Victorian Literature – Summer Term 2 TTh 6-9 p.m.
NOTE: This course will be web-based: it will be fully online and delivered through Canvas. This status differs from that of courses developed by CTLT and offered through Distance Learning. It also retains a registration cap.
Dr. Gisèle M. Baxter
Ghosts are Real (So are Vampires): Victorian Gothic Terror and Horror
“Ghosts are real, this much I know” – Crimson Peak
“Vampires do exist” – Bram Stoker’s Dracula
Whether we take Edith Cushing or Abraham Van Helsing at their word, the 19th-century Gothic revival certainly emphasized possibilities for terror and horror in tales of the supernatural. However, these interventions of spectral and un-dead beings often take place in the recognizable present; they speak to its anxieties. Perhaps they speak to ours as well, given our recent fascination with Neo-Victorian representations of the 19th century, such as Penny Dreadful, From Hell, Crimson Peak, etc. We will add a chill to the bright summer evenings as we examine stories addressing issues of gender and sexuality; class, race, and culture; realism and the supernatural; urban and rural settings, all in a century known for developments in science and technology (especially photography), social upheaval, and a veneer of respectability, yet with monsters lurking in closets and under beds.
Our focus will also permit consideration of the boom in publication of popular literature in a variety of formats, as well as the rise of the professional writer during the 19th century. Core texts tentatively include Sheridan LeFanu’s Carmilla, Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw, and short fiction by authors including (but not limited to) M.R. James, Margaret Oliphant, Charlotte Riddell, Elizabeth Gaskell, E. Nesbit, and Robert Louis Stevenson.
Evaluation will be based on two essays, a take-home final exam, and participation in discussion on the course’s Canvas site.
Keep checking this post for updates concerning the course, its texts, and its requirements.