English 596G, Section 1 Professor Hogle
Studies in Comparative Literature Spring 2008
The Gothic Tradition:
The Most Influential Texts and the “Cultural Work” They Do
I. The instructor is Dr. Jerrold E. (Jerry) Hogle (Ph.D., Harvard), University Distinguished Professor of English and Vice President for Instruction University-wide. My scheduled office hours this term are 2:30-3:20 in my English office: Modern Languages 342 (phone 621-1840). But other times are available for us to meet if we can work them out between us. You can leave a message for me to contact you at the English Department desk in Modern Languages 445 (phone 621-1836) or, even better, you can e-mail me at hogle@email.arizona.edu. I will get back to you as soon as I can. If you lose handed-out course materials, such as this syllabus, you can also find those posted under “Current Course Information” on my web site: www.u.arizona.edu/~hogle. Despite my various duties, I am available to help you outside of class time and relish the chance to do so.
II. The objectives of this course for students (as the instructor sees them):
A. To understand with fuller knowledge and be able to analyze as literary texts the most influential prose fictions in the “Gothic” tradition from 1764-1910;
B. To grasp and be enabled to explain the multi-faceted “cultural work” enacted by major Gothic texts as they symbolically reconfigure, work out, and at least partly expose – often in “conversations” with other texts, previous or current
-- the ideological, religious, social, gender-based, race-based, economic, and technology-based conflicts of their times and cultural circumstances;
C. To comprehend and be able to employ the different ways of reading Gothic
through the various “lenses” of professional criticism, with some attention to understanding the assumptions underlying the most influential approaches;
D. To be equipped to argue coherent, persuasive analytical cases for the meaning
and cultural significance of particular Gothic texts based on close reading,
good argumentative style and technique, and apt research into the historical
circumstances and intertextual relationships of the work(s) being analyzed;
E. To come to a clear sense of the foundations, most ongoing conventions, and
potentials of the Gothic mode so as to both define the Gothic precisely and
yet account for its variability, multiplicity, and many transformations; and
F. To ultimately place “Gothic” more accurately in the context of the other
kinds of literature around it as these kinds either feed into it or resist it in the
cultural arena of ideological – and thus aesthetic – conflict and interaction.
III. The work required of all students (in addition to all the assigned readings and regular class discussion) as we pursue the above objectives:
A. The oral presentation: During the first and (if needed) the second class of the semester, each student will sign up for a 10-15-minute oral presentation to be given in one of our scheduled classes (usually one such presentation per class). The presentation, which can be discussed with the instructor in advance, should be on a well-focussed but important aspect of the Gothic work(s) discussed in that class session. Each presentation should be accompanied by an abstract or study sheet copied and handed out by the presenter to all members of the class. Every such presentation will be evaluated on its clarity and organization, its usefulness for the course objectives, and how probing it is in giving the class some deeper understandings of the material being treated. The due date is the date for which you sign up on the “Oral Presentations” sheet sent around in class. Please notify the instructor by e-mail (or orally) of what you will be talking about at least five days before the class for which you have signed up. I will then position your presentation in the class that day at the most appropriate time for it (which may vary from class to class).
B. The first paper – Why “terror” or “horror” in Gothic fictions?: This 10-page critical essay should argue a case for certain underlying cultural quandaries within, or the cultural affects achieved by, one “terror” moment and one “horror” moment in one or two Gothic texts of the eighteenth century. You may pick separate moments from one work or moments from two different works from The Castle of Otranto through The Monk. The objective is to explain to your reader, while defining the difference between “terror” and “horror” using these examples, what different kinds of “cultural work” or ideological struggle are being enacted in each moment. Your argument should draw substantial evidence from the chosen text but also consider (1) theoretical statements of the time about the Gothic or its ingredients; (2) historical and source evidence (though it need not be exhaustive) gleaned from research; and (3) more recent scholarship on your chosen text and its context, all of which can include assigned course reading. This paper will be evaluated on its analytical depth, clarity and organization, use of the best textual and contextual evidence, and the persuasiveness of its argument. The due date for this paper is Tuesday, March 11, in class.
C. The prospectus and the final paper – Analyzing a major Gothic work since The Monk to explain both its aesthetic power and its cultural force as a text both disguising and revealing key fears and quandaries in Western culture: The eventual paper, an 18-20-page study, may select any work (or set of short stories, 3 at least) from the texts assigned in this class or from the wider range of Gothic texts published after 1798. It must argue an interpretive and analytical case for how the internal construction of the text(s), exemplified by selected passages, works out and exposes the cultural drives projected into it. This paper should be set up, however, by a 5-6 page prospectus, including an initial “Works [to be] Cited” list. That prospectus should be written out as a preview of your argument and turned into me by April 1 in class. You and I will schedule an individual meeting about it before you more thoroughly complete the final paper itself. The ultimate product will be evaluated in all the areas emphasized already and as though it were potentially an article being submitted to a professional literary or cultural-studies journal and about to undergo professional evaluation. The final paper is due Tuesday, May 13, by 11:00 a.m. in my box in Modern Languages 445 (the Department of English office).
NOTE: All the papers in this class should be done according to the latest
edition of the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers.
That means no added title page (though your title should be centered
and bolded at the top of page 1), but it does mean a list of “Works Cited”
at the end of the paper to which all citations or paraphrases in your text –
and endnotes, if you need them – are referred (usually parenthetically by
last name and pages or lines). Even citations from internet sources
should follow the MLA format for listing them. The MLA standards, of
course, can be found exemplified in any issue of PMLA. I promise not to
quibble about format choices still under debate, but I do ask for
consistency of form throughout a paper
D. The final examination: This graduate course will have an in-class final,
albeit open-book and open-note, to make sure you have done the required
primary reading well and to help assess your accomplishment of the course
objectives. The exam, to which I will ask you to respond in a blue book you
bring, will consist of paragraph-length quotations from texts in the required
reading (the novels, stories, plays, and non-fiction documents of their times,
not the more recent critical essays about these, though such essays may help
with your responses). To each passage you will be asked to respond with an
identification and with 6-7 sentences on what it shows most about the
underlying symbolic drives in, and cultural quandaries behind, what the
passage says. The features of this exam will be discussed more during the
final sessions of this semester. The final will be given at the time set by the
Registrar for an exam in a 3:30 Tuesday class: Thursday, May 15, from
2:00 to 4:00 p.m. in our regular room (unless you hear otherwise).
IV. Attendance and Late Paper policies: Since this is an intensive graduate course
that meets once a week at a concentrated time, your attendance and thorough involvement are vital to your and the course’s success in meeting its objectives.
Accordingly, I do reserve (though I will choose whether or not to exercise) the right to administratively drop a student who misses a single class (which is the equivalent of three fifty-minute classes). What this really means is: contact me in advance if you cannot attend, and we will discuss the matter. Missing without contact may lead to an administrative drop (which is better than an E). Another problem that can impede success, in my experience, is papers handed in after the due date and time. If that is likely to happen, contact me, and we will negotiate some alternative. If a paper fails to appear on time (or at all) without that contact, I reserve the right to give it an “E,” though I always hope I do not have to do so. In any case, plagiarism of any kind (using material not your own without acknowledgment) is entirely prohibited and can result in an “E” for a paper or the whole class.
V. The required texts for this course (on sale at the Bookstore for ENGL 596G-1):
E.J. Clery and Robert Miles, eds. Gothic Documents: A Sourcebook, 1700-1820
(hereafter “GD”).
Horace Walpole. The Castle of Otranto and The Mysterious Mother. Ed.
Frederick S. Frank. Broadview edition (hereafter “Walpole”).
Ann Radcliffe. The Mysteries of Udolpho. Ed. Bonamy Dobree and Terry Castle.
Oxford World’s Classics edition (hereafter “MU”).
Matthew Gregory Lewis. The Monk. Ed. D.L. Macdonald and Kathleen Scherf.
Broadview edition (hereafter “TM”).
Charles Brockden Brown. Edgar Huntly, or Memoirs of a Sleep-Walker. Ed.
Norman S. Grabo. Penguin Classics edition.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus: The
1818 Text. Ed. James Rieger. Phoenix edition (hereafter “F”).
Robert Louis Stevenson. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Ed.
Martin A. Danahay. 2nd Broadview edition (hereafter “J&H”).
Bram Stoker. Dracula. Ed. Nina Auerbach and David J. Skal. Norton Critical
Edition (hereafter “D”).
Henry James. The Turn of the Screw. Ed. Peter G. Beidler. 2nd Case Studies in
Contemporary Criticism edition (hereafter “TS”).
Gaston Leroux. The Phantom of the Opera. Trans. Lowell Bair. Bantam Classic
edition (hereafter “PO”).
It is all right for you, if you wish, to use specific editions of the selections in GD, as well as different editions of the Gothic texts just listed, to cite those texts in your papers (so long as you indicate your editions in your “Works Cited” and use page numbers from those editions in the citations throughout your text). Even so, I will, in addition, be assigning some critical essays and shorter Gothic texts, which I will send you as e-mail attachments, much as I did for our first class, usually one week (the Wednesday morning) before they are to be discussed in class. These are designed to help you interpret and contextualize the readings of each coming week, as well as to address item C (among others) in the “objectives for this course” listed above. You will be held responsible for the primary texts (the Gothic stories) among these, especially on the final exam, but not for recognizing quotations from the secondary texts (the more recent analyses of the Gothic), although these will help you on all the papers and the final (where you should cite their authors if you use them). The critical essays I send will also serve in lieu of long “lectures” about our primary texts, so I strongly advise your reading them all before each class for which they are assigned so that our discussion can be richer and much better informed – and there can be more true discussion.
VI. The final grade for this class will be determined by the instructor based on the level of quality to which your work rises by the end of the semester. That means that the main incentive offered is improvement. If your early grades in the course are not what you would wish them to be, you are encouraged to improve on those via rewrites and in the later pieces of writing. The level to which you improve will, in all cases were improvement occurs, be the final grade you receive. If there is not a clear pattern of improvement, I will weight the grades on the individual assignments this way in the end: 25% for the first paper, 35% for the final paper, 25% for the final exam, and 15% for class participation, including the oral presentation. I will notify you of individual grades at the end of each paper, where you’ll find my main commentary, and I’ll let you know by e-mail my evaluation of your in-class presentations. Rewrites of the first paper for better grades are permitted (indeed, they can really help you), and I reserve the right to require the occasional rewrite if I think it would aid you in this course and as a graduate student. At the same time, I strongly discourage final grades of Incomplete (I), which have to be negotiated with the instructor and, because they could hurt your progress long-term, should occur only in the most unusual (and usually emergency-related) circumstances.
VII. The schedule of class topics, required readings, and due dates now follows:
Do your utmost to read all the assigned material (including the e-mailed essays)
before the class session for which it is designated. The emphasis will be on
student responses and questions. Here’s what we’ll be doing week by week --
January 22 -- Introduction to the course and to the “rise of the Gothic.” I assume your
reading of the essays and chronology already sent you as e-mail attachments.
Sign up for oral presentations in nearly all the classes that follow.
January 29 -- The Castle of Otranto (1764-65), including its intertextual relationships
and unsettled historical foundations. Reading: Walpole, 11-25, 35-43, 56-165,
257-67; 280-93, 306-16; GD, 5-24; 30-41, 54-59, 67-79, 112-121; plus e-mailed essays.
February 5 -- The Mysterious Mother (completed 1768) with all the controversy that
swirled around it then and since. Reading: Walpole, 25-34, 48-49, 171-256, 267-79, 341-50; GD, 127-32; plus e-mailed essays.
February 12 – The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), Part I, with all the ingredients it brings
together. Reading: MU, i-xxvi, xxxii-iii, 1-340; GD, 154-72; plus e-mailed
essays. First paper specified and discussed.
February 19 – The Mysteries of Udolpho, Part II, and the effulgence of “female Gothic.”
Reading: MU, 341-672; GD, 228-41; plus e-mailed material.
February 26 -- The Monk (1796) and its many scandals, including its multiple sources.
Reading: TM, 8-29, 38-265, 365-83, 385-87, 392-93, 415; GD, 135-54, 249-53;
plus e-mailed essays.
March 4 -- The Monk alongside Lewis’ play The Castle Spectre (1797, sent out or
handed out to you before Feb. 19) and the ghostly and racial compounding of
scandal. Reading: TM, 265-363, 388-91; 398-414; plus e-mailed material.
March 11 -- The rise of American Gothic. Reading: Edgar Huntly (1799), the
“Introduction” and the whole novel, and two tales by Edgar Allen Poe (1830’s-
40’s, handed out or sent to you before Feb. 26); plus e-mailed essays. First
paper due at class time.
SPRING BREAK
March 25 -- Frankenstein (1818) and its confluence of many cultural conflicts at once.
Reading: F, viii-xxxvii, 6-229; GD, 259-65, 280-86; plus e-mailed essays.
April 1 -- The Romantic/Gothic Un-dead: Polidori’s The Vampyre (1819) and its
immediate successors into the early 1820’s. Reading: F, 260-87; Charles
Nodier’s Smarra (1821, sent or handed out to you by March 11); plus e-mailed
material. Prospectus for final paper due; sign up for individual meetings.
April 8 -- The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) and its revivals and
deepenings of the Gothic tradition. Reading: J&H, 11-93, 95-105, 121-22, 144-
56, 157-68, 179-91; plus e-mailed essays. General discussion of final paper.
April 15 -- Dracula (1897), Part I, and all the fin de siecle issues it “cathects.”
Reading: D, ix-xii, 3-193, 331-38, 411-21, 444-59; plus e-mailed material.
April 22 -- Dracula, Part II, and the increasingly wide-ranging ways of explaining it.
Reading: D, 194-327, 421-44, 460-82; plus some e-mailed material.
April 29 -- The Turn of the Screw (1898) and the reasons for our endless interpretation
of it. Reading: TS, vii-ix, 3-120, 121-27, 144-51, 179-86, 189-222, 271-89,
333-63. Sample of, and review for, the Final Exam (below).
May 6 -- The Phantom of the Opera (1910) as both a distinctive take on and a
summation of the Gothic tradition. Reading: PO, the entire novel with initial
biography and forward, plus considerable e-mail material sent in advance.
May 13 (Tuesday): Final paper due by 11:00 a.m. in Modern Languages 445.
May 15 (Thursday): Final Examination at 2:00-4:00 p.m. in our regular classroom.