Gothic Literature in Britain: 1760-1900

Thursday's Class: Gothic Storytelling

2010-04-28T06:58:00.000-07:00

Remember, Thursday's class is devoted to the four stories chosen from our Gothic Storytelling assignment. The stories were distributed in class on Tuesday, so please see me if you missed class and are still without a copy. The stories are:

Jim Brockman, "Walton; or A Modern Prometheus"
Holly Fipps, "Excerpts from the Diary of Mr. Peterson" (she didn't give it a title, so this is mine)
Patricia Anderson, "Immortal Sleep"
Steward McCoin, "Abigail"

Please read the stories BEFORE coming to class so we can discuss them and give them their due as bona fide Gothic works of art.

Last Questions for Dracula! Rejoice!

2010-04-23T21:45:00.000-07:00

(at right: Caspar David Friedrich, A Walk at Dusk, 1835)

1. Find other instances in the text where Dracula is linked to the fear of the colonial “other,” who could infect or invade England. How does Stoker play on this very real cultural anxiety (which we discussed in class on Thursday)?

2. In Chapter XXVI, pge 349, Dr. Seward remarks, “…it made me think of the wonderful power of money! What can it not do when it is properly applied; and what might it do when basely used.” In these final chapters of the novel, how does money become a key element of the text? How do the vampire hunters use money (or in Marxist terms, capital) to foil Dracula’s plans, and how is he, too, associated with money?

3. Though Dracula is clearly a supernatural creature, Van Helsing continually tries to reduce him to a type, either a devil, a child, or a common criminal. In these final chapters, how does he try to explain Dracula’s motives through the study (a very recent one) of criminal psychology (Chapter XXV)?

4. In Chapter XXVI, page 347, Dr. Van Helsing admits that “Our dear Madam Mina is once more our teacher. Her eyes have seen where we were blinded.” Does the novel end with a sense of a feminine vision (or authority) carrying the day? Or is she yet again dismissed as one with a “man’s brain,” and a “woman’s heart”?

Close Reading Questions for Dracula, Chs. XVII-XXIV (pp.225-307)

2010-04-21T10:46:00.000-07:00

(at left: Whistler's Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket (1875), a work which captures the mysticism and nocturnal deeds of the novel)

1. Van Helsing theorizes about Dracula quite a lot in these passages, speaking at one point of the “mighty brain and…iron resolution [which] went with him to his grave” (Chapter XVIII, pg. 245), and later on, that “in some faculities of mind he has been, and is, only a child; but he is growing, and some things that were childish at the first are now of man’s stature” (Chapter XXIII, pg.300). How is Dracula both mighty and childish—and how is he growing to a “man’s stature”?

2. How does Renfield develop as a character in these chapters? How might Stoker position him against the vampire hunters and ally him with Mina?

3. Chapter XXI contains one of the most disturbing scenes in the book—that of Dracula forcing Mina to “feed” on his blood. Consider how this passage is written and witnessed, and why this might be among the most uncanny (and nightmarish) scenes in the novel.

4. How do the men’s (and specifically Van Helsing’s) relationship with Mina progress in these chapters? Does she become one of the gang—and integral member of the vampire hunters—or is she left on the margins as a woman to be protected? Why do the men come to either conclusion—what makes them either accept or banish her from the fold?

Close Reading Questions for Dracula, Chs. X-XVII (pp/134-225)

2010-04-16T09:56:00.000-07:00

(at right: Gustav Klimt's Judith II (1909), a painting that conjures up the decadent, voluptuous world of late 19th/early 20th century Europe--a world embodied by Dracula and the vampiric Lucy).

NOTE: See the Final Exam instructions in the previous post if you missed Thursday's class!

1. How is Van Helsing’s portrait drawn in these chapters? Is he a near relation to Dr. Hesselius, or does he lend more authenticity to the practice of “metaphysical medicine”? Consider his method of treating Lucy as compared to Hesselius’s plan of treatment for Mr. Jennings in Green Tea.

2. Note the specific transformation of Lucy from virginal Victorian to voluptuous vampire vixen (gotta love alliteration!). How does Stoker mark this change, and what words and images surround the “new” Lucy?

3. In Chapter XIII, from Dr. Seward’s Diary, Van Helsing takes him aside and says, “Friend John, there are strange and terrible days before us. Let us not be two, but one, that so we work to a good end. Will you not have faith in me?” (177). What do you make of the male relationships in the novel? Do they reinforce a “homosocial” order (that is, a world of men, for men, by men), or are these relationships critiqued from an almost feminist perspective?

4. Provide a close reading of Lucy's death in Chapter XVI: what interesting images of themes emerge in this passage? How might this compare with Carmilla’s end—and where might Stoker surpass his famous predecessor?

FINAL EXAM: see below

2010-04-16T09:22:00.001-07:00

To prepare for your final exam, I want you to thoroughly read (and re-read?) one of the following critical articles in the back of the Bedford St. Martin’s version of Dracula. The ones I want you to choose from are:

 Sol Eltis, Corruption of the Blood and Degeneration of the Race: Dracula and Policing the Borders of Gender (pg.450)

 Dennis Foster, “The Little Children Can Be Bitten”: A Hunger for Dracula (pg.483)

 Jennifer Wicke, Vampiric Typewriting: Dracula and its Media (pg.577)

Your final exam will be a series of questions based on one of the above articles and its application to Dracula. You MAY bring your book to class, and the book may be annotated (underlined, circled, notes in the margins) but you may not bring any notes or pre-writing with you. The exam will test not only how well you read and have thought about Dracula, but how you can examine the work from a theoretical point of view and entertain some more esoteric readings. You do not necessarily have to agree with the author’s thesis or reading, but you must attempt to understand it, and be able to use it to examine Dracula—while at the same time considering your own point of view.

The Final Exam will be held on WEDNESDAY, MAY 5, FROM 3:00-6:00pm in our normal classroom. Bring paper and your book!

Close Reading Questions for Dracula, Chs.IV - X, pp.83-134

2010-04-14T11:42:00.000-07:00

(at left: Turner's The Slave Ship (1840), which we discussed in class; a vision of the Demeter's last days at sea?)

1. How does Lucy Westenra’s illness compare to Laura’s in Carmilla? How does she record her descent into vampirism, and what images or symbols document this journey? You might particularly consider the dream she relates to Mina in Chapter VIII.

2. Why might Stoker introduce the character of Renfield and Dr. Seward’s copious notes on Renfield’s behavior and condition? Though a literal character, how might he reinforce ideas of the “uncanny” and the Gothic?

3. In Chapter VIII, Mina mocks the so-called “New Women” of late 19th century society, writing, “Some of the “New Women” writers will some day start an idea that men and women should be allowed to see each other asleep before proposing or accepting. But I suppose the New Woman won’t condescend in future to accept; she will do the proposing herself” (Bedford, 109). From these early chapters, what kind of woman does Mina strike you as? On the scale of traditional Gothic heroine (aka Walpole’s heroines) to the “New Woman” where does she fall? Is she contrasted with Lucy Westenra, or are they both conservative women waiting to be rescued by the virile men in the novel?

4. Stoker (or Mina, if we take the narrative literally) often includes bits of tangential information from outside sources, such as the Letter from Samuel F. Billington & Son (Chapter VIII), and the Log of the ill-fated ship, the “Demeter” (Chapter VII). Why do you think he wants us to see these narrative tidbits? While many modern readers might skim over them (especially the shipping receipts!), why should the English scholar take careful notice of them?

Class Schedule Revision

2010-04-13T13:36:00.000-07:00

Somehow I added two days to our class! I didn't do this in any other of my classes(!). To fix this, I've re-arranged the schedule slightly. Basically, I removed the article I planned to have you read on the 29th, and will use that day to do Gothic Storytelling (only one day instead of two, sadly). However, the articles in the back of your Bedford book will return to haunt you on the Final Exam, which I will discuss in class on Thursday, so be sure you have that edition (if not, we can make arrangements to photocopy for you--but you must tell me before hand).

ALSO: The Creative Paper is due on the last day of class (the 29th); however, if you would like a chance to discuss your story on the last day of class, please submit it earlier, by the 22nd. I will read through these stories and chose the most "Gothic" ones to read in class on the 29th (we'll probably be limited to 4 at most, depending on length).

The new schedule:

T 13 Stoker, Dracula (26-81)
R 15 Stoker, Dracula (81-134) (Paper #2 due on FRIDAY)

T 20 Stoker, Dracula (135-203)
R 22 Stoker, Dracula (204-270)

T 27 Stoker, Dracula (270-330)
R 29 Gothic Storytelling

FINAL EXAM WEDNESDAY, MAY 5th, 3:00-6:00 pm

Close Reading Questions for Stoker's Dracula, Chs. I-V (pp.26-83)

2010-04-08T21:07:00.000-07:00

(at left: Caspar David Friedrich's Moonrise Over the Sea (1822), a Romantic-Gothic image that captures the Gothic revival tone of Dracula quite well)

1. Why does Stoker call the region of Translyvania an “imaginative whirlpool” (28)? How might this play into British notions of the Orient and Freud’s “uncanny”?

2. Examine the “seduction” scene between Harker and Dracula’s brides in Chapter III: how does he react to their advances (look closely at the language), and how does this either resemble or contrast with Carmilla’s seduction of Laura? Does Stoker mean this passage to be similarly subversive?

3. What reading material does Harker find in Dracula’s library? How might this underline Dracula’s later statement that, “to know her [England] is to love her” (45)?

4. Discuss the effect of Harker’s journals as a narrative strategy in the first few chapters. Why tell the story entirely from this point of view (rather than an omniscient or even normal first-person narrative)? Does this resemble the techniques used by Le Fanu in In a Glass Darkly? Is the technique ever strained beyond belief (or effectiveness)?

A Pitch for Fall 2010

2010-04-07T11:43:00.000-07:00

NOTE: The new questions for Carmilla are in the previous post...

(at left: portrait of Rudyard Kipling, one of my all-time favorite authors, who is featured in English 4983 by his greatest novel, Kim)

It's enrollment week, and for those interested, I have included a blurb and a reading list for my two Fall 2010 courses that may be of interest. Both will touch on themes in this class, the "Colonial and Postcolonial Literature" class more explicitly than the Humanities. However, both courses will be of interest to English majors and those who enjoy literature and its cultural implications.

ENG 4983: COLONIAL AND POSTCOLONIAL LITERATURE (TR 11-12:15): In this course we will read works that chart the boundaries of the colonial British empire in India, Africa, and the Carribbean. These works, often written by outsiders with only a tenuous connection to England, give us a unique glimpse into the true nature of “Englishness,” particularly in the years leading up to WWI. As the empire fades, we will also read several works by writers of former British colonies who struggle to assert a national voice in the Queen’s English.

BOOKS:
* Behn, Oroonoko (Norton Critical edition)
* Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea (Norton Critical edition)
* Conrad, Heart of Darkness (Bedford St. Martins edition)
* Tutuola, The Palm Wine Drinkard (any edition)
* Kipling, Kim (Longman Cultural edition)
* V.S. Naipaul, An Area of Darkness (any edition)

HUM 2113: GENERAL HUMANITIES I (T 6:30-8:30): A better name for this course might be “Cultural and Literary Archeology,” as we will unearth selected “classics” from the literary canon and analyze them through related art, philosophy, music, and architecture. The goal is to understand the very human ideas and impulses the fuel even the most exotic texts, and reconstruct the seemingly invisible roots that bind the ancient world to the present.

BOOKS:
* Plato, The Last Days of Socrates (any)
* The Bhagavad Gita (Penguin)
* Tales from the 1,001 Nights (Penguin)
* Hrafnkel's Saga and Other Icelandic Stories (Penguin)
* Machiavelli, The Prince (any)
* Shakespeare, The Sonnets (any)

Second Set of Questions for Le Fanu's Carmilla

2010-04-07T11:33:00.000-07:00

(at right: Grimshaw's The Lovers (circa 1870)

1. In Helen Stoddart’s essay, “ ‘The Precautions of Nervous People Are Infectious’: Sheridan Le Fanu’s Symptomatic Gothic,” she writes that “Laura is a passive and helpless victim—the incredible essence of Victorian driven-snow purity who emerges as one overwhelmingly baffled…the fight for Laura’s sexual and imperial rights as a child-bearer and soul-maker will have to be fought for her and not by her” (Stoddart, 32). Why does Le Fanu make his heroine so weak and ineffectual (as opposed to a later woman, Mina, in Dracula, who is quite capable of holding her own)?

2. Why might Carmilla be a story of women terrorizing (or seducing) other women? Men have virtually no role in this story, except as protectors trying desperately (and often, incompetently) to secure their women from harm. Why do you feel a woman is the threatening force in the story, and why doesn’t she attack and kill other men as well?

3. Reflecting on the nature of her illness, Laura writes, “Had I been capable of comprehending my condition, I would have invoked aid and advice on my knees. The narcotic of an unsuspected influence was acting upon me, and my perceptions were benumbed” (283). Note the use of the word “narcotic” here and “benumbed,” both of which conjure up drugs and intoxication. Of course, these words equally apply to the infatuation of being in love (or lust). Can we make a case for her being infatuated (in love?) with Carmilla? Is it simply the result of witchcraft…or did she, at the time, truly want to “die” with her? NOTE: the word “die” which Carmilla uses repeatedly to describe their union was an Elizabethan term for “orgasm.”

4. Why might the vampire be a uniquely Freudian creation? The preponderance of vampires in ancient civilization and folklore suggests that it did exist—that is, it is a cultural memory from our “animistic past” that reflects something real that has been suppressed. What might this be? What is uniquely “uncanny” about the vampire itself, and how might Le Fanu conjure this sense of our shared past in his story?

Private Collection of 18th Century Erotica Discovered!

2010-04-04T15:08:00.000-07:00

(at right: a chapbook from 1814, typical of the eighteenth century chapbooks discussed in the article)

As you'll recall from The Gothic Tradition, Gothic literature was long considered an unhealthy and debased genre, very similar to erotica, which it sometimes dabbled in (especially in works like Lewis's The Monk). Young women often hid their gothic fictions as men hid their erotica; now, apparently, a 300 year-old collection of erotic chapbooks (cheap publications once sold by "chap men") has been discovered in a library in the famous Lake District (once home to Wordsworth and Coleridge, among others). Read the full story here:

http://www.thewestmorlandgazette.co.uk/news/5765762.Stash_of__saucy__literature_uncovered_at_historic_Troutbeck_house/

Close Reading Questions for Le Fanu's "Carmilla"

2010-04-03T21:09:00.000-07:00

(at left: John Atkinson Grimshaw's painting, Full Moon Behind Cirrus Cloud from the Roundhay Park Castle Battlements, 1872).

1. Wrting in The Uncanny, Freud reminds us that “whatever has an uncanny effect in real life has the same in literature. But the writer can intensify and multiply this effect far beyond what is feasible in normal experience…fiction affords possibilities for a sense of the uncanny that would not be available in real life” (157). In what way does Carmilla convey this deepened sense of the uncanny? What elements of the uncanny do we find here that are similar (or more pronounced) to what we find in Green Tea and/or The Familiar?

2. The word “languor” is used several times in the story, each time to characterize Carmilla’s appearance and demeanor. What is the significance of this word, and why does Laura see this as a negative quality? You might consult the OED to shed light on this facet of the story.

3. Examine the numerous passages where Carmilla “woos” Laura, as in the following: “In the rapture of my enormous humiliation I live in your warm life, and you shall die—die, sweetly die—into mine. I cannot help it; as I draw near to you, you, in your turn, will draw near to others, and learn the rapture of that cruelty, which yet is love” (263). What do you make of the frank sexual nature of Carmilla’s speech (and actions)?

4. What role do dreams play in the story? Why are several pivotal events portrayed as dreams or dream-like memories? Consider Robert Tracy’s note in the Introduction, “To dream is dangerous in Le Fanu’s world” (xxv). Who dreams and why in this story—and how, as readers, are we invited to play the role of Freud in interpreting them?

Breaking News: Clarie Clairmont Memoir Recently Discovered--Disses Shelley and Byron!

2010-03-28T21:08:00.000-07:00

The following article, from the Daily Mail (UK) discusses a forgotten memoir recently discovered by Claire Clairmont, written in her 70's. In the work she blasts both Byron and Shelley as "monsters," and sheds new light on the relationship between the group in the fateful year of 1818. Read more!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1261350/Lord-Byron-described-free-love-worshipper-monster-ex-lover-newly-discovered-memoir.html

Close Reading Questions for Le Fanu's "The Familiar"

2010-03-27T21:26:00.000-07:00

(at right: Arnold Bocklin's painting, "The Sacred Wood" (1882), a once famous painter of the fantastic, mythical, and supernatural).

1. According to the OED, the word “familiar” has several possible denotations, including:

• 1. a. Of or pertaining to one's family or household. (Now rare, and with mixture of other senses.) Of an enemy: That is ‘of one's own household’: lit. and fig. Of habits: Pertaining to one's family life, private, domestic

• 1. d. familiar angel: a guardian angel. familiar devil, spirit: a demon supposed to be in association with or under the power of a man.

• 8. Free, as among persons intimately acquainted, unceremonious; occas. Too free, taking liberties with; also in to make familiar with.

• B. b. An officer of the Inquisition, chiefly employed in arresting and imprisoning the accused.

How might all of one of these definitions help us read or interpret the story? What is ultimately so “familiar” about Barton’s condition?

2. Unlike Mr. Jennings, Barton is a hardened heretic, and even after numerous visitations, he insists, “I can’t pray…there is something within me that will not pray…The idea of an eternal Creator is to me intolerable—my mind cannot support it” (61-62). What role do you feel Barton’s skepticism plays in the story? Does he ultimately undergo a transformation?

3. Is “The Familiar” a story of the uncanny—or simply a ghost story? Do the events and visitations have elements of the uncanny, or does the fact that other people see it—or think they see it—remove this from the realm of psychoanalysis (or metaphysical medicine)?

4. Why do you feel the “frame” of Dr. Hesselius has been almost entirely removed from this story, existing only at the very beginning and end of the story? Is there a reason we hear this story almost completely second-hand, instead of from the doctor’s personal observations?

Paper 2.2: "Sublime Philosophy"

2010-03-24T10:01:00.000-07:00

Note: the questions for "Green Tea" are below this post...

In his work, Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction, Johnathan Culler defines theory as something that is “reflexive, thinking about thinking, an enquiry into the categories we use in making sense of things, in literature and other discursive practices” (15). With this definition in mind, it is important to remember that any reading is naturally a “theory” that can help us relate to or contextualize a literary work. The Gothic is particularly receptive to literary theory, as it is a fundamentally subversive genre which delights in mirrors, mazes, and masks. Using a theoretical lens, such as feminism, helps us ask specific questions about a book’s genesis, purpose, expression and audience—reminding us that literary works only remain vital as we re-read them and re-interpret them for future generations.

Using your close reading in Paper 2.1 as a basis, choose one of the following theoretical approaches. Also consider which one best informs your reading, so you can seamlessly incorporate your “thesis” into this paper. All of the prompts below are borrowed from Chapter 4 of Stevens’ The Gothic Tradition, which discusses theory and the Gothic novel.

A Feminist Reading: discuss “the relative silence, or, at the very least, passivity, of female characters” in these 19th century Gothic texts. What role does this play either in reinforcing female stereotypes or criticizing a patriarchal (male) power structure? Consider the Creature’s “femininity,” or the roles of the largely mute Elizabeth and Justine…or the much more powerful Carmilla in Le Fanu’s story.

A Psychoanalytic Reading: discuss how these texts deal with “the psychologically divided self, especially when the “id” (the appetite driven emotional basis of life) is in conflict with the “ego” (the conscious sense of self) or the “super-ego” (the sense of morality, sometimes construed as the conscience).” For example, you might consider how consciously these stories reveal man’s “forgotten phase,” which has been suppressed by civilization and English society (ex: Le Fanu’s The Familiar: “So little a matter, after all, is sufficient to upset the pride of skepticism and vindicate the old simple laws of nature within us” (47).

A Marxist Reading: discuss “how, in terms of the class struggle, various characters may become “outsider” figures, feeling alienated from their social context—their fellow human beings.” For example, is the Creature a symbol for the “ugly, inhuman lower classes,” that is naturally repugnant to the aristocratic lover of beauty, Frankenstein? Or is the Creature’s transformation (and murderous rage) symbolic of the danger of educating the lower classes?

Ideas and Sources to Consider:

• Consider the Contextual Documents at the back of Frankenstein as well as Freud’s “The Uncanny”

• Consider the intro essays on each theory at the back of Frankenstein, as well as the critical essays that accompany them

• Use Stevens’ The Gothic Tradition, esp. Chapter 4, which discusses theory and its application to Gothic fiction

• Use the blog entries on cultural context as possible sources

• Check the library—we have Shelley’s Journals and other documents related to her life and works

REQUIREMENTS: 4-6 pages…use of other primary and secondary sources (not counting the class texts)…proper MLA citation throughout…due Friday, April 16th by 5pm

Close Reading Questions for Le Fanu's "Green Tea"

2010-03-23T20:37:00.000-07:00

(to left: Eli Grasso's drawing of a Gothic castle (2010), which has nothing to do with Green Tea specifically, but I wanted to show off my 5 year-old's artistic prowess!)

1. “Green Tea” seems contradictory in its obsession both with quasi-scientific detail and more arcane spirituality, such as Swedenbourg’s Arcana Caelestia. How does the work reconcile these two points of view, and does one ultimately “cancel out” the other?

2. At the end of the story, Dr. Hesselius writes that “I have not, I repeat, the slightest doubt that I should have first dimmed and ultimately sealed that inner eye which Mr. Jennings had inadvertently opened…I have never yet failed” (39). Why do we get this extended disclaimer? How does this affect how we read Hesselius as a narrator?

3. How do Freud’s theories in “The Uncanny” play into this work? What passages or ideas from it can help us interpret Le Fanu's intentions? Note that Freud wrote quite a bit after “Green Tea” was written, so Le Fanu could not have read it…though the two may have been thinking along the same wavelength.

4. Consider the title, “Green Tea” itself: why does Le Fanu call our attention to it, when it plays a relatively minor role in the story? What does this say about the story or the characters who inhabit it? Is this all merely a case of bad tea?

Gothic Soundtrack: Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique (1830)

2010-03-23T09:21:00.000-07:00

(at left: Eugene Delacroix's portrait of Berlioz)

Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) is a truly Romantic composer, with a liberal pinch of the Gothic as well. Inspired by the grandiose vision of Beethoven, he wrote music chiefly for orchestra, and often for gigantic forces; on one occassion, he asked for as many as 400 instruments to play one of his works (at the time, a typical orchestra had about 30). Berlioz read voraciously--including many Gothic works--and found his greatest inspiration in stories of ghosts, curses, old legends, and of course, tormented love. He wrote a vocal symphony based on Romeo and Juliet, and opera on Much Ado About Nothing, and another symphony/concerto (a symphony with a large role for solo viola) loosely based on Byron's Harold in Italy. However, his most celebrated work was autobiographical, based on the drama (largely imagined) of his own tortured love life. In 1827, Berlioz attended a performance of Hamlet by a touring English theatre company; he didn't understand more than a few words of English, but this didn't prevent him from becoming instantly smitten by the actress playing Ophelia, Henrietta Smithson. Berlioz was a man of extreme sensibility, and he immediately imagined a torrid love affair between the two, and attempted to woo her through intermediaries (and his own music). She left Paris along with the company soon afterwards, but upon her return a few years later, he had written his magnum opus, the Symphonie Fantastique (Fantastic Symphony--not that it was "great," but that it was "fantastic"--sublime, unusual, uncanny!). The symphony, in five movements, was preceeded by the following synopsis by Berlioz:

"A young musician of morbid sensibility and ardent imagination in a paroxysm of love-sick despair has poisoned himself with opium. The drug, too weak to kill, plunges him into a heavy sleep accompanied by strange visions. His sensations, feelings, and memories are translated in his sick brain into musical ideas and images. The beloved one herself becomes for him a melody, a recurrent theme that haunts him everywhere."

The symphony opens with a "theme" which represents Henrietta, and undergoes several transformations throughout the work. The first movement is a melancholy, haunted movement, which sets the scene for his love and his opium-induced trance. The second movement is a ball scene, where frenzied dancing occurs as he searches for his beloved. The third movement is a set in the countryside, where the composer is assuaged by the comforting powers of nature--until a distant storm intervenes (cue the sublime). The fourth movement is stirring, martial music, as the hero is swept up into a frenzied "battle" with his imagination. This is immediately followed by the trumpets signaling the "dies irae," a famous medieval melody that accompanied the Catholic mass--literally, the "day of wrath." This theme conjures up a movement that Berlioz suggested was a "black mass," an orgy of witches and goblins led by his beloved, who has become grotesque and "uncanny." Her theme appears in this movement transformed, no longer comforting but mocking him. A new theme is taken up by the orchestra, which is the orgy proper; soon, the dies irae sounds at the same time and the two themes crash into one another, dashing toward the inevitable finale, where Berlioz writes the artist is brought to the scaffold by his beloved and decapitated!

In 1830, she attended the premier of this work, though was unaware of her role in inspiring it. As Berlioz writes in his memoirs, "So astonished was she at the unprecedented murmur of conversation which she was plainly the object, that without being able to account to herself for it, she was filled with a kind of instictive terror, which moved her powerfully...When I came in panting and sat down beside her, she, who until then had doubted whether she were not mistaken in the name at the head of the program, saw and recognized me. "It is the same," she said to herself. "Poor young man. No doubt he has forgotten me. I hoped that he has." The symphony began and created a tremendous impression. The success and the passionate character of the work were bound to produce, and did in fact produce, an impression as profound as it was unlooked for upon her."

This is only partially true; according to other sources, she was fairly horrified by her "role" in the symphony, and only came to speak with him by degrees. Nevertheless, they did eventually marry (though he spoke little English and she little French), though it was not a happy marriage. Perhaps the only true result of the relationship is the symphony itself, which is a high water mark of musical Romanticism, and a fitting companion to Frankenstein, Kubla Khan, and de Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium Eater.

A You Tube link to a performance by the NHK Symphony (Japan) of the 4th movement is below:

Close Reading Questions for Freud's "The Uncanny" (handouts are in my box if you missed class on Thursday)

2010-03-13T16:53:00.000-08:00

(at right: Rene Magritte's painting, The Blank Check, 1965. Uncanny, eh?).

Freud published this influential essay in 1919, which is a hundred years after Frankenstein; nevertheless, it has profoundly transformed how we read earlier literature and the Gothic in particular. The essay is an imaginative tour de force, as it combines psychoanalysis, literary analysis, and elements of a short story—the feminist critic Helene Cixous called it “a strange theoretical novel.” Hopefully, reading this essay will remind you that the critical can be creative, and the speculative can be theoretical. You might want to look up several Freudian terms used without context in this essay, such as ego, superego, pleasure principle, etc.

NOTE: I left out Part I of the essay which is only 3-4 pages long and concerns various definitions of the word “uncanny” in German and other cultures. Note that in German, das Unheimliche is “uncanny,” whereas das Heimliche is “homely” or “familiar,” which is a “double” relationship that does not exist in English.

Answer TWO of the following…

1. In the opening pages of the essay, Freud offers a close reading of E.T.A Hoffmann’s story, “The Sandman.” What is the purpose of this close reading—what is he trying to prove or reveal about the uncanny from this reading?

2. According to Freud, why do people typically describe an experience or event as “uncanny,” and what psychological motive lies behind it? Why might he link this to “a primitive phase in our mental development”(143)?

3. Toward the end of Part II, Freud writes, “an uncanny effect often arises when the boundary between fantasy and reality is blurred, when we are faced with the reality of something that we have until now considered imaginary, when a symbol takes on the full function and significance of what it symbolizes” (150). How might this statement (and the argument he makes in this passage) relate directly to our studies of the Gothic?

4. Why does the uncanny function differently in literature than in real life? What rules or principles affect a sense of the uncanny in literature, and how might fairy tales (using his example) be somehow exempt from the uncanny, whereas works like The Vampyre and Frankenstein are not?

Frankenstein: Contextual Documents (pp.190-223)

2010-03-09T21:03:00.000-08:00

(at left: Henry Fuseli's painting of Ariel from Shakespeare's The Tempest)

Readings: Godwin, Caleb Williams; Wollstonecraft, Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman; Paracelsus, On Creation; Rousseau, Emile, or Education; Davy, A Discourse, Introductory to a Course of Lectures on Chemistry; Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther.

Easy question this time: Choose TWO of the above readings and explain how they provide useful context for reading/interpreting some aspect of Frankenstein. Be specific--show how individual passages and ideas from the excerpts relate to the novel, and influence what we read either in small passages or the entire work. Remember, Shelley read all of these works prior to writing Frankenstein, which means that even subsconsiously (though more likely, quite consciously) these works were eager co-collaborators.

As a bonus, here are some works that she recorded as reading in her Diary from the years 1815-1816, just prior to and during the composition of Frankenstein. These are only a FEW of the many works she consumed in this relatively short period of time--she was a voracious reader, and probably slightly in compeition with her husband; she kept a strict record of all the books both read, and if we trust her accounting, she always came out ahead! You might consider visiting some of these works as primary sources for your Paper #2, especially if you've already read them. Note how many Gothic works occur in these formative years! Also, some of these works she was merely re-reading, such as works by her parents.

SELECTED READINGS OF MARY SHELLEY (from her Journals):
1815: Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther; Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire; Ovid's Metamorphoses; The Arabian Nights; Wordsworth's Poems; Spenser's The Fairy Queen; Charles Brockden Brown's Wieland (an American Gothic novel); Rousseau's Confessions; Beckford's Vathek; Milton's Paradise Lost; Sir Walter Scott's Waverley; Swift's A Tale of a Tub; Lives of Abelard and Heloise; The New Testament; Coleridge's Christabel and Other Poems; Shakespeare's Plays (doesn't say which ones); Alexander Pope's translation of The Iliad; Voltaire's Micromegas; Chaucer's Canterbury Tales; Plutarch's Lives; George Ansons's Voyages Around the World; Lewis's Tales of Wonder (Matthew "Monk" Lewis--author of The Monk); Radcliffe's The Castle of Udolpho...

1816: Livy's History of Rome; Euripides' Plays (doesn't say which ones); James Machperson's Ossian poems (he was a poet who claimed he had discovered the "lost" Celtic epics, which he claimed were written by a Homeric bard named Ossian--later discovered to be a fraud); Mungo Park's Journal of a Journey in Africa; Byron's Seige of Corinth; Godwin's Caleb Williams; Montesquieu's Persian Letters; Rousseau's Emile, or Education; Edgeworth's Castle Rackrent; Cervantes' Don Quixote; Richardson's Pamela and Sir Charles Grandison; Swift's Gulliver's Travels; Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding; Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman...

Creative Paper: Gothic Storytelling

2010-03-09T14:21:00.000-08:00

(at right: image by William Blake (the poet), "The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed With the Sun" (1810))

For this “paper,” I want you to write a creative response to the gothic stories, themes, or elements covered in class. However, this is not an “anything goes” assignment, since I want you to write a story informed by our class readings, writings, and discussions. In other words, if you could have written this class without reading a single book in class, without writing a single paper in class, or attending a single class, I will grade accordingly. Otherwise, it should be an exciting, challenging opportunity to write a bona fide Gothic creation.

THE FRAMEWORK…

 The Sublime: a story where the sublime plays a crucial role in the story. Make sure you understand what the sublime is, and re-read passages (esp. Frankenstein) where the sublime almost becomes a character in its own right. The plot (or our understanding of it) should hinge on some aspect of the sublime.

 A Missing Chapter: write a missing chapter to one of the works in class—either a missing ending, beginning, or something in the middle. This chapter should deal with characters and themes in the book, but should add its own “twist” that helps interpret the work from a modern perspective. For example, what might Elizabeth have said to the Creature? (besides AAGHGAHHGH!). Or, what did they do with the giant helmet in Otranto (and Conrad’s remains)? Etc…

 A Modern Adaptation: a short story (or first chapter of an unfinished work) that “translates” one of the stories into a modern setting. Consider what elements could jump from one century to the next without losing anything essential, and revamp the story in an original yet faithful way. Make sure your readers would still recognize the work’s origin.

 Gothic Letters/Diary: a set of “discovered” letters that either start in the middle or break off before the end. Experiment with the epistolary form and the voice of a single narrator, and consider what we see and what falls between the letters (or letters that the writer responds to but that we don’t get to see). Be sure that crucial information/elements are missing, and don’t create a complete narrative—have it seem incomplete and mysterious (and thus Gothic!).

REQUIREMENTS/CONSIDERATIONS:

 A short story (or poem) of no more than 6-7 pages. You can do more, but I can’t guarantee I can read it all given the sheer amount of students in class.

 A response to the assignment and the works in class. Nothing composed before this class will be accepted unless it works really well within the boundaries of the assignment. You can modify a previously composed work.

 We will read a few selected works during the last week of class. I will choose the works that I feel best address the assignment and lend themselves to class discussion. I will distribute these selected works in class.

 DUE BY TUESDAY, APRIL 27th

Context for Frankenstein: Percy Shelley, "Mont Blanc" (1817)

2010-03-07T13:47:00.000-08:00

Percy Shelley’s famous poem, Mont Blanc, was written in 1816 alongside Mary’s work on Frankenstein. Together, they (with Claire Clairmont, of course) visited the Chamounix Valley and beheld Mont Blanc, its most scenic attraction, standing at around 16,000 feet. Writing about it in their co-authored work, A History of a Six Week’s Tour (1817), Shelley writes, “Mont Blanc was before us, but it was covered with cloud so deep that the very roaring of the untamable Avre, which rolled through it, could not be heard above…all was as much our own, as if we had been the creators of such impressions in the minds of others as now occupied our own.” Not surprisingly, Mont Blanc and its surroundings features prominently in Frankenstein (when he first encounters his creation), sharing much of its rhetoric with Shelley’s poem—one of his most characteristic Romantic outpourings. Writing about Mont Blanc, Stephen C. Behrendt notes, “With image piled upon image, complex rhetorical constructions, anagrammatic transformation of words, blank verse and rhyme, and numerous philosophical inconsistencies, Mont Blanc reproduces for the reader the sensations he felt in viewing [the mountain].”

I strongly encourage you to read the entire poem, which sheds light on Mary’s own thoughts while writing Frankenstein. In part, the poem concerns the power of the sublime to create images in the responsive brain, a response which questions the true nature of such visions. Do they come from Nature, the Mountain, or God Himself; or do they come from the poet’s imagination, simply waiting to be “sparked” by some divine incident? Is the sublime actually the mind of the poet magnified, or do we worship mutely at the oracles of divinity? Here are excerpts from Part I and III of the poem:

I (Complete)
The everlasting universe of things
Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves,
Now dark—now glittering—now reflecting gloom—
Now lending splendour, where from secret springs
The source of human thought its tribute brings
Of waters,--with a sound but half its own,
Such as a feeble brook will oft assume
In the wild woods, among the mountains lone,
Where waterfalls around it leap forever,
Where woods and winds contend, and a vast river
Over its rocks ceaselessly burst and raves.

Part III (excerpt)
Far, far above, piercing the infinite sky,
Mont Blanc appears,--still, snowy, and serene—
Its subject mountains their unearthly forms
Pile around it, ice and rock; broad vales between
Of frozen floods, unfathomable deeps,
Blue as the overhanging heaven, that spread
And wind among the accumulated steeps;
A desert peopled by the storms alone,
Save when the eagle brings some hunters bone,
And the wolf tracks her there—how hideously
Its shapes are heaped around! rude, bare, and high,
Ghastly, and scarred, and riven.—Is this the scene
Where the old Earthquake-daemon taught her young
Ruin? Were these their toys? or did a sea
Of fire envelop once this silent snow?
None can reply—all seems eternal now.
The wilderness has a mysterious tongue
Which teaches awful doubt, or faith so mild,
So solemn, so serene, that man may be,
But for such faith, with nature reconciled;
Thou hast a voice, great Mountain, to repeal
Large codes of fraud and woe; not understood
By all, but which the wise, and great, and good
Interpret, or make felt, or deeply feel.

Final Questions for Shelley's Frankenstein (pp.121-end)

2010-03-05T21:36:00.000-08:00

(at right: Caspar David Friedrich's "The Sea of Ice," depicting the sublime cathedrals of ice--the setting of the beginning and end of Shelley's Frankenstein).

1. Do you consider Frankenstein a “reliable narrator”? The largest frame story is his own, which he carefully puts into the hands of Walton (and indeed, even the Creature’s story is from the mouth of Frankenstein!). Are there any slips or cracks in his story which make us doubt his veracity? You might consider how this relates to the idea of the Creature as Frankenstein’s “double” as well…

2. Is Frankenstein’s act of destroying the female monster an act of heroism or cowardice? What reason does he give for destroying it, and do we accept this at face value? Likewise, do we believe the Creature’s vow to Frankenstein, that he will abandon society with his female companion?

3. Why do you feel Shelley included the scene where Frankenstein is imprisoned in Ireland for Clerval’s murder? How might this scene reflect some of the major themes of the novel?

4. How does Shelley reconcile the “frame story” of Walton the explorer? What has he learned from Frankenstein and the Creature? Can we say of him, as the narrator says of the the Wedding Guest in Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, “A sadder and wiser man/he rose the morrow morn”?

Paper #2.1: “Savage and Enduring Scenes”: Close Reading Frankenstein

2010-03-04T13:53:00.000-08:00

To assist you in examining our next texts as Gothic creations, I want to slow down and break the assignment into two components: (a) a focused close reading and (b) a theoretical application. This part of the paper, which I call Paper 2.1, is simply a close reading of a single passage from Shelley’s Frankenstein. What is a single passage? It can be as long as an entire page, or as short as a single paragraph. Your essay should provide a critical “close reading” of this passage on the level of language, theme, characterization, symbol/metaphor, and historical/cultural context.

How to do this? Let’s say I chose the following passage on page 89 (Chapter IX), which begins, “Sometimes I could cope with the sullen despair that overwhelmed me…” and ends with “as belonging to another earth, the habitations of another race of beings.” I would read and re-read this passage carefully, and then consider what this passage is saying, why it is important to the narrative, to Frankenstein’s character, and to the philosophies of the Gothic in general. I would particularly note:

• The setting: not only a Gothic setting, but one that evokes the sublime—particularly the Alps (the valley of Chamounix, the river Avre), which interested all the Romantics. Percy Shelly’s poem Mont Blanc takes place in exactly the same location. I would discuss how Shelley describes the setting (the words used, their connotations) and evokes the sublime.

• Characterization: how does Shelley reflect on Frankenstein’s character and sensibility in this passage? What does he see? How does he process this? Is he responding “romantically” to his surroundings? Do his responses illustrate an “innocent” character? Or has he been ruined by experience?

• Literary Context: other passages in Walpole, Austen, or other works that this seems akin to. Why place the main character out in nature and arrest the plot in the process? Why might this be a particularly Gothic convention? What “story” does this tell?

• Symbol/Theme: reading on, we know that Frankenstein encounters his Creation here for the first time. Why here? Is this significant? What in the passage might provide a clue for what happens in the following pages? How might his experiences/reflections here be symbolic of the work itself—and the precarious relationship between Master and Creation?

REQUIREMENTS:
• 2-3 pages, double spaced
• No outside sources (unless you want another primary source for context); just the text is required
• Integrate the quotation into your discussion: don’t quote it and then discuss it. Work on explicating what you read and how you read it. Make connections for the reader based on the actual words. Balance analysis and summary. And don’t assume that the quote speaks for you!
• Due NEXT FRIDAY, MARCH 12 by 5pm

Shelley's Frankenstein (pp.71-121)

2010-03-03T10:33:00.000-08:00

(at right: the first illustration of Frankenstein, by the engravier, Chevalier, for the 1831 edition. Much of the stereotypical "laboratory" details used in films comes from this illustration, since Shelley never describes it in the novel).

Answer TWO of the following...

1. How might we use Polidori’s The Vampyre to read some of the events and characters of Frankenstein? Since both writers knew one another and were inspired by the same event (and books, ideas), do we see a connection between Aubrey and Frankenstein? Or Frankenstein and Lord Ruthven?

2. How does Shelley attempt to humanize the “creation” throughout the narrative? What account does the “creature” give of his own “birth,” and how might this contrast with Frankenstein’s creation narrative?

3. The Creature’s education is chiefly in the form of four books: Volney’s Ruins of Empires, Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther, Milton’s Paradise Lost and Plutarch’s Lives. Why this strange collection of works? What do they collectively “teach” the Creature about human life?

4. What do you make of the lengthy interlude of Felix and his relationship with Safie and her father, the Turk? Why does the Creature (or Shelley) feel it necessary to include this tale? Does it echo any of the characters/events of the rest of the story?

An 1818 Review of Frankenstein from The Morning Chronicle (London)

2010-03-02T08:01:00.000-08:00

A facsimile of The Morning Chronicle, a London paper published on Saturday, August 15, 1818, announcing the first editon of Shelley's Frankenstein (seen at left). Though small, the advertisement reads:

BOOKS PUBLISHED THIS DAY

In Three Volumes, price 16s. 6d. a Work of Imagination, entitled

FRANKENSTEIN; or, The MODERN PROMETHEUS

"Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay
To mould me man? Did I solicit thee
From darkness to promote me?-- PARADISE LOST

"In Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine for March 1818, may be seen, a very forcible commendation of this work, from the pen (it is presumed) of a highly celebrated northern writer and critic--the article concludes thus--: "Upon the whole, the work impresses us with a high idea of the author's original genius, and happy power of expression. We shall be delighted to hear that he has aspired to the pallo majora; and in the mean time, congratulate our readers upon a novel which excites new reflections and untried sources of emotion. If Gray's definition of Paradise, namely, to lie on a couch, and read new novels, come any thing near the truth, no small praise is due to him, who, like the author of Frankenstein, has enlarged the sphere of that fascinating enjoyment."

Printed for Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mayor, and Jones, Finsbury-square.

Note that the work was sold in three volumes for 16 shillings, 6 pence (a typical book went for around 6 shillings, so getting 3 books for 16 shillings was a bargain). After finding a publisher only with much difficulty, Shelley placed the work with Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mayor, and Hones, publishers of cheap sensational or "occult" novels, such as "The Magus, or Celestial Intelligencer--a complete system of occult philosophy, being a summary of all the best Writers on the subjects of Magic, Alchemy, Magnetism, the Cabala, and etc. Cornelius, Agrippa, Paracelsus, Van Helmont, Hermes Trismegistus, & c., with an Account of their Lives and a great variety of new matter, and rare and curious experiments" (ironic, considering Victor's early reading interests!) The book was cheaply bound and had no illustrations or any other distinguishing feature. That it survived this very humble birth is a supreme testament to its literary power and ability to capture the popular imagination.

From Mary Shelley's Journal, Winter 1815 (note: ECU has multiple copies of the Journals)

2010-03-01T21:44:00.000-08:00

(at right: a miniature portrait of Mary Shelley as a young woman, part of the collection of her relics at the Bodleian Library, at the University of Oxford)

From a biographical point of view, it is important to consider what Mary Shelley saw and experienced between 1814 (her elopement with Shelley) and 1818, the first publication of Frankenstein. In this relatively short period of time, she traveled throughout Europe, gave birth to and lost several children, met some of the great writers of the age, and read widely in many languages. Yet perhaps most significant to the novel is the experience of losing young children—devastating to any mother, much less a woman barely out of her teens. The following excerpts from her Journal, though fragmentary, suggest a uniquely feminine perspective on the origin of Frankenstein…

Thursday, February 23-24, 1815: [Percy Shelley writing] Mary quite well: the child, unexpectedly, alive, but still not expected to live…Dr. Clarke calls; confirms out hopes of the child. Shelley [himself, speaking in the third person] very unwell…The child very well; Marie very well also; drawing milk all day. Shelley is very unwell.

Monday, March 6: Find my baby dead. Send for Hogg. Talk. A miserable day. In the evening read “Fall of the Jesuits.” Hogg sleeps here.

Thursday, March 9. Read and talk. Still think about my little baby—‘tis hard, indeed, for a mother to lose a child. Hogg and Charles Clairmont come in the evening…

Monday, March 13: Shelley and Clara go to town. Stay at home; net, and think of my little dead baby. This is foolish, I suppose; yet, whenever I am left alone to my own thoughts, and do not read to divert then, they always come back to the same point—that I was a mother, and am so no longer.

Sunday, March 19. Dream that my little baby came to life again; that it had only been cold, and that we rubbed it before the fire, and it lived. Awake and find no baby. I think about the little thing all day. Not in good spirits. Shelley is very unwell…

Monday, March 20. Dream again about my baby…

Compare to this to the following passage in Frankenstein, Chapter III, page 50:

“I need not describe the feelings of those whose dearest ties are rent by that most irreparable evil; the void that presents itself to the soul; and the despair that is exhibited on the countenance. It is so long before the mind can persuade itself that she, whom we saw every day, and whose very existence appeared a part of our own, can have departed forever—that the brightness of a beloved eye can have been extinguished, and the sound of a voice so familiar, and dear to the ear, can be hushed, never more to be heard. These are the reflections of the first days; but when the lapse of time proves the reality of the evil, then the actual bitterness of grief commences. Yet from who has not that rude hand rent away some dear connection? and why should I describe a sorrow which all have felt, and must feel? The time at length arrives, when grief is rather an indulgence than a necessity; and the smile that plays upon the lips, although it may be deemed a sacrilege, is not banished. My mother was dead, but we had still duties which we ought to perform; we must continue our course with the rest, and learn to think ourselves fortunate, whilst one remains whom the spoiler has not seized.”

Close Reading Questions for Shelley's Frankenstein, pp.19-71

2010-02-26T10:23:00.000-08:00

(Left: Self Portrait of Goya, 1795...an image of Victor Frankenstein?)

Answer TWO of the following...

1. Carefully read Shelley’s 1831 Introduction to Frankenstein: how is she positioning the story for her post-Gothic readership (as the Gothic craze by this time had more or less died out)? Also, how might she playing into the conventions of Gothic prefaces written by Walpole and Coleridge?

2. Why do you think Shelley opens the novel with the letters (and story) of Walton, the Arctic explorer? What might he—and the epistolary form—add to the work from the Gothic or the novelistic point of view?

3. The young Victor becomes enamored with the writings of Agrippa, Paracelsus, and Magnus, all of whom sought “the raising of ghosts or devils” (47). Why do the Enlightenment figures in the text (his father, his teachers) scorn these books, and what role do they play in his ultimate decision to create life?

4. How might the nightmare Victor has in the beginning of Chapter V reflect on his own psychology in creating the Creature? What might the dream “see” that he cannot—or refuses to witness?

From Thomas de Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium Eater (1821)

2010-02-25T11:43:00.000-08:00

The following excerpt comes from Thomas de Quincey's harrowing account of opium addiction and the "sublime" nightmares he suffered from. These nightmares tap into typically Romantic visions of innocence and experience, sublimity, terror, and the Orient. This excerpt discusses the peculiar nature of his "Chinese" dreams, and his singularly racist horror of this ancient civilization (fueled more by his reading than any actual contact with the culture, I imagine). If you want to read the entire work, you can find it in our library as well as on line at: http://www.lycaeum.org/~sputnik/Ludlow/Texts/Opium/index.html

The Malay has been a fearful enemy for months. I have been every night, through his means, transported into Asiatic scenes. I know not whether other share in my feelings on this point; but I have often thought that if I were compelled to forgo England, and to live in China, and among Chinese manners and modes of life and scenery, I should go mad. The causes of my horror lie deep; and some of them must be common to others. Southern Asia, in general, is the seat of awful images and associations. As the cradle of the human race, it would alone have a dim and reverential feeling connected with it. But there are other reasons. No man can pretend that the wild, barbarous, and capricious superstitions of Africa, or of savage tribes elsewhere, affect him in the way that he is affected by the ancient, monumental, cruel, and elaborate religions of Indostan, etc. The mere antiquity of Asiatic things, of their institutions, histories, modes of faith, etc., is so impressive, that to me the vast age of the race and name overpowers the sense of youth in the individual. A young Chinese seems to me an antediluvian man renewed.

Even Englishmen, though not bred in any knowledge to such institutions, cannot but shudder at the mystic sublimity of castes that have flowed apart, and refused to mix, through such immemorial tracts of time; nor can any man fail to be awed by the names of the Ganges, or the Euphrates. It contributes much to these feelings,that southern Asia is, and has been for thousands of years, the part of the earth most swarming with human life…Man is a weed in those regions. The vast empires also, into which the enormous population of Asia has always been cast, give a further sublimity to feelings associated with oriental names or images. In China, over and above what it has in common with the rest of Southeast Asia, I am terrified by the modes of life, by the manners, and the barriers of utter abhorrence, and want of sympathy, placed between us by feelings deeper than I can analyze. I could sooner live with lunatics, or brute animals.

All this, and much more than I can say, or have time to say, the reader must enter into before he can comprehend the unimaginable horror which these dreams of oriental imagery, and mythological tortures, impressed upon me. Under the connecting feeling of tropical heat and vertical sun-lights, I brought together all creatures, birds, beasts, reptiles, all trees and plants, usages and appearances, that are found in all tropical regions, and assembled them together in China or Indostan. From kindred feelings I soon brought Egypt and all her gods under the same law. I was stared at, hooted at, grinned at, chattered at, by monkeys, by paroquets, by cockatoos. I ran into pagodas: and was fixed, for centuries, at the summit, or in secret rooms; I was the idol; I was the priest; I was worshipped; I was sacrified. I fled from the wrath of Brama through all the forests of Asia: Vishnu hated me; Seeva laid in wait for me…I was buried for a thousand years, in stone coffins, with mummies and sphinxes, in narrow chambers at the heart of eternal pyramids. I was kissed, by cancerous kisses, by crocodiles, and laid, confounded with all unutterable slimy things, among reed and Niolitic mud.

For Tomorrow: Polidori

2010-02-24T09:33:00.000-08:00

For tomorrow let's just devote our discussion to The Vampyre, and I might bring in something to intoduce Frankenstein as well. I'm just too exhasuted to do prepare anything else, and besides, I think we could use some good discussion of this pivotal Gothic work. If you missed class on Tuesday, I got sick 20 minutes in and had to cancel class, so you only missed a little lecture on the Shelleys, Byron, and Polidori, some of which I can repeat on Thursday.

Take care!

A Few Reminders...

2010-02-21T14:42:00.000-08:00

1. The absolute last day I will accept papers for any credit is tomorrow by 5pm (you will get an F, but can possibly get a 50% maximum, which beats a 0). I hope to have all the papers graded by Thursday's class, though late papers will not be returned on time (sorry--probably have those by the following Tuesday).

2. Two new posts are below: one on Beethoven for cultural context, and beneath that, the questions for Polidori's The Vampyre. If you missed class on Thursday be sure to get the handout from my box.

3. Be sure you have the Bedford copy of Frankenstein for Thursday's class. You need this edition for our class, since we will be doing several critical readings from this text. The bookstore is well stocked with this book and The Gothic Tradition (which is also a requirement).

Ohterwise, see you on Tuesday!

Cultural Context: Beethoven and the Romantic Artist

2010-02-21T13:05:00.000-08:00

Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770-1827) played a pivotal role in the transformation not only of classical music, but also of the artist's role in society. Though born to a humble station in Bonn, Germany, he quickly established himself as a pianist and composer of note, studying briefly with Joseph Haydn (see earlier post on him) and cultivating a series of aristocratic patrons. However, Beethoven was impatient with convention (like so many Romantic artists!) and began experimenting with the expressive possibilities of form (similar to Walpole). A true child of sentiment and feeling, even Beethoven's earliest works probe deeper than the more facile works of his contemporaries; he was drawn to the expressive possibilities of the great classical forms such as the symphony, the sonata, the concerto, and the string quartet. While honoring the innovations made by former composers (especially Mozart, whom he revered), Beethoven added a crucial element that echoed the literature, philosophy, and politics of his time. In a word we might call this "romanticism," though "revolution," "rebellion," and simply "defiance" will also do. His music pushed all the known boundaries of classical music, taking a four movement symphony that usually lasted about 25-30 minutes and pushing it close to an hour. And what did he do in that hour? Taking the example of his longest, and at the time most audacious symphony, Symphony No.3 "Eroica" (The Heroic), he created music that spoke of a revolutionary struggle against the world, where tragedy, perseverance, and sheer irreverence walked hand-in-hand. Not coincidentally, Beethoven originally dedicated the score of this work to Napoleon Bonaparte, who at this time (1804) was beginning his fateful military career. Beethoven admired his revolutionary spirit and defiance of conventional monarchy...until Napolean invaded Austria. The manuscript of the score shows this dedication scratched through so vigorously that only a hole remains. Nevertheless, the revolutionary ideals in the music remain, sounding the triumph of the artistic spirit, and the freedom of art to rise above the dogmatic indifference of the unenlightened.

Beethoven began to lose his hearing in his early thirties, making public performance difficult--and eventually impossible. However, it made his compositions grow more introspective and demanding: he created challenges that many players at the time thought impossible (such as the piano parts in his Piano Concertos, as well as the singing parts in his final symphony, the all-important Ninth). With each new major work he made an artistic statement, sometimes defiantly, sometimes playfully, but always conscious of his role as an artist and a seeker of Romantic truth. Indeed, whereas former composers were content to be employed by this or that aristocratic patron, Beethoven refused to be treated as a servant: he demanded respect and fully expected the rich and powerful to support him...if they had any taste, that is. While the public scrambled to keep up with his innovations, Beethoven wrote some of his most important and lasting works: Symphony No.5, with its famous "duh-duh-duh-Dah!" motif (later used as a musical symbol for Victory in WWII), Symphony No.6 , "The Pastoral" (a musical depiction of Nature--very much in the Wordsworthian vein), Symphony No.9, his shockingly ambitious choral symphony, which concludes with the famous "Ode To Joy," as well as several late string quartets and piano sonatas, works of such extreme intimacy that one can only compare them love letters or private diary entries. Few understood their prophetic insight at the time, and even Beethoven was unable to truly "hear" them alongside his audience. Nevertheless, Beethoven wrote both for his time and the one to follow, content that art was the one form common to all men, and the true means for ennobling his or her spirit and ideals.

After Beethoven, few artists were content to hang their heads and lap up the scraps from a nobleman's table. Beethoven's works became what gifts of land once were to nobility--it gave him a metaphorical coat of arms, castles, and international prestige. Though his music and personality shocked the older generation (the poet Goethe, for example, could only shake his head), it inspired an entire generation of composers, writers, and artists. Like Lord Byron, the great English poet, sometimes his image preceded the work itself, with society embellishing his legend to truly Romantic (and at times, Gothic) proportions. One story has it that, on his deathbed, thunder rolled over the roofs, prompting Beethoven to sit up in bed and shake his first at heaven. “Not yet!” he was reported to scream, which smacks more of Walpole than Beethoven’s biography. Something of this legacy carries over to the Gothic works of the period, notably in Mary Shelley’s depiction of Victor Frankenstein, another Romantic artist who defies God in his quest for creation and scientific truth.

Selected Work: Symphony No.3, “Eroica”

Symphony No.3, his heroic symphony, is in the traditional four movements: the first speaks of heroic struggle and drama; the second is a broad funeral march, opening with desolation and growing more defiant; the third is a flippant “scherzo” (Italian for “joke”) that laughs with jolly tunes; and the fourth, the finale, is a series of variations on a theme from his ballet, The Creatures of Prometheus. This famous myth, about the giant Prometheus who bequeathed fire to mankind, was a famous theme of the Romantics—notably in Shelley’s Frankenstein, which is subtitled “The Modern Prometheus.” This encoded reference to Prometheus is yet another link to the revolutionary ethos of the symphony itself, and certainly Beethoven’s intention in writing it.

Writing of the slow (second) movement, Barbara Hanning writes: “It is the second movement—the Funeral March—more than anything else in the symphony that links the work with France, the republican experiment there, and Napoleon. The customary slove movement is replaced by a march in C minor, full of tragic grandeur and pathos, and a contrasting “trio” in C major [a trio is typically a contrasting section in a lighter mood in a longer work, called a “trio” because originally only three instruments—usually wind instruments—played in it (my note)] brimming with fanfares and celebratory lyricism, after which the march returns, broken up with sighs at the end. At the opening of the Funeral March, the thirty-second notes of the strings imitate the sound of muffled drums used in the Revolutionary processions that accompanied French heroes to their final resting place” (Concise History of Western Music, 367).

Other works of “Gothic” interest…
* Symphonies 4, 5, 6 and 9
* Piano Sonata Nos. 8 “Pathetique,” No.14 “Moonlight,” and No. 21 “Appassionata”
* Piano Concerto Nos.1-5
* Overtures for Egmont, Corolian, and the Creatures of Prometheus
To listen to entire excerpts from the symphonies and other works, click on the following:
http://www.beethoven-haus/ bonn.de/sixcms/detail.php?
id=15241&template=untergruppe_digitales_archiv_en&_eid=1510&_ug=Symphonies&_mid=Works%20by%20Ludwig%20van%20Beethoven

Close Reading Questions for Polidori's The Vampyre (handout--see box)

2010-02-19T11:55:00.000-08:00

Note: According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word “vampire/vampyre” is of Slavonic origin, occurring equally throughout Russia Poland, Serbia, and Bulgaria as “vampir” or “vepir.” Interestingly, its first appearance in English is documented in 1734, though it becomes much more common after Polidori’s story in 1819. Thereafter, it enters the lexicon as both as “a person of malignant and loathsome character” and “An intolerable bore or tedious person.”

Answer TWO of the following…

1. Setting is extremely important in Gothic fiction, as Stevens reminds us: “some form of obscurity or mystery seems to be a common factor” (54). What is mysterious or obscure about the setting of The Vampire, particularly Aubrey’s long sojourn in Greece? How does this contribute to the Gothic sensibilities of the tale?

2. In what ways might we read The Vampyre as a story of “innocence and experience” similar to Austen’s Northanger Abbey? Consider the character of Aubrey in particular, and Polidori’s use of words such as “imagination,” “innocence,” “frank,” and “infantile.”

3. The vampire was traditionally a loathsome creature of myth and legend—similar to a decrepit grave robber. How does Polidori transform the vampire legend, and what might this say about English society in the early 19th century? Consider how Polidori describes Lord Ruthven and his “vampiric” actions.

4. In many ways, The Vampire reads as a folk or fairy tale, with little use of traditional novelistic details such as characterization, dialogue, or narration. Why do you think he adopted this method? Is there a unique relationship between the Gothic and the fairy tale?

Close Reading Questions for Wollstonecraft's A Vindication for the Rights of Woman (handout--go to my door if you missed last class)

2010-02-17T10:46:00.000-08:00

(Above: John Opie's painting of Mary Wollstonecraft, a suitably Gothic image of this pioneering Feminist writer. Besides the Vindication, she was also a noted travel writer, publishing a celerbrated book entitled Letters Written During A Short Residence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark (1796), which reflected on the state of women outside of England. This is the book that reportedly made William Godwin fall in love with her, and remained Mary Shelley's favorite book to the end of her days. Her reputation--for bad and good--however was made by A Vindication of the Rights of Woman).

Answer TWO of the following...

1. In a passage that plays with ideas of innocence and experience, Wollstonecraft writes, “for if men eat of the tree of knowledge, women will come in for a taste; but, from the imperfect cultivation which their understandings now receive, they only attain a knowledge of evil” (238). What does she mean by this, and how does it relate to eighteenth-century practices of educating women?

2. Wollstonecraft is very critical of the contemporary notion of passion (or romantic love) in marriage. As she writes, “a master and mistress of a family ought not to continue to love each other with passion…they ought not to indulge those emotions which disturb the order of society, and engross the thoughts that should be otherwise employed” (245). Why (to her) is passion such an invasive force in marriage, and potentially devastating to a woman’s role as wife and mother?

3. How does Wollstonecraft implicate literature—and in particular, novels—as contributing to the general ignorance of women and their deplorable state in eighteenth-century society? What does she see as the terrible “moral” of most literature…and do you feel she would lump Walpole and Austen into this argument?

4. Though a hallmark of feminist thought, how might A Vindication of the Rights of Woman also be read as a Marxist text? In what ways might it contribute politically to the upheavals of the French Revolution and the Gothic/Romantic concern for the “rights of man”?

Blog Post Schedule

2010-02-16T11:00:00.000-08:00

We're back on track with the Blog Schedule now that Northanger Abbey is finished. However, for your covnenience, here is the remaining schedule...remember to post by 5pm the day before to get full points for this.

Thursday, February 18 (Wollstonecraft): Shannon Norton
Tuesday, February 23 (Polidori, handout): Christopher Clark
Thursady, February 25: (Fraknenstein): Ray Lackey and Patricia Anderson
Tuesday, March 2 (Frankenstein): Coby Thornton
Thursday, March 4 (Frankenstein): Shannon McKim
Tuesday, March 9 (Freud's "The Uncanny"--handout): Chad Large
Thursday, March 11: (Collings, article): Hannah Medrano
Tuesday, March 23 (Le Fanu): Ben Nicols
Thursday, March 25 (Le Fanu): Jun Pham
Tuesday, March 30 (Le Fanu): Rodney Weaverling
Tuesday, April 6 (Article--handout): Sarah Berger
Thursday, April 8 (Dracula): Patsy Roberts
Tuesday, April 13 (Dracula): Bruce McCoin
Thursday, April 15 (Dracula): Katherine Conrad
Tuesday, April 20 (Dracula): Arielle Burkett

Review of the PBS Northanger Abbey

2010-02-15T11:24:00.000-08:00

NOTE: The questions for Tuesday are in the previous post. This is a review of the PBS Northanger Abbey that aired last night.

For more information about this version, see PBS's website at: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/northangerabbey/index.html

THE ADAPTATION
Andrew Davies, who is more or less the adapter-in-chief for Masterpiece Theater (he did the famous Colin Firth Pride and Prejudice, among others) adapted this version of Northanger Abbey, which I believe is pretty faithful and etertaining. In an interview with him on the site, he comments about the book:

"I think perhaps the easiest for me was Northanger Abbey because it is one of my most recent ones so I've kind of got the hang of it now I feel, and Northanger Abbey is a relatively simple story to tell. The only difficult bit was really trying to convey Catherine's imagination and what all these gothic horror novels were like. So what I did was actually dramatize them and put them on the screen so we can see what is going on in her head."

I think his attention to detail here was superb, since the movie more or less opens with one of Catherine's "Gothic" daydreams--until she is disturbed by her brothers and sisters. The scene has her reading privately in a garden, lost in the throes of Romantic passion--it's quite effective. Davies tinkers with this and that detail of the book to bring out the Gothic elements, often inserting more of her "daydreams" which are soon populated by people in her life--Henry Tilney, Isabella, Captain Tilney. He also does a good job of narrating the relatively "simple story" of Northanger Abbey; the movie flies by in less than two hours, and yet we don't lose anything too substantial. The plot and characters are remarkably preserved with only a slight curtailing toward the end and a very abrupt ending--the last three chapters of the book take about five minutes! If I didn't know the book intimately, the ending might have confused me...how things wrapped up and why isn't entirely satisfactory the way it is in the book (and indeed, the Narrator makes fun of her spontaenous "solution" which is in itsef a satire on the art of novel writing).

THE ACTORS/ACTRESSES

Perhaps my largest misgiving with the adaptation itself was the role of the Narrator. The Narrator does appear in the movie--occuring right at the end and right at the beginning, reading verbatim from Northanger Abbey. Sadly, that's as far as it goes. In a screenwriting class I took as an undergraduate, the teacher told us that using a narrator is a crutch; it means that you can't find a way to introduce expository information and are basically spoon-feeding it to your audience. In most cases, yes, but in some movies narration is masterly--and essential to the story. Northanger Abbey is a true eighteenth-century novel, very much in the mold of Fielding's Tom Jones or Joseph Andrews, where the narrator literally stops the action of the book to converse, pontificate, or simply to stir things up. The Narrator should have been cast as an actual role in this adaptation, since she contributes so much to the feel and substance of the novel. Lacking her, much of the satire of the work is missing, particularly satires on Gothic novels, their readers, and the conventions of the novel itself. I really missed this, and when the Narrator returns to deliver her final sentence in the novel, it doesn't have the satiric effect (or satisfaction) in the novel: it just seems like a convenient rounding off. It falls a bit flat, actually. An earlier Masterpiece version of Tom Jones has Henry Fielding (the author) appear as the narrator and it works beautifully, capturing the spirit and the satire of the original.

The casting, however, is one of the best I have ever seen in any Jane Austen adaptation (on a par with the greatest adaptation of all, 1996's Persuasion, starring the amazing Amanda Root and Ciaran Hinds). Catherine is portrayed by Felicity Jones, who I recognize from other BBC productions; she is an ideal Catherine, able to portray a wide-eyed sensibility and vulnerable naivete. Of course, I think she is rather too pretty to totally inhabit Catherine; when her father says, "Catherine almost looks pretty today," you say to yourself, "no shit." She's gorgeous, so this undercuts the "intellectual romance" she and Henry have together. This does come out, but clearly he sees her first and the mind comes later. Henry Tilney, portrayed by JJ Feild is first-rate, able to convey a quick-witted sarcasm as well as a darker, brooding sensibility that comes from the "curse" of Northanger Abbey. Other noteable roles are Eleanor (Catherine Walker), Isabella (Carey Mulligan) and John Thorpe (William Beck), all of whom flesh out these character admirably without making them cartoons. Thorpe's character is particularly humorous with all his "dammits!" and his unpolished vulgarity. The chemistry between our leading couple is palpable, and really sold the final scene--where, anarchonistically, they share a kiss and a virtual tumble into the bushes!

NOTABLE SCENES/DEPARTURES

I noted some interesting changes throughout, notably when Isabella says that Tilney's family is notorious for their behavior, especially the older brother (Captain Tilney) who is "like Lord Byron." Byron would not have been a big name when Austen first wrote the book (1797-98), so this is pushing the time back a few decades to 1818, when it was actually published (and when Radcliffe was less of a name than Byron). I also noted that Thorpe's detestation of novels is softened; though he refuses to read Udalpho, he does offer to lend her Lewis's The Monk, which she accepts. Now, Thorpe does admit to liking only two novels in the book, Tom Jones and The Monk, though these are merely asides; he mostly bashes all novels except those of Ann Radcliffe, though he has clearly never read them. The adaptation has him lending The Monk to Catherine, who reads one of the more enticing excerpts--when Abrosio plans to rape Antonia. This leads to a "Gothic daydream" sequence, but also blurs the lines between the two men: Thorpe appears to share Catherine's sensibility here, though he clearly does not in the book (and why doesn't Tilney offer to lend her more Radcliffe at this rate)? However, Thorpe is soon dispatched in the adaptation, so the audience scarcely remembers this. He actually doesn't appear as much of a threat in the book, while another character, Captain Tilney, emerges as a blackguard of the first degree. While he still seduces Isabella from Catherine's brother, the book leaves it on the level of a strong flirtation. In the movie, to spice things up and add some modern darknesss to the work, he sleeps with her and jilts her afterwards (merely telling her, as she's naked in bed, "make yourself decent"). While Austen never says any of this, a soldier of the time may well have acted this way, particularly from the hints we get of Tilney's character. I think this is an interesting and useful choice, since it reminds us of the "actual and natural evil" that Catherine discovers in General Tilney.

I think the adaptation might have made more of the carriage ride to the Abbey, where Tilney and Catherine flirt through Gothic novels. Henry does do some of this, but he says most of it off camera, so we only get his narration. This could have been a major scene, since he essentially eggs her on, and she plays along gleefully--setting up her snooping in the Abbey itself. However, note how they flirt throughout the movie, and from their first meeting in Bath, Catherine is very aware of this fliration--she plays along. In the novel, you can read her as conscious OR oblivious, and I like the decision they make her; it shows why he might have a strong intellectual attraction to her. The MOST disappointing scene is when Henry discovers her in his mother's room. Two problems for me:

a. He hasn't been away for a week at Woodston (he leaves, but in the movie it was 1 minute ago!). He's just left her recently, so his sudden arrival seems mundane. In the book he's been gone for a while, the house is quiet, so Catherine thinks she can snoop around--and lo and behold, here he comes! It's dramatic and startling in a Gothic sort of way, since this is the very LAST person she wants to meet.

b. His speech is almost entirely re-written. True, he says accuses her of a monstrous thought, but he doesn't say "Remember that we are English, that we are Christians..." Instead he dismisses her with a haughty, "Perhaps after all it is possible to read too many novels." Yes, that is the tenor of his speech, but it loses all the meaning and the irony. It suggests that she is merely foolish--not that he is equally culpable in her fancies, or that he, too, is young and naive about the "evils" of the world. In the book, this speech contrasts nicely with the fact that he breaks with his father over the general's unfeeling behavior. He, too, has learned to recognize the "actual and natural" evils that reside under his roof. In the movie, he does not necessarily undergo this transformation. Worse still, he never speaks to her again before she is ejected from the Abbey! She sees him next when he comes to propose to her, negating his "sensibility" in immediately forgiving her trespass the next morning (in the novel). Ah well.

The end, too, is super abrupt, and we don't quite put all the pieces together. Notice that the movie also introduces Eleanor's lover earlier in the film, as if to say "look, he really does appear in the book!" The Narrator of Northanger Abbey makes fun of that fact that she introduces a character right at the end simply to foster a wedding. That's part of the fun. However, if you throw out the narrator, you throw out little delights like this thoughout the novel. Ah well. The version makes up for this through the sheer chemistry of the characters and the visual beauty of the film itself. I love the little scenes, such as the moment when General Tilney has to go to London, leaving the trio alone in the Abbey--you can see the delight in their faces as his carriage rumbles off. This follows quiet scenes of them talking in front of the fireplace, strolling across the fields, and horseback riding, which leads to a very modern moment of Henry wiping the mud off Catherine's face. Risque for the time, but satisfying for ours.

All in all, a great version and a nice complement to the novel. Probably it's more enjoyable if you already know the novel, but what's wrong with that? Films don't necessarily need to stand alone, and in the 19th century, many adaptations were often created with the expectation that the audience knew the works in question. If you haven't seen this version, I strongly recommend it. If you have, leave your own comments to this post...we'll brieflty discuss it in class tomorrow.

Close Reading Questions for The Gothic Tradition, Chapter 4: "Critical Approaches" (pp.95-110)

2010-02-12T11:47:00.000-08:00

(above: John Constable's Salsbury Cathedral from the Meadows (1835), a Romantic view of a Gothic landscape. Constable, like Gainsborough, loved painting landscapes and tried to infuse them with typically "English" colors--ruddy browns, deep greens, dark greys and blues. Though he didn't choose typically Gothic subject matter, this one naturally lends itself to Romantic sensibilities--perhaps the way Catherine first observed Northanger Abbey with Henry?).

Answer TWO of the following…

1. What is the relationship between the writer, the reader, and the critic/scholar? Why might I make the argument (as Stevens does) that all three are necessary to give life to a literary work? What role does each one play in the process?

2. According to Stevens, why might the chief criticisms of the Gothic in the 18th century (debased, sacrilegious, addictive, and depressing) be “reactionary” in nature? Could these criticisms be motivated by political conservatives who feared what these works might to do society—particularly as they were read by the largest possible audience?

3. The Gothic movement was fueled by hundreds if not thousands of novels, few of which have survived the ages. Austen records some of Catherine’s favorite books as “The Castle of Wolfenbach, Clermont, Mysterious Warnings, [and] The Necromancer of the Black Forest” (all of which can be found at Valancourt Books’s website: http://www.valancourtbooks.com/index2.html). Many 20th century critics have claimed that “the literary quality of the tales of terror is not very high…” and “[their] climax soon dies, and is seldom memorable” (Stevens, 101). Can works that are not “great” still be important to read and study? How can a “popular” work with no literary pretensions still be discussed critically?

4. Based on the brief synopses of Psychoanalysis, Marxism, and Feminism, which approach do you feel would be most revealing/interesting in our two Gothic novels? What aspect of one or both novels would you examine in light of a Freudian, Marxist, or Feminist approach? Be specific and explain how might being a paper from this critical perspective.

Gothic Web Links for Paper #1 (and beyond)

2010-02-10T10:37:00.000-08:00

NOTE: The questions for Thursday are in the previous post. Be sure to scroll down!

Below are some valuable websites for aiding in your Gothic research. Some are from the "ICT Resources" at the back of The Gothic Tradition, others from my own snooping. Use these in your paper to flesh out historical and cultural context, as well as locating other primary and secondary sources.

CGFA Website: A virtual art museum, you can find links to the paintings of thousands upon thousands of painters from the Medieval Period to the early Twentieth Century. Look in particular for the painters mentioned in The Gothic Tradition and in class: Goya, Gainsborough, J.M. Turner, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Fuseli, etc. http://cgfa.acropolisinc.com/

The Literary Gothic: an extensive website devoted to everything Gothic! Check out the "Resources" link for an endless bibliography of websites, books, and articles for your papers! http://www.litgothic.com/index_fl.html

The Voice of the Shuttle/Gothic: an extensive critical website that is useful for all literary research; this is its exclusive page of Gothic topics and links. Find out what Gothic literature Coleridge read! Or the major themes of the "Female Gothic"! http://vos.ucsb.edu/browse.asp?id=2540

Wikipedia/Gothic: Oh no--Wikipedia! Stake it, stake it! Remember, Wikipedia can be a useful tool if you use it intelligently. Check out the clickable links, resources, and External Links that can lead you to a goldmine of Gothic information. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_fiction

Glossary of Literary Gothic Terms: This will be more useful as we get into the 19th century, but it still contains some useful critical terms to aid in your literary "dissections." http://personal.georgiasouthern.edu/~dougt/goth.html

Close Reading Questions for Austen's Northanger Abbey, Chs.23-31

2010-02-09T22:07:00.000-08:00

(above: a still of Catherine from the new version of Northanger Abbey, to be aired on PBS this Sunday, February 14 (Valentine's Day)! On Monday I will post my own response to the adaptation, and hope you will respond to my response with comments.

Answer two of the following...

1. Re-read Henry’s speech which follows his discovery of Catherine’s snooping (on page 186): “If I understand you rightly, you had formed a surmise of such horror as I have hardly words to—Dear Miss Morland, consider the dreadful nature of the suspicions you have entertained. What have you been judging us from?” How do you read this passage? Is this sense shocking her into an awareness of her overworked sensibility? Or does this speech have ironic implications that only the narrator (and perhaps the reader) can appreciate? Does English society “prepare us for such atrocities” (186)?

2. Somewhat related to the above, is General Tilney the true “monster” of the novel? Is he similar to Manfred—a real man working real “evil” amidst the Gothic terror and imagined prodigies? How does Catherine understand/account for his actions in the novel? Does she find them “Gothic”—or of a much more mundane nature?

3. In the last chapters, we get an interesting view of life in the Morland home—particularly in the interaction between Catherine and her mother. How does Austen depict this domestic world? How is Catherine understood here, and do you feel Austen’s portrait is sentimental or critical?

4. In her Introduction to Northanger Abbey, Marilyn Butler writes, “Austen’s compact with her readers is never puritanical. Traditional stories end with satisfied desire; surprisingly often this encompasses the desire for goods. Happiness comes in Northanger Abbey as a sitting-room with a window down to the floor, and a view of apple trees” (xlvii). Is she suggesting here that marital bliss is still tied to class and possessions? Despite Catherine’s sensibility, does Austen ultimately reward her heroine with a sensible match—a man of property and comfort? Do we think her sensibility will continue to thrive in this setting—or is Austen no longer interested in that?

Cultural Context: Haydn and Mozart

2010-02-08T10:38:00.000-08:00

(NOTE: These are NOT the questions for tomorrow's class--you'll find them in the previous post. These are notes that might give you another avenue of inquiry for Paper #1. Enjoy or ignore as you see fit!).

The "gothic" in literature was partially influenced by German drama, notably the plays of Klinger and Schiller (as well as the works of Goethe and Hamann). Kilinger wrote a romantic drama called "Sturm und Drang" (Storm and Stress) written in 1776 that dramatized the American Revolution--stressing sentiment and emotion over sense and convention. The idea of shocking the audience/reader into sublime states and identifying with the extreme emotions of the characters caught on quickly, notably in music. Much of eighteenth-century music was dominated by the Rococo style, which emphasized light, polished "event music" to be played in courtly settings. Composers began to realize that music should do more than provide background music; it, too, could shock, surprise, terrify, and move its listeners to profound emotion. Though not Gothic per se, this music channeled the same sensibility we find in Walpole, where the strange and the mundane exist side by side.

One of the most notable "sturm und drang" composers was Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809), who was employed (like many composers) as a "resident composer" to a wealthy Hungarian nobleman. Even in the isolation of the country, Haydn picked up on the "sensibility movement" and began writing minor key symphonies and string quartets (musical works follow a strict key structure that determines their tonality and overal "feel." A key in a minor key, such as D minor, sounds less resolved than one in D major; in the classical sense, a minor key is "completed" by a major key; an unresolved minor key can create tension and drama). He wrote a series of famous "sturm und drang" symphonies, Nos. 44-49 (he wrote 104 symphonies total!), of which the most famous have subtitles: No.44 "Trauser" (Tragic), No.45 "Farewell" and No.49 ("The Passion"). These works seem to be composed for some unnamed tragic drama, as the music alternates from slow, dirge-like movements to break-neck, fiery string passages that conjure up pursuing fiends. No. 45 is notable for its ending: a dark, jabbing theme is suddenly interrupted by a sad lullaby, which is played over and over, each time with fewer instruments. By the end, all the instruments in the orchestra have dropped out, except for a few violins, sadly scraping away at the melody. This was an in-joke to the musicians, who were not allowed leave to visit their families for the holidays. Their employer got the joke after hearing the symphony and granted them leave (or so the story goes). Haydn ultimately abandoned this phase of his career, only writing a few more minor key works in his later years, though one of them, No.84 "The Hen" has a fiery open which is then deflated by a "clucking" theme that sounded to his contemporaries like a hen! He enjoyed using contrasts to poke fun at musical conventions and shock his audience (like Walpole).

Less well-known for his "sturm und drang" works, but perhaps even more important for his contribution to the genre, is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791). He lived only a fraction of the time allotted to Haydn (dying at 35), yet composed nearly as many works and most of them of even greater complexity and interest. Mozart traveled throughout Europe as a child prodigy, where he performed for kings, queens, and Popes, and even kissed Marie Antionette! As a young man of seventeen, he became smitten with the sensibility movement, writing two notable works in the style: Symphonies 25 in G minor and 26 in E flat major. No. 26 is cobbled together from music he composed for a romantic drama, and though short, has a suitably "pathetic" coloring. No. 25 is one of his first major works, a truly "Gothic" work of frightening intensity (especially in the opening movement). It begins with a jarring string theme, which sounds a bit like doomsday bells; it gets whipped into a frenzy, a few times sounding like a sped-up waltz, before gradually winding back into the shadows (this piece opens the movie Amadeus, when Salieri slits his throat). Mozart was notoriously gloomy at times, and many of his later works, though not especially Gothic, have significant "minor key" moments, notably in the slow movements of his piano concertos. Two important concertos (concertos are works for a solo instrument and orchestra, where the solo instrument--usually a piano--either dominates or battles with the orchestra), No. 20 in D minor and No.24 in c minor, exploit very Gothic sensibilities, each one pushing the eighteenth-century orchestra to its expressive limits (No.20 occurs notably in the film Amadeus).

Two of his final works, the pathetic, quicksilver Symphony No.40 in G minor and his Requiem Mass in D minor exhibit the final flowering of Mozart's gothic vision. The symphony is extremely restless, conjuring up one sublime sensation after another (notably the opening theme, which plunges the listener immediately into the drama). The Mass takes this a step further, expressing a darkness that Mozart had never previously confronted (and then only briefly, such as his earlier C minor Mass, or possibly the Concerto No.20). A Requiem mass is a mass for the dead, sung in praise of the deceased's soul, and concerns images of judgement and retribution. According to legend, a mysterious nobleman commissioned a sick and penniless Mozart to compose the piece. Already weak, the effort of composing probably helped do Mozart in, though some colorful legends suggest he thought the nobleman was his dead father, returning from the grave to demand satisfaction. At any rate, Mozart died, and the nobleman never recieved the mass; Mozart's widow had one of his students complete it (it was only about 60% finished), and it quickly became a respected and influential work--particularly on the Romantic composers such as Beethoven, Berlioz, Schumann, Chopin, etc. The Mass itself opens with a profoundly gloomy theme, as if conjuring up dozens of lost souls to sing for their forsaken humanity. Gorgeous, otherworldly melodies folllow one on the other, particularly the last music he ever wrote, the haunting "Lacryimosa," which sounds like a soul breathing its last before slinking off.

Follow the links below to hear excerpts of the music on Amazon. I also have numerous versions of the above which I would be happy to lend you.

Haydn: Symphony No. 45: http://www.amazon.com/Haydn-Symphonies-Nos-45-101/dp/B00000146H/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1265653852&sr=1-6

Haydn, Symphony No.49: http://www.amazon.com/Haydn-Symphonies-No-Lamentation-Passione/dp/B0000013X2/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1265653948&sr=1-12

Mozart, Symphony No. 25: http://www.amazon.com/Mozart-Symphonies-Clarinet-Peter-Schmidl/dp/B000001GC5/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1265652706&sr=1-3

Mozart, Piano Concertos 20 & 24: http://www.amazon.com/Mozart-Great-Concertos-Wolfgang-Amadeus/dp/B0000041LF/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1265654007&sr=1-3

Mozart, Requiem Mass: http://www.amazon.com/Mozart-Requiem-Aug%C3%A9r-Bartoli-Wiener/dp/B0000041ZS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1265653804&sr=1-1

Close Reading Questions for Austen's Northanger Abbey, Chs.16-22

2010-02-05T22:33:00.001-08:00

As usual, answer TWO of the following...

1. In Chapter 21, we encounter Austen’s spot-on imitation of a Gothic novel, complete with many of the hallmarks we recognize from The Castle of Otranto. How do you read this chapter in particular—as a parody (or satire) or a legitimate attempt to conjure up a sense of horror and the sublime? Does the tone of a giggling narrator lie behind this, or is Austen yielding to her own admiration of the genre and its possibilities?

2. How do you feel the Catherine/Henry romance is progressing in these chapters? Is it a dance of mutual respect and admiration, or does he appear more condescending and dominating? Consider their conversation in Chapter 20: is he teasing (mocking) her Gothic sensibility or using it to woo her more effectively? In other words, does he want to tame her or does he want to get “Gothic” with her?

3. Do you feel Austen is more critical toward the women in the novel than the men? Discussing Isabella’s change of heart, Henry notes, “It is probable she will neither love so well, nor flirt so well, as she might do either singly. The gentlemen must each give up a little” (II.19.143). Is this view of women (as inconstant flirts) one espoused by the narrator, or does it suggest a certain misogyny on Henry’s part?

4. The painting above, Sir Joshua Reynolds’s Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse (1784) depicts a famous actress in theatrical mode. Though she is clearly acting here, more a character than the woman herself, the painting is still startlingly realistic—we can “see” her. Might this be true of the Gothic itself: that we need to see the “clockwork” behind the genre for it to have its full effect? Is the sublime in literature created by knowing it’s not real—that someone dreamed it up?

Close Reading Questions for Austen's Northanger Abbey, Chs.9-15

2010-02-02T21:44:00.000-08:00

(above: "The Morning Walk" (1785) by Thomas Gainsborough, a painting roughly contemporary with this novel. Note the somewhat Romantic landscape surrounding the couple and the increasing darkness; though both appear to embody Enlightenment ideals, they are venturing into a possibly Gothic landscape that threatens to engulf them. Also--are they haughty English aristocracts or uncertain inheritors of the turbulent turn of the century?)

1. In what way does Austen distinguish Henry Tilney from the other characters in Bath (esp. Thorpe, Mrs. Allen, and Isabella)? Is she, as Aaron suggests in his response, closer to the voice and wit of the narrator? How do we feel the narrator, herself, feels about him (besides the fact that he is only “very near” being handsome)?

2. The Oxford English Dictionary defines “sensibility” as “In the 18th and early 19th c. (afterwards somewhat rarely): Capacity for refined emotion; delicate sensitiveness of taste; also, readiness to feel compassion for suffering, and to be moved by the pathetic in literature or art.” Austen wrote about this capacity in her early novel, Sense and Sensibility, where a younger sister’s “sensibility” is tempered by her older sister’s “sense” (meaning a more 18th century rationality, objectivity). Which quality do you think Catherine most embodies and why? Do you feel Austen celebrates or censures her for this attribute?

3. A consistent theme in Austen’s novels is the entrance of a young woman into society. However, such a rite of passage requires “experienced” chaperones to guide her on her way. How does Austen satirize the entrance and education of a young woman into society—and in this case, into the social wilds of Bath? What dangers or missteps does she encounter that were all too real for women in Austen’s time?

4. Chapter 14 is a delightful discussion of books and taste, in which Catherine seems to come up a bit short. Is this truly the case? Does Henry represent Austen here, the arbiter of true taste; or does Catherine also possess her own legitimate (if still unformed) aesthetics? Who gets the upper hand (if anyone) in this discussion—and be sure to note the narrator’s occasional interruptions.

Paper #1: The Eighteenth-Century Gothic!

2010-02-01T10:03:00.000-08:00

For your first paper, you have three general topics to choose from, though each one is quite broad and invites approaches using both novels and other primary and secondary works.

GENDER

Discuss the Gothic heroine of the eighteenth century in Walpole and Austen’s works. Though Walpole’s heroines are actually trapped in a Gothic landscape, and Catherine only imagines herself to be, how might each exhibit certain Gothic characteristics? Does the setting and conventions of a Gothic story allow for a more emancipated view of feminine capability? Are these “feminist” heroines (or feminist authors)? Do the heroines defy society as well as the supernatural terrors that confront them? Or does the Gothic formula ultimately keep them in their place? How might a 21st century feminist (or feminist theorist) read these works? NOTE: with Austen, consider the narrator as a character as much as Catherine…

GENRE

While The Castle of Otranto is seen as the prototypical Gothic novel, and Northanger Abbey is in part a parody of this formula, how might each one contribute to understanding what “makes” a Gothic novel? Can both works be considered “Gothic”? Is Gothic in the eighteenth century less about the supernatural than its appearance? How essential is satire and irony to the eighteenth-century Gothic novel? Might Walpole be as tongue-in-cheek and parodic as Austen, and might Austen be considered more stoutly Gothic if she included at least one unexplained “prodigy” (i.e. a weeping portrait, giant sword, etc.)? In other words, what unites or divides these works as examples of the Gothic novel? And what separates these works from more traditional eighteenth and nineteenth-century novels (or in Austen’s case, from her other, more famous works)?

CULTURAL CONTEXT

In Northanger Abbey, Henry Tilney instructs Catherine on the current aesthetics of art:

“It seemed as if a good view were no longer to be taken from the top of a high hill, and that a clear blue sky was no longer a proof of a fine day…He talked of fore-grounds, distances, and second distances—side-screens and perspectives— lights and shades;--and Catherina was so hopeful a scholar, that when they gained the top of Beechen Cliff, she voluntarily rejected the whole city of Bath, as unworthy to make part of a landscape” (1.14.107).

Both novels makes references (whether subtle or overt) to the artistic life of their time. How might one (or both) of the works communicate directly with their artistic, philosophic, or musical peers? Find 2-3 additional primary sources in other genres, such as paintings (ex: Goya, Fuseli, Fredrich, J.M. Turner), philosophy (ex: Burke, Kant, Wollstonecraft) or music (ex: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven) to compare to the novels. Where do the works intersect in aesthetic principles or overall philosophy? How might knowing one help us “see” another?

REQUIREMENTS:

I. Close Readings: You must perform close readings of the novels you use; do not summarize. You must analyze the texts at the level of language and examine what is happening and why. Don’t gloss over entire passages or chapters without showing us why you read it this way. Remember, we might not read or understand the passage the way you do, so don’t assume anything is obvious.

II. Primary and secondary sources: this means the novels in question as well as other works of the period (excerpts from other Gothic novels, Coleridge’s poetry, or other works of the period—not modern works) and critical works such as The Gothic Tradition, journal articles, books, etc.

III. Thought, enthusiasm and understanding: Remember, this is a 4000 level class! I want to make sure you’ve read the works thoroughly, thought about them prior to writing, and are committed to your ideas rather than simply jumping through hoops. I define “4000 level” as a level of interest and sophistication; if you write a tepid paper that could just sneak by a 2000 level class, I will summon Walpole’s gigantic helmet and crush your GPA! (kidding, but still…)

IV. Consistent Citations and References: Make sure you cite everything properly and include a thorough Works Cited page. Please let me know if you have any questions about MLA format, etc. And please don’t make up a new citation method on the fly—no need to invent the wheel here.

V. At least 5-6 pages: less than this would be seriously underdeveloped; more than this is certainly welcome. I care less about counting pages than what you actually have to say, though I don’t buy the argument that you have to add “BS” to get 5 pages. Typically, a shorter paper lacks specific detail and a thorough investigation of the argument. I want to see you “thinking” throughout, and thinking is messy—it takes space!

V. DUE FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 18th by 5pm. You lose a letter grade a day for a maximum of two days (in other words, I will accept it no later than Sunday for a grade). You are allowed to revise the paper following my comments, ideas, and suggestions.

GOOD LUCK! Write well and with inspiration! If you are a senior, this may be one of your last chances to write about literature and have someone actually care! If a sophomore or junior, this could be your chance to shine!

No Class Today (Thursday)

2010-01-28T08:00:00.000-08:00

As the coming ice/snow storm is a lesson itself in the sublime, let's not risk coming to class today (especially for those traveling). We'll pick up with Austen on Tuesday. If you want to read ahead, now would be a good time, since Northanger Abbey, though short, qualifies more as a novel than Otranto does. Stay safe and warm!

Close Reading Questions for Austen’s Northanger Abbey (1818): Biographical Notice & Chs.1-8

2010-01-26T17:32:00.000-08:00

(above: an image from the new BBC version of Northanger Abbey airing on PBS February 14th--check local listings!)

1. The “Biographical Notice” that opens the work was written by Austen’s brother, Henry, after her death. Though this “preface” does not seek to fictionalize Austen’s work, it does present a “fictional” portrayal of Austen to cater to pubic taste and sensibility. How is Henry selling Austen in this Preface, and how might this influence how we read or interpret the work itself? Cite a specific passage or two to support your reading.

2. How does the narrator (as opposed to the author) introduce and describe Catherine’s formative years? Related to this, how would you describe the narrator’s tone? Consider a passage such as this one, “…from fifteen to seventeen she was in training for a heroine; she read all such works as heroines must read to supply their memories with those quotations which are so serviceable and so soothing in the vicissitudes of their eventful lives” (I.17).

3. Many critics (among them the editor, Marilyn Butler) have noted that Northanger Abbey is a novel about novels written by a reader to other readers. In this sense, it can almost be read as a “fan” work that is contributing to the very genre it emulates. Where do we see these “fan” elements and what role do they play in the work itself? Consider comments the narrator makes as well as conversations between the characters themselves.

4. How does Austen characterize the society of Bath throughout the early pages of the novel? What role does dialogue, in particular, play in drawing this portrait? Related to this, what do you feel is her purpose in bringing Catherine to the relatively closed society of Bath (a resort town—people went there for the exclusive society and the healing waters).

Edmund Burke on the Sublime (handout from Tuesday's class)

2010-01-26T13:37:00.000-08:00

From Edmund Burke’s A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1754)

“Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime; that is, it is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling. I say the strongest emotion, because I am satisfied the ideas of pain are much more powerful than those which enter on the part of pleasure. Without all doubt, the torments which we may be made to suffer, are much greater in their effect on the body and mind, than any pleasures which the most learned voluptuary could suggest, or than the liveliest imagination and the most sound and exquisitely sensible body, could enjoy…”

“The passion caused by the great and sublime in nature, when those causes operate most powerfully, is astonishment; and astonishment is that state of the soul, in which all its motions are suspended, with some degree of horror. In this case the mind is so entirely filled with its object, that it cannot entertain any other, nor by consequence reason on that object which employs it. Hence arises the great power of the sublime, that, far from being produced by them, it anticipates our reasonings, and hurries us on by an irresistible force. Astonishment, as I have said, is the effect of the sublime in its highest degree; the interior effects are admiration, reverence and respect…”

“To make any thing very terrible, obscurity seems in general to be necessary. When we know the full extent of any danger, when we can accustom our eyes to it, a great deal of the apprehension vanishes. Every one will be sensible of this, who considers how greatly night adds to our dread, in all cases of danger, and how much the notions of ghosts and goblins, of which none can form clear ideas, affect minds which give credit to the popular tales concerning such sorts of beings…In nature, dark, confused, uncertain images have a greater power on the fancy to form grander passions, than those have which are more clear and determinate…”

“Greatness of dimension is a powerful cause of the sublime…I am apt to imagine that height is less grand than depth; and that we are more struck at looking down from a precipice than at looking up at an object of equal height; but of that I am not very positive. A perpendicular has more force in forming the sublime, than an inclined plane; and the effects of a rugged and broken surface seem stronger than when it is smooth and polished…Another source of the sublime is Infinity; if it does not rather belong to the last. Infinity has a tendency to fill the mind with that sort of delightful horror, which is the most genuine effect, and truest test of the sublime…”

Small Change in Grade Breakdown in Syllabus

2010-01-24T22:01:00.000-08:00

I edited the grade brakedown as listed in your syllabus to give more weight to the major components of class. Basically, I removed the 15 points for your Blog Response, since that should simply be part of your Daily Participation grade (which I lowered from 20 to 15 points). I have redistributed these points to the Weekly Repsonse Questions (from 50 to 60 points) and your papers (from 35 points each to 40 points each). I just wanted to make sure you were aware of these changes (see below):

REQUIRED WORK (Total 200 points)
 Daily Participation/Interest: 15 points
 Weekly Response Questions: 60 points
 Two Papers: (40 each) 80 points
 Gothic Storytelling: 15 points
 Final Exam: 30 points

Let me know if you have any questions. And be sure you read the questions for Tuesday (below).

Note about Chapter 3 Readings from The Gothic Tradition

2010-01-22T15:54:00.000-08:00

I photocopied Chapter 3 for the class on Thursday, but if you didn't make it to class, you can find the copies in my box (336C). They're important so you'll want to pick them up if you still don't have The Gothic Tradition. See you on Tuesday...

Close Reading Questions for Stevens, Ch.3 (Beckford, Lewis, Radcliffe, Coleridge, Keats & Poe) and Coleridge’s Kubla Khan (1816)

2010-01-22T14:18:00.000-08:00

Answer TWO of the following...

1. Which of the authors seems most indebted or inspired by Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto? Cite a specific example from the excerpt and point to its inspiration in Walpole’s original.

2. Matthew Lewis’s The Monk (1796) was a terrifically successful work—so much so, that his contemporaries called him Matthew “Monk” Lewis. It is also said to represent, even more than Otranto, the true hallmarks of the Gothic horror novel. Why do you think this is? What elements, ideas, or expressions seem to capture a more “modern” sense of the genre?

3. Consider the poems by Coleridge, Keats, and Poe: how does poetry (which is rarely narrative) inhabit the Gothic genre? What elements from Otranto are visible in these poems—and how might poetry develop Gothic themes in different ways/forms? (Hint: poetry can express one powerful precursor of the Gothic—see Stevens, Ch.1—that evades a prose novel).

4. In Coleridge’s Preface to “Kubla Khan,” he writes, “if [the poem] indeed can be called composition in which all the images rose up before him as things, with a parallel production of the correspondent expressions, without any sensation or consciousness of effort” (Longman, 545). Why do you think he uses the word “things,” and how might this Preface change how we read/interpret the poem? Consider Walpole’s similar statements in his First and Second Prefaces.

Close Reading Questions for “Early Responses to The Castle of Otranto (pp.117-143)

2010-01-19T10:43:00.000-08:00

NOTE: You don’t have to read all of the Appendix unless you are so inspired. The articles I want you to focus on are #’s 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14 & 15

Answer TWO of the following for Thursday...

1. A general question: which response do you most agree with as a reader? Does this response seem especially “modern” to you (in other words, is this how most people would read/view it today)? Explain why you are sympathetic to this critique of the book.

2. Many of the reviews decry the “unchristian” or “barbaric” moral of the novel. Consider Robert Jephson’s review of The Count of Narbonne (a play based on Otranto, Review #8): “What conclusion can be drawn from hence, but that oracles, divinations, and prophecies, should be believed and must always be fulfilled? Such notions can only tend to enslave the mind, and must bring us back to the long exploded errors of ignorance and barbarism” (127). Why do you think so many reviews focus on the “moral” of the work, and is this truly the “heart” of the book? Are they missing the point?

3. Sir Walter Scott (Review #12) defends the supernatural elements in Otranto (rather than dismissing them as farce), writing that the “moonlight vision of Alphonso dilated to immense magnitude, the astonished group of spectators in front, and the shattered ruins of the castle in the back-ground, is briefly and sublimely described. We know no passage of similar merit…” (139). Based on your reading of Romantic literature (esp. Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, etc.), how are these elements “sublime,” and why might Scott defend them as essential to Walpole’s plan?

4. How does Clara Reeve (Review #7) position her own novel in relation to The Castle of Otranto? Reeve’s novel, The Old English Baron, is a reworking of Otranto in a more modern and English setting. She clearly meant to improve upon the book and make it more “sensible” and less likely to “excite laughter” (125). According to the Preface, what does she acknowledge, modify, or improve?

Close Reading Questions for Walpole's The Castle of Otranto (Chs.3-5)

2010-01-15T10:10:00.000-08:00

(above: a possible portrait of Manfred (or how I imagine him to be) courtesy of Jean Fouquet's potrait of Charles VII of France, circa 1400's).

Answer TWO of the following for Tuesday's class (if you choose to do these; otherwise wait for Thursday's questions)

1. In the Introduction to Otranto by Michael Gamer, he writes that many readers pick up on the “camp” qualities of the book. As he writes, “They occur in the book’s superfluous details (as when Bianca notes that no one has slept in the chamber below them ‘since the great astrologer that was your brother’s tutor drowned himself’ (p.38)), in its habit of setting conventions against one another (as when the chivalry-mad Theodore unchivalriously pledges himself both to Matilda and to Isabella because he cannot tell the two heroines apart), and in its crucial scenes (as when the statue of Alphonso the Good ludicrously bleeds from its nose)” (xxix). How do you read/interpret these moments of “camp” or seeming absurdity? Is he laughing at the characters, the gothic elements, or the novel itself?

2. Toward the end of the work, Jerome (the friar) berates Manfred for his evil deeds, remarking: “behold the completion of woe fulfilled on thy impious and devoted head! The blood of Alfonso cried to heaven for vengeance; and heaven has permitted its altar to be polluted by assassination, that thou mightest shed thy own blood at the foot of that prince’s sepulcher!” (95-96). This view suggests that Manfred was merely a chess piece to be manipulated by God/Fate to atone for the sins of his ancestors (“the sins of the fathers are visited on their children to the third and fourth generation”). Is Jerome the moral voice of the novel (and therefore is telling us how to "read" it)? Was Manfred acted upon or did he create the evil that he must now atone for?

3. In his essay, The First English Gothic Novel: The Castle of Otranto, James Norton suggests that “Walpole, who was deeply involved in politics, uses Gothic discourse to critique the English political structure that was created and perpetuated a system of privilege that protected and sustained male corruption and oppression.” How might we read the novel as a political allegory—what passages or events might seem to underline this quality of “male corruption and oppression”?

4. Some contemporary reviews attacked Otranto for its “Gothic devilism,” finding it disturbingly atheistic (after all, the ghosts and spirits are real in the context of the book). However, most Gothic works invoke the spirituality of a distant age in order to contrast it with the Enlightenment ethos. What do you think was Walpole’s intention in Otranto—to satirize the church and its doctrines, or to reaffirm a more orthodox spirituality?

Note About Posting Comments

2010-01-13T13:17:00.000-08:00

When you post a comment, clink on "comments" and paste your response into the box. When you click on Post Comment, it will ask you to choose an identity from a scroll down menu: you can either choose "Anonymous," or you can sign in with a Google account or make one on the spot. To save yourself trouble, just choose "anonymous"--but be sure to include your name with the questions. Once you do that, it should save your comment. If not, try again...and if that doesn't work, please e-mail me and I'll assist you.

The Full E-Text of The Castle of Otantro

2010-01-12T21:36:00.000-08:00

Follow the link below to read The Castle of Otranto on-line (a decent stopgap until the bookstore coughs up a few more copies): http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/w/walpole/horace/otranto/

Close Reading Questions for Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (pp.5-53—Prefaces and Chapters 1-2)

2010-01-12T21:33:00.000-08:00

Answer TWO of the following...

1. In the Preface to the First Edition (1764), Walpole (pretending to be merely the translator of an obscure Italian work) writes, “Belief in every kind of prodigy was so established in those dark ages, that an author would not be faithful to the manners of the times who should omit all mention of them” (6). What do you think he means by this statement, considering the work was not written in the Middle Ages, and is the product of his own fanciful imagination? What “manners” do you think he is trying to be faithful to in his work, and how might his Preface prepare us to read it?

2. In the Second Preface, Walpole writes that is trying “to blend the two kinds of romance, the ancient and the modern” (9). In saying this, he is trying to reconcile the modern romance (the novel), which was about real people in domestic situations, and the ancient romance, which was about supernatural wonders and heroism. How do the first two chapters seem to balance the mundane and the supernatural? Does the novel retain any element of “reality” amidst all the gigantic helmets and weeping portraits? Cite a specific passage in your response.

3. Discuss the use of dialogue in the novel, which has been called both “accurate and elegant” (Appendix, 118) as well as hopelessly stilted. Why does he rely so much on the interaction between various characters (often master and servant) when this dialogue is often merely expository? What does the dialogue do for the story?

4. In what way might The Castle of Otranto be considered Shakespearean? For example, Shakespeare also modeled most of his plays on old histories or romances (Merchant of Venice, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, etc.), yet “modernized” them for his audience. How might Walpole be doing much the same—and what strikes you as Shakespearean about this work, whether in language or intent? Again, cite a specific example or two in your response.

Close Reading Questions for Stevens’s The Gothic Tradition (pp.1-31)

2009-12-24T22:00:00.000-08:00

Answer any TWO of the following in a decent-sized paragraph (enough for me to see you “thinking”—no vague or one-sentence responses will be accepted).

1. According to the text, what social forces was the Gothic movement more or less a response to? How might these explain the Gothic’s fixation on the ancient, the secret, and the macabre?

2. Why were women so instrumental in creating and perpetuating the Gothic genre? And why might the novel in particular (rather than poetry or drama) represent its ideal form of expression?

3. How did Gothic authors such as Coleridge, Beckford, Radcliffe, and Shelley change the conception of an “author”? What about their lives and characters (or how they represented them) may have contributed to this?

4. Compare Goya’s “The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters” (11) to one of the Romantic/19th century works on page 12. What “gothic” elements do you see in each, based on how Stevens defines the Gothic? How is each work similar—and what obvious differences are revealed by comparing the two? Is each one equally (or even legitimately) “Gothic”? For this last question, you can either Google the individual works/painters or visit the CGFA website: http://cgfa.acropolisinc.com/. Many of the works on page 12 can be found there.

Welcome to the Course...

2009-12-18T21:06:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the blogsite for English 4543, Gothic Literature in Britain: 1760-1900. Please bookmark this site since all your daily assignments will be posted here, as well as paper assignments, schedules, and other links of interest. Remember that you are required to respond to ONE of the two sets of questions posted each week. Please turn in these responses in class (not as comments). The questions for Tuesday's class are posted above--be sure to bring them to our second class (on Tuesday).

I look forward to our discussions on Walpole, Austen, Shelley, Le Fanu, Stoker, and the various ideas and implications these authors will stir up. Please e-mail me with any questions or concerns you have about the course. See you on Thursday...