ENGLISH 235: GOTHIC/ROMANTIC CONVERSATIONS
PROFESSOR DIANE LONG HOEVELER
COUGHLIN 247
Office hours: 11:30-1 Mondays and Wednesdays and by appointment
Office phone: 288-3466
Email: diane.hoeveler@marquette.edu
Class meets M and W, 2:25-3:40 in Cudahy 143
COURSE DESCRIPTION: The premise of this course is that the Gothic genre, so marginalized as a legitimate literary form in the twentieth century, actually influenced much of the literature that we now read as traditionally “romantic.” In order to examine that premise, we will look at a number of forms of Gothicism that influenced canonical romantic poetry and drama. Specifically, we will begin with “Ballad Gothicism” and read a number of gothic ballads alongside some of the poems in Wordsworth and Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads (particularly “The Thorn,” “Three Graves,” and Coleridge's “Ancient Mariner,” and next we will move to “Inquisitional Gothicism,” and read Matthew Lewis's The Monk and Ann Radcliffe's The Italian . To further examine the development of the novel we will place Eliza Parsons's Castle of Wolfenbach in juxtaposition with Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey . Other topics and texts to be read are Keats's “Eve of St. Agnes” and Coleridge's “Christabel” and faux-medievalism; Byron's Manfred and melodramatic Gothicism; and finally Percy Shelley's Cenci and Mary Shelley's Mathilda as familial gothic. An oral report to the class, a conference length paper, and an extended research paper (all connected to each other in subject) are the requirements for the course.
REQUIRED TEXTS:
Matthew Lewis, The Monk ( Oxford U)
Ann Radcliffe, The Italian ( Oxford U)
Eliza Parsons, The Castle of Wolfenbach (Valancourt)
Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey (Norton)
Mary Shelley, Matilda (Penguin)
Required Course packet of supplementary readings [CP]
Additional information available on the course D2L site
COURSE OBJECTIVES: In addition to introducing students to a variety of gothic and romantic-era texts, the major goal of this course is to increase your professionalism as a literary critic and scholar, and to that end you will be given practice in mastering a number of professional academic genres (i.e., the book review, the scholarly article, the conference paper, etc.). Requirements include an avid interest in sharing your ideas and insights with the class, a conference-length paper (8-9 pages), a longer research paper (15 pages), a book review (5 pages), and one oral report on secondary readings and research presented to class.
SELECTED SECONDARY SOURCES ON ROMANTICISM:
Abrams, Meyer H. Natural Supernaturalism . [PN/603/.A3/1973]
Ashfield, Andrew, ed. Romantic Women Poets: 1770-1838 . [PR/1177/.W65/1995]
Bloom, Harold. The Visionary Company . [PR/590/.B39/1971]
--------. Romanticism and Consciousness . [PR/590/.B387]
Butler, Marilyn. Romantics, Rebels and Reactionaries . [PR/447/.B8/1982]
Cooke, Michael. The Romantic Will . [PR590.C6/1976]
Cox, Jeffrey. In the Shadows of Romance. [PN/1898/.E85/C68]
Cox, Jeffrey, ed. Seven Gothic Dramas, 1789-1825. [PR/635/.H67/S48]
Cox, Philip. Gender, Genre, and the Romantic Poets . [PR/590/.C64/1996]
Ellison, Julie. Delicate Subjects . [PR/457/.E5/1990]
Frye, Northrop. A Study of English Romanticism . [PR/447/.F7]
Gaull, Marilyn. English Romanticism . [PR/590/.G38/1988]
Hagstrum, Jean. The Romantic Body . [PR/590/.H28/1985]
Hoeveler, Diane. Gothic Feminism . [PR/830/T3/H64/1998]
---------. Romantic Androgyny . [PR/585.A49/H6/1990]
Johnston, Kenneth, ed. Romantic Revolutions . [PR/4571.R644/1990]
Jordan, Frank, ed. English Romantic Poets , 1985 ed. [PR/590/.E5]
McGann, Jerome. Romantic Ideology . [PR/590/.M34/1983]
Manning, Peter. Reading Romantics . [PR1590/.M23/1990]
Mellor, Anne. Romanticism and Gender . [PR468/.F46/M45/1993]
--------, ed. Romanticism and Feminism . [PR/469.F44/R66/1988]
Nicoll, Allardyce. A History of English Drama, 1660-1900 . [PR/625/.N52/1952/v.4]
Peckham, Morse. The Triumph of Romanticism . [PN/6031.P4]
Rajan, Tilottama. Dark Interpreter . [PR/5901.R27/1980]
------------. The Supplement of Reading . [PR/4571.R34/1990]
Reed, Arden, ed. Romanticism and Language . [PR/468.R65/R65/1984]
Ross, Marlon. The Contours of Masculine Desire . [PN/603.R67]
Ruoff, Gene, ed. The Romantics and Us . [PR/457/.R647/1990]
Simpson, David. Subject to History: Ideology, Class, Gender . [PR/7/.S83]
Siskin, Clifford. The Historicity of Romantic Discourse . [PR/468.H57/557/1988]
Stillinger, Jack. The Hoodwinking of Madeline and Other Essays . [PR/4837/.S64/1971]
Swingle, L. J. The Obstinate Questionings of English Romanticism . [PR/457/.S9/1987]
Wasserman, Earl. The Subtler Language . [PR503/.W35/1959]
Weiskel, Thomas. The Romantic Sublime . [BH/301/.S7/.W44]
COURSE SYLLABUS:
January 17: Introduction to the course: the interaction between gothic and romantic as interpretive categories in the study of early nineteenth-century British literature
Jan 22: BALLAD GOTHICISM: Burger, “Lenore,” anon., “Fair Margaret and Sweet William,” Scott, “William and Helen,” Lewis, “Alonzo the Brave and Fair Imogine”; Lewis, “The Dying Bride” [all in CP]
Jan 24: Southey, “Donica,” “The Grim White Woman,” Coleridge, “Christabel” [all in CP]
Jan 29: Lewis, “The Bleeding Nun,” Coleridge and Bannerman's versions of “The Dark Ladie,” Scott, “The Wild Huntsman,” Burger, “The Wild Hunter,” Burger, “Eleanore,” Blake, “Eleanor” [CP]
Jan 31: Keats, “Eve of St. Agnes,” Scott, “Eve of St. John ”; Shelley, “Ballad,” miscellaneous ballads [CP]
Feb 5: Keats, “La Belle Dame Sans Merci,” “ Lamia ,” and Tieck, “Wake Not the Dead” [CP]
Feb 7: Coleridge, “The Ancient Mariner” [CP]
Feb 12: Wordsworth and Coleridge, “Three Graves ”; Wordsworth, “The Mad Mother,” “The Idiot Boy”; “The Thorn”; Burger's “Lass of Fair Wone” [CP]
Feb 19: The Monk , vol. 2
Feb 26: The Italian , vol. 1
Feb 28: The Italian , vol. 2
March 5: The Italian , vol. 3
March 7: Lewis, “The Isle of Devils”
[spring break]
March 19: Castle of Wolfenbach , I and 2
March 21: Northanger Abbey ; book reviews due
March 26: Northanger Abbey to conclusion
March 28: MELODRAMATIC GOTHICISM: Byron, “Manfred” [CP]
April 2: Byron, “Oscar of Alva,” oral report on Byron
April 4: FAMILIAL GOTHICISM: Shelley, The Cenci
April 11: Cenci
April 16: Shelley, Matilda, cc. 1-6
April 18: Matilda , cc. 7-12
April 23: oral reports
April 30: oral reports continued
May 2: conference papers due; oral reports continued
May 10: research papers due in my office by noon
ANOTHER SYLLABUS:
"I always try to rationalize my nightmares."
--Graham Greene
ENGLISH 225: GOTHIC FICTION AND DRAMA
Professor Diane Hoeveler
Office: 247 Coughlin Hall
Phone: 288-3466 (voice mail)
e-mail:
"diane.hoeveler@marquette.edu"
Office Hours:
ENGLISH 230: GOTHIC FICTION AND
DRAMA
Professor Diane Hoeveler
Office: 247 Coughlin Hall
Phone: 288-3466 (voice mail after four rings)
e-mail:
"6685hoeveler"
Office Hours: T/TH and by appointment
Course meets T/TH in
REQUIRED TEXTS:
Ann Radcliffe,
A Sicilian Romance (
Ann Radcliffe,
Mysteries of the
Percy Shelley, St. Irvyne and Zastrozzi
(reading packet)
Monk Lewis, The Monk (
Monk Lewis, "The Castle Spectre"
Joanna Baillie, "Orra"
James Boaden,
"The Italian Monk"
Charlotte Dacre,
Zofloya, or the Moor (Broadview)
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
(
James Peake,
"Presumption"
Supplementary
packet of readings--syllabus, short essay questions, and Shelley's two out-of-print
novels--available for purchase at the MU Bookstore.
RESERVE MATERIAL: A collection of critical essays and articles
(the items in the brackets on our daily schedule) is stored under English 230
at the reserve desk in the library (second floor). Should you want a copy of any of these
supplementary materials, you can check the article out and photocopy it in the
library. Copyright regulations have made
it impossible for me to provide you with copies of these materials.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS: A formal oral presentation read to class (20
minutes) worth 30% of final grade; a 15-20 research paper worth 50% of final
grade; and two brief writing assignments (based on the questions in the reading
packet) worth 10% each. Class attendance
and active participation is also expected.
SCHEDULE OF
August 27: Introduction to course; lecture: what is the
gothic?
August 29: Otranto
[read Williams, "The Nightmare of History"]
September 3: Otranto [read Hogle,
"The Ghost of the Counterfeit in the Genesis of the Gothic"]
September 5: Monk
[read Punter, "Romanticism and the Unconscious"]
September 10: Monk
[read Williams, "Gothic Fiction's Family Romance"]
September 12: Monk
[read Bernstein, "Form and Ideology in the Gothic"]
September 17: Italian
[read Morris, "Gothic Subliminity"]
September 19: Italian
[read Durant, "Radcliffe and the Conservative
Gothic"]
September 24: Italian
[read Wolff, "The Radcliffean Gothic
Model"]
September 26: Vathek [read Todorv,
"The Uncanny"]
October 1: Maria [read Kahane,
"Gothic Mirror"]
October 3: Maria [read Myers, "Unfinished
Business"]
October 8: Zastrozzi
[read Freud, "A Child is being beaten"]
October 10: St. Irvyne [read Brown, "A Philosophical View of the
Gothic"]
October 15: Frankenstein
[read Youngquist, "Frankenstein"]
October 17: Frankenstein
[read Moretti, "Dialectic of Fear"]
October 22: Frankenstein
[read Paulson, "The Gothic"]
October 24: Mathilda [read Rajan, "Melancholy and Political
Economy"]
October 29: Mathilda [read Hoeveler, "On Mathilda"]
October 31: Melmoth, book 1 [read Napier, "Destabilization
and Excess"]
November 5: Melmoth, book 2 [read Foucault excerpts]
November 7: Melmoth, book 3 [read Stott, "Structure of Melmoth"]
November 12: Melmoth, book 4
November 14: Zafloya, book 1 [read Kristeva,
from Powers of Horror]
November 19: Zafloya, book 2 [read Hoeveler, "On Zafloya"]
November 21: Zafloya, book 3 [read Miles, "Avatars of
Lewis"]
November 26: Confessions
of a Justified Sinner
December 3: Confessions of a Justified Sinner
[read Redekop, "Beyond Closure"]
December 5: Confessions of a Justified Sinner
[read Sedgwick, "Murder Incorporated"]
December 13: Your research paper is due at my office by
WHAT IS THE GOTHIC?
--"the darker side"
of life; a world of pain and destruction/ fear and anxiety which shadows the
daylight world of love and ethereality
--gothic fiction consists of
a set of analyzable displacements about what it means to be a human being and
gendered;
--it strains at the limits of
mortality/immortality; morality/immorality;
reason/emotion; order/disorder; mind/body; masculine/feminine
--gothic fictions are
structured as case histories of types of insanity
--we as readers are asked to
adjudicate various diagnostic accounts
--pleasure/pain dichtomy: why do we enjoy reading these fictions?
--the fiction as essentially
a regressive fantasy: we peer back over our own personal history because all
psychotic states are simply perpetuations of landscapes that we have all
inhabited at some stage in our early infancy (we all outgrow our
"madness")
--accounts of cultural and
psychic dislocation
--Barthes'
enigmatic code: we identify with parts of the text whose primary function is to
keep us peristing in our reading by focusing our
minds on unanswered questions, upon a certain pattern of hiatus and expectuancy, unpon a continually
postponed hope for a resolution of the uninterpretability
of change
--fiction of fear arises at
times of great social and economic upheaval;
gothic fiction introduces a prolonged contemplation of the
objects in the individual's internal world at the same time there is a repeated
vindication of the individual's ability to survive despite threat
--landscapes of childhood:
narcissism; incest; violence and vampirism; androgyny and sexual anarchy; the
oedipal triangulation; the family romance; projective identification (I am the Other) and splitting are the two dominant psychological
defenses
--like other romantic texts,
the gothic deals with interruptions in the maturation process; they are tales
of recuperation or reparation; resistance to loss
--the gothic exposes the
essential instability of the domination and submission patterns in the fantasy;
creation of doubled characters; self-other relationships revealed when we realize
that the hero never shares the stage with a heroine; if the text focuses on a
heroine, then the male has to be a split figure: villian
or weak "hero"
--in their quest for identity
as masculine or feminine, all the characters appear to be enthralled to
fragmentation or disintegration
Robt Hume distinguishes between two sub-genres of gothic:
1. novel
of terror = Radcliffe (female)
2. novel
of horror = Lewis, Monk (male)
conventional trappings =
heroine, hero and villian, clouds, castles, mystery,
inevitable travel sequence that transports the characters from everyday life,
educates the reader about foreign lands, and casts a general aura of mystery
about the proceedings
adult fairy-tale; immersion in "enchanted
castle"; woman's body
assault on the castle gates, room = metaphorical rape
heroine leaves the known (childhood) to venture into unknown
(adulthood); pauses in a sterile wasteland (pre-sexuality) and then moves
through a never-never land (courtship, magic, illusion, dream) to arrive at
full sexuality (adulthood and chaste marriage).
inherent ambiguity and ambivalence lies at the core of the
genre's appeal
orphaned heroine searches for
surrogate parents, only to find her parents by finding her self; her most
sinister enemy is her own awakening sexuality; heroine's task is to destroy the
mythic beast within, for the wages of passion are madness, disease, and death;
virtues are repression and sublimination orphans are
social outsiders; they seek social approval and kinship Foucault on kinship and
alliance)
values of silence, rectitude, balance (mind of a man and
heart of a woman); restrained emotions and strength of character; century's
idealization of Virgin Mary
heroine plays role of aetherialized
maiden, brave young detective, symbolic quester of
her own and others' identities
theme of female powerlessness; motherhood was source of
women's greatest power
"The posture of romantic
victim concealed thwarted dreams of power"
Wolff, "The Racfliffean Gothic Model: A Form for Feminine
Sexuality"
rpt. in The Female Gothic, ed. Juliann Fleenor
men subscribe to the "virgin-whore" syndrome
because they have split their affectionate (and asexual) feelings from the
passionate (and sexual) side;
they PROJECT their own
feelings onto women they then label either "bad" or "good";
they also invariable set up a rival for the women
women mirror this syndrome in their invention of the
"Devil/Priest" syndrome and their rivals usually take the form of a
mother-figure
danger in the fiction is equated with an "inner
space"--a secret room, etc, within the larger castle/body
Edith Birkhead:
"Mrs. Radcliffe's heroines resemble nothing more
than a composite photograph in which all distinctive traits are
merged into an expressionless 'type.'"
Their only business is to
experience difficulties
heroine has to earn her right to preside over the gothic
castle
the pairing of the hero and villian
in 18th century gothic each embody a sort of authority that the heroine has to
choose between; a violent taboo is usually attached to the villian
(again, recourse to Foucault's explanation about the machinery of alliance and
kinship in operation)
1950's: second Gothic
revival; heroine now is allowed to marry the demon lover
"Power" is most
prevalent word in these fictions
"The problem of love
divided is now resolved in the direction of undiluted sexuality, and the
reading and rereading of modern Gothics gives
comforting reassurance both that sexuality is safe and appropriate for women
and that the primitive quality of this passion need never be compromised or
relinquished"
*******"Better to try
all things and find all empty, than to try nothing and leave your life a
blank" --Charlotte Bronte
*******"There is a joy
in fear" ---Joanna Baillie
IS THERE A FEMALE GOTHIC [FG]?
Ellen Moers,
"Traveling Heroinism: Gothic for Heroines"
in her Literary Women (1976):
--gothic fiction is concerned
with fear: "fantasy predominates over reality, the strange over the
commonplace, and the supernatural over the natural
--gothic fiction intends to
scare and to get at the body itself, to our physiological reactions to fear
--gothic arose what religious
fears were on the wane, giving way to that vague paranoia of the modern spirit
from which gothic mechanisms seem to have provided therapy
--the FG concerns a young
woman who is simultaneously a persecuted victim and a courageous heroine
--the FG transforms the
standard romantic is
--Frankenstein,
--FG is characterized by the
compulsion to visualize the self; where woman is examined with a woman's eye
--the fear in FG suggests the
haunted and self-hating self
--FG is characterized by
traveling heroinism: traveling both outdoors and
indoors: the fg novel became a feminine substitute
for the picaresque, where heroines could enjoy all the adventures and alarms
that masculine heroes had long experienced, far from home, in fiction
--the test in the fg allows the heroine to prove
herself through courage and self-control in the face of physical dangers
--the fg heroine uses her sufferings as the source of her
erotic fascination (Marquis de Sade and the sadistic
impulse)
--property, decorum, taste in
manners, social status, respectability are touchstones for the fg heroine
--the final gothic castle to
be navigated by the fg
heroine is the insane asylum
REQUIRED TEXTS:
Horace Walpole, The
Horace Walpole, The Mysterious Mother (Broadview)
Robert Jephson,
The Count of Narbonne (course packet)
Clara Reeve, The Old English Baron (College Publishing)
John Broster,
Edmund, Orphan of the Castle (course packet)
Ann Radcliffe,
The Italian (
Monk Lewis, The Monk (
James Boaden,
The Italian Monk (course packet)
James Boaden,
Aurelio and Miranda (course packet)
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
(St. Martins-Bedford)
James Peake,
Presumption, or the Fate of Frankenstein (course packet)
John Polidori,
The Vampyre (course packet)
James Planche,
The Vampyre or the Bride of the Isles (course
packet)
Supplementary
packet of readings [course packet]--syllabus, sample oral reports,
miscellaneous bibliographies, and gothic dramas--available for purchase at the
MU Bookstore.
RECOMMENDED SECONDARY
MATERIAL:
Paula Backsheider. Spectacular Politics. [PR/698/.P65/B33]
Jeffrey Cox. In the Shadows of
Romance. [PN/1898/.E85/C68]
Jeffrey Cox, ed. Seven
Gothic Dramas [PR/635/.H67/S48/1992]
Bertrand Evans. Gothic Drama from
Daniel Watkins. A Materialist Critique of English Romantic Drama.
[PR/716/.W37]
COURSE REQUIREMENTS: An oral presentation delivered to class and
worth 30% of final grade; a 15-20 research paper worth 50% of final grade; a
book review (10%), and a conference length paper (8-10 pp) worth the final
10%. Class attendance and active
participation is also expected.
SCHEDULE OF
August 31:
Introduction to course; lecture: what is the gothic?
September 2: Walpole, Otranto, pp. 73-165
September 7:
September 9: Reeve, Old
English Baron, 39-165
September 14: continue
discussion of OEB
September 16: Count of
September 21: Edmund
September 23: Mysterious Mother, acts I and II
September 28: Mysterious Mother, acts III - V
September 30: Radcliffe, The Italian, vol
1
October 5: Italian, vol
2
October 7: Italian, vol
3
October 12: Lewis, The
Monk, vol 1
October 14: Lewis, The
Monk, vol 2
October 19: Lewis, The Monk, vol
3
October 21: midterm break; no
class
October 26: Boaden, The Italian Monk
English 225: syllabus, p. 3
October 28: Boaden, Aurelio
and Miranda
November 2: Frankenstein
November 4: Frankenstein
November 9: Frankenstein
November 11: Peake, Presumption
November 16: Polidori, The Vampyr
November 18: Planche, The Vampyr
November 23: continue Planche
November 25: Thanksgiving
November 29: Oral reports
December 2: Oral reports
December 7: Oral reports
December 9: Oral reports
December 17: your research project is due at my office by
YET ANOTHER SYLLABUS FOR GOTHIC FICTION AND DRAMA
"We live as we dream, alone."
‑‑Joseph
Conrad
ENGLISH 171: DARK ROMANTICISM: THE GOTHIC
Professor Diane Hoeveler
247 Coughlin Hall
Office phone: 288‑3466
Office hours: 10:00‑11:00 MWF and 12:00‑1:00 MW
REQUIRED TEXTS: Mrs. Radcliffe, The Italian (
Monk Lewis, The Monk
(Penguin)
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (Chicago)
Joseph Le Fanu, Best Ghost Stories
(
Bram Stoker, Dracula (
Henry James, The Turn of the
Screw
Kinko's package of readings
COURSE REQUIREMENTS: Two analytical/interpretive papers, each
5‑7
pages; a midterm exam; a final exam; each worth 25% of final grade
ATTENDANCE POLICY: Be advised that after five absences your
final grade will be lowered one‑half
grade. After three more
absences your grade will be lowered
another one‑grade. You will
be dropped from the course after nine
absences.
August 26: Introduction to course: What is the Gothic?
August 28: The Italian, pp. 5‑128
August 30: The Italian, pp. 129‑258
September 4: Italian, pp. 259‑416
September 6: Italian conclusion
September 9: summation; read
Possibilities" [in Kinko's]
September 11: Blake, "Visions of the Daughters of
"Mental Traveller" [in Kinko's]
September 13: Coleridge, "Christabel"
[in Kinko's]
September 16: Byron, "Manfred" [in Kinko's]
September 18: Keats, "La Belle Dame" and "Isabella"
[in Kinko's]
September 20: Keats, "
September 23: summation; read Freud selections [Kinko's]
September 25: Hawthorne, "Rappacinni's
Daughter" [Kinko's]
September 27: James, "Jolly Corner" [Kinko's]
September 30: Gilman, "Yellow Wallpaper" [VIDEO]
October 2: Frankenstein, letters
1‑4; cc. 1‑4
October 4: Frankenstein, cc. 5‑10
October 7: Frankenstein, cc. 11‑17
October 9: Frankenstein, cc. 18‑24; PAPER #1 DUE IN CLASS
October 11: summation; read Poovey, "My Hideous
Progeny"
[in Kinko's] [FILM: "Bride of
Frankenstein"]
October 14: Review for MIDTERM EXAM
October 16: MIDTERM
October 18: midsemester holiday
October 21: "Fall of the House of
Usher" [in Kinko's]; read Foucault,
History of Sexuality [in Kinko's]
October 23: "Goblin Market" [in Kinko's]
October 25:
October 28:
October 30:
Zaretsky, "Proletarianization"
[in Kinko's]
November 1: LeFanu, "Carmilla,"
pp. 274‑304
November 4: LeFanu, "Carmilla,"
pp. 305‑339
November 6: summation; read Veeder, "Carmilla and Repression"
[in Kinko's]; [VIDEO: "Carmilla"]
November 8: James, Turn of the Screw
November 11: James, Turn
November 13: Stoker, Lair,
November 15: Stoker, Lair,
November 27: Stoker, Dracula, cc. 1‑6; PAPER #2 DUE
November 29: Stoker, Dracula, cc. 7‑12
December 2: Stoker, Dracula, cc. 13‑19
December 4: Stoker, Dracula, cc. 20‑end; read "Sexuality in Dracula"
[in Kinko's]; "Dracula" video
December 6: Review for FINAL EXAM
December 10: FINAL EXAM SCHEDULED FOR 1:00‑3:00
EVENING
FILM SHOWINGS WILL BE SCHEDULED TO SUPPLEMENT YOUR
"
"The Cat People"
"Gothic"
"Bride of Frankenstein"
"The Body Snatcher"
"The Dark Angel"
"Rappaccini's Daughter"
"Jolly Corner"
"Yellow Wallpaper"
"Turn of the Screw"
"Fall of the House of Usher"
"Carmilla"
"Lair of the White Worm"
"Dracula"