19th-Century Gothic Fiction - Detailseite

Since Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1764), the text that is generally regarded as the first Gothic novel, the genre has undergone multiple transformations. The Gothic novel can initially be regarded as a reaction to the Enlightenment and the beginning of the Age of Reason, with its narratives and “negative aesthetics” (Botting 2014: 1) offering a focus on the irrational, the occult and otherworldly. Gothic texts are characterised by their epistemological and political ambivalence. In the 19^th century, Gothic literature’s unique take on transgressive aesthetics initially merges with Romanticist sensibilities and poetics. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) features a Romanticist Byronic hero and explores questions of the natural sciences, while Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) is preoccupied with ideas of the cultural Other. Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) and Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) use the figure of the Gothic double to explore the morals of Victorian society.

In this seminar, we will read key novels of 19^th-century Gothic literature and engage with model interpretations that highlight the distinct aesthetic features, themes and motifs of the Gothic. We will discuss the novels in their historical and cultural contexts to explore how they engage with issues such as science, mass culture, gender, sexuality, race, nation, and Victorian morals. Students will be introduced to key methods of literary analysis and will learn to engage with theoretical approaches to interpreting literary texts.

Reading:

Please purchase the primary texts in the following editions:

Mary Shelley: Frankenstein. Ed. J. Paul Hunter. Norton, 2022.

Robert Louis Stevenson: Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Ed. Deborah Lutz. Norton, 2021.

Bram Stoker: Dracula. Ed. John Edgar Browning and David J. Skal. Norton, 2021.

Additional texts will be provided on Moodle.

Introductory Reading:

Fred Botting: The Gothic. Routledge, 2014.