Gothic Legacies module (EN51034)

This module examines the legacies of the Gothic tradition that emerged in in the eighteenth century. In addition to key practitioners of the mode (Mary Shelley, Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Bram Stoker), we will revisit influential but now largely forgotten writers. As well as studying these works in their own contexts, we will consider modern adaptations of and responses to Gothic literature up to and including the present day.

Assessment

100% coursework 

Intended learning outcomes

Knowledge and understanding of:

1. a variety of influential Gothic works
2. theoretical and critical questions raised by the rise and development of the Gothic novel
3. key literary movements and fashions in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
4. a more developed sense of the ways in which Gothic works respond to and question social concerns

Aims

• introduce students to the work of some of the most influential authors of Gothic writing produced during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Britain and Ireland;
• build on students' knowledge of literary movements and contexts studied at undergraduate level (e.g. module EN22002 Romantic to Victorian Literature and module EN31007 Romantic and Gothic Literature, 1760-1830)
• explore the rise and development of the Gothic novel in relation to other established genres and modes
• engage with critical and theoretical approaches to Gothic literature

Convenor

Dr Daniel Cook

Teaching

The module will be taught by seminar.  Film screenings may also be available, subject to demand.