis, found at the National Portrait Gallery.

If the novel itself isn't wacky enough for you, you may be interested in a series of six tableaux vivants based on The Monk created by Antonin Artaud, which you can see here. The images date from the 1930s, and were intended as a first step towards a film; he abandoned the project but did produce his own translated version of the novel in French. It was a *very* loose translation, with many major cuts (his version is about half the length of Lewis's original!).

for Gothic Poetry Session

Let's just get this silliness out of our systems: yes, I am aware of the Goth-o-Matic Poetry Generator, and yes, I agree that it is awesome.

We'll need to talk a bit about the "Graveyard School" of 18th-century poets; check out this great site from The Literary Gothic.

Thomas Gray is a big figure in this school; the Thomas Gray Archive site is a tremendous resource. Note that he hung out with Horace Walpole, too!

for Edgar Huntly

Here's a link to the contexts for our discussions of Charles Brockden Brown's Edgar Huntly.

Here's a link to some information on sleepwalking murder cases.

for Frankenstein

Cover images for various editions of Frankenstein.

Some images of Frankenstein in popular culture.

Mary Shelley's family life was a bit of a mess. Check out her Family Tree here (link to an excellent wikimedia resource).

The Bodlein Library has an excellent resource called Shelley's Ghost: Reshaping the Image of a Literary Family. It includes a draft of Frankenstein.

Here are the notes and images for the discussion of Frankenstein and Body Issues.

Jekyll & Hyde

Here are the notes for the discussion of Jekyll and Hyde.

There's a great article in the Atlantic (1994) about Stevenson and his critical reception.

for our paper review/catch up day

Here's a link to information on how to do reasearch for the final project.

Cover images for various editions of Frankenstein.

Some images of Frankenstein in popular culture.