ENH4250

Gothic revivals

Proposed to be offered next in 1999

S Tweg

12 points
* 2 hours per week
* Second semester
* Clayton

Objectives Students successfully completing this subject should have developed sufficient theoretical perspectives and critical skills to be able to analyse a range of Gothic-inflected popular fictions; recognise historical developments in the genre and; grasp the potentially subversive nature of the form as a critique of conventionally accepted Western social myths.

Synopsis This subject is a specialist genre study of gothic fictions with particular emphasis on late twentieth-century examples. A number of prose fictions and film adaptations will be discussed, together with a range of critical and theoretical approaches to this very popular and disturbing material. Gothic fictions allow us `to be frightened in a safe place' from which we can examine extraordinary scenarios and `unimaginable' beings. Recent theoretical writing on popular literature and film has opened up the discussion considerably. Dominant gothic elements in the various story forms on the reading list (eg a horror story, vampire stories, science fiction, a ghost story, a psychological thriller or crime story) invite potentially subversive readings of conventionally accepted ideas about conscious reality and social norms. The material on this subject opens up discussion on the nature of beliefs about the modern family, desire, repression, gender and sexuality, about distinctions between fantasy or dreams and reality, between madness and sanity, and more.

Assessment Two seminar presentations with written papers (2000 words each): 25% each
* one essay (5000 words) or original piece of Gothic fiction (5000 words): 50%

Prescribed texts

Bloch R Psycho NY, 1959
Bradbury R Something wicked this way comes Simon and Schuster, 1962
Du Maurier D Don't look now Penguin, 1973
Jacobs W W The monkey's paw 1982
James H The turn of the screw Norton, 1966
King S The tommyknockers Signet, 1988 or Salem's lot Doubleday 1975
Poe E A The pit and the pendulum in Collected Tales
Rendell R A demon in my view Arrow Books, London, 1977
Rice A Interview with a vampire Knopf, NY, 1976
Le Fanu S Carmilla*
Lee T Bite me not or fleur de fur*
McKee Charnas S Unicorn tapestry*
Tyron T The other Cape, 1971
Wilde O The Picture of Dorian Gray OUP, 1981
* In The Penguin book of vampire stories Penguin, 1987.
Students will be expected to view available film adaptations of these gothic fictions.

Preliminary reading

Grixiti J Terrors of uncertainty: The cultural contexts of horror fiction Routledge 1989
Punter D The literature of terror (Chapter 15 `Towards a theory of the gothic') 2 vols. Longman 1996
Williams A Art of darkness. A poetics of gothic 1995