ENGL 25603 - The Impenetrable Secret:The English Gothic Novel,1764 to 1819

Institution:

University of Chicago

Subject:

Description:

Like few previous genres of literature, the English Gothic novel produced a debate about the experience of and the cognitive and affective processes that constitute reading. Gothic readers were characterized (often in the same piece) as libertines, hysterics, revolutionaries, reactionaries, uncultivated thrill-seekers, inattentive skimmers, hyper-attentive monomaniacs, and distracted automata. This course reconstructs this debate and this reader (or readers). We look at canonical terror and horror Gothic novelists (e.g., Horace Walpole, Matthew Lewis, Ann Radcliffe); less-canonical novels and reviews; Gothic monsters (e.g., Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, John Polidori' s The Vampyre) ; Gothicized political tracts by William Godwin, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Edmund Burke; and critical writings on reading, genre, gender, and print culture. Although this is primarily a course in the novel, we also consider the role of the Gothic in other forms (e.g., poetry, drama, the then-emergent short story) . A. Broughton. Spring.

Credits:

3.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

WWW.UCHICAGO.EDU

Phone Number:

(773) 702-1234

Regional Accreditation:

North Central Association of Colleges and Schools

Calendar System:

Quarter

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