ENGL2146 The Gothic Tradition

2020

4.5

9 x 1-hour lectures per semester
9 x 2-hour tutorials per semester

1 9 Units of level one ENGL topics
2 4.5 Units of level one ENGL
3 COMS1001 - Academic and Professional Communication
Must Satisfy: ((1) or (2 and 3))

ENGL2420 has been successfully completed

Assignment(s), Test(s), Tutorial participation

This topic will explore one of the most persistent and pervasive traditions in English literature-the Gothic tradition. From its eighteenth-century origins to its modern mutations, the topic aims to show how Gothic fiction adapts to prevailing historical and socio-cultural conditions to expose and exploit our greatest fears. It will consider a range of familiar tropes-such as haunted houses, sites of ruin, ghosts, monsters, sexual predators, doubles, madness and secrets of the past-within a number of contextual and conceptual frameworks-including religion, the French Revolution, Romantic subjectivity, new sciences and technology, gender and sexuality, and industrial capitalism. The topic will also introduce students to a number of aesthetic categories-such as terror, horror, the sublime, the preternatural, the supernatural and the uncanny-that have helped to define the Gothic mode and enable its proliferation into other forms of media.

This topic aims to:

• instruct students how to read and critically interpret a range of Gothic texts
• provide cultural, social and historical contexts to enable students to evaluate their influence upon a range of Gothic texts;
• provide a fundamental understanding of Gothic aesthetics that can be applied across a range of media;
• develop students’ critical reading and writing skills
• provide opportunities for students to develop as self-directed, independent learners

It is expected that on completion of this topic students will:

• be able to demonstrate an extensive knowledge of Gothic literature and its relation to broader culture (both then and now), both verbally and in writing
• be able to discuss the literary devices, tropes and narrative styles associated with the Gothic tradition
• be able to demonstrate an extensive knowledge of the aesthetic categories that underpin the Gothic tradition
• be able to apply numerous critical and theoretical frameworks to produce well-reasoned and nuanced responses to the literary texts