Winter 2014

ENG 651: Romantic Gothic
Ashley Shannon

In this course we will explore Gothic poems and prose of the British Romantic Period (roughly construed as 1776-1837). We will ask why the Gothic had such appeal for the writers of the period, and consider how the Gothic deploys its ghosts, vampires and monsters in the service of discussing the essential political questions of the period. Primary texts will include Austen, Northanger Abbey, Byron, "Manfred," Coleridge, "Christabel," Godwin, Caleb Williams, Hogg, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, Polidori, "The Vampyre," Radcliffe, The Mysteries of Udolpho, Wollstonecraft, Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman.