Lit 191.13: Gothic Literature

Paper Rewrites, Third Paper, Group Reports, and Quizzes

For Lit 191.13 (Note: this is for undergraduate students. For graduate students, please scroll below to the Lit 291.13 section)

Paper Rewrites (Bonus)

You may revise and resubmit the first and second papers on or before the last meeting for the term (i.e., the week before final exams). If I have time, I will mark them and give an average of the old and new grade (if higher) for each paper. Unfortunately, I cannot return the revised papers to you or announce changes in grades because this option is a bonus.

Consider the following advice for any revisions:

• Work on close reading (i.e., what you studied in Lit 13 and 14), which means careful interpretation of key scenes or characters from works leading to multiple meanings.
• Engage in arguments for or against particular meanings of these scenes or characters.
• Make sure that interpretations and arguments are part of supporting points that develop a thesis statement (studied in En 11 and 12) referring to a theme (studied in Lit 13 and Lit 14). The theme is by default a generalization made about human beings or human societies.

Make sure that you have only one thesis statement (hence, one topic) for your essay.

• It is up to you if you want to, say, refer to published criticism of the work (taken from group reports) and use those as a starting point for your thesis statement or as part of your allusions, allude to other works when you discuss particular points, or emphasize a literary theory for your framework. Whatever you do, make sure that whatever you use is cited correctly (learned in En 11 and 12). Use the MLA format or Turabian.
• Avoid using Internet sources as these do not require tuition at the Ateneo. Instead, use the Rizal Library.
• If you can, consider using the paper template found in the “Handouts and Files” page of your website.

Third Paper

The third paper has not been checked. You may revise and resubmit it next meeting (Sept. 24). Otherwise, the version submitted previously will be used.

Group Reports (Written Report)

Each group will be asked to submit a written report for each work or set of works presented. That means around two written reports will be submitted by each group.

For the written group reports (it’s one report for each work or set of works presented by a group), refer to and cite from published works from the library when you write about the author’s background, the work, criticism about the work, etc., and cite them using the MLA or Turabian format. If you can, use the paper template.

It is up to you to decide on the sections of the report. I suggest the following:

Title of Report

By

Name of Group Members

Author’s Background

Background of the Work(s)

Passages to Consider (copy parts of passages and indicate any chapter, act, etc., numbers)

Passages from Selected Criticism

Works to Consider (no need to cite sources; just enumerate various works)

Works Cited

You may, of course, make use of the material that you already presented in your presentations and just copy them to the reports.

You may consult the various links given in the author pages in this website but try not to cite from them in your report. However, you may give links to several websites in “Works to Consider,” but give what you believe are the best Internet resources.

The deadline for the group reports is the last meeting of the term.

Quizzes

Please submit a short reaction (a paragraph for each reaction) to each of the work or set of works discussed each week. (If a set of works consists of several stories, then you may react to one of the stories.) Given that, you should have twelve reactions. If you wrote reactions to the first sets of works, feel free to re-use them.

Type the title of the work or the story on one line and use proper punctuation (italicize titles of books and enclose titles of short stories in quotation marks). On the next line, type your reaction. Type your next reaction after that. Again, feel free to use the paper template.

The deadline for the reactions is the last meeting of the term.

For Lit 291.13 (graduate students)

Term Paper

Please submit the following given consultation with the instructor (including professors in other classes)

A proposal for the term paper

Research notes (to be presented in one consultation)

A draft of the term paper (to be presented in consultation with Lit 202 and/or Lit 291.13 instructor(s))

A term paper due on the day of the final exams (use the MLA format)

Group Report (Written Reports)

Please follow the undergraduate requirement given above. Credit for this task will be made part of the research notes for the term paper.

Quizzes

Please follow the undergraduate requirement given above. The deadline is the same.

***

Introduction

"Gothic" has several definitions and this class attempts to look at several of them, notably psychological horror and the "uncanny" as well as the idea of an ordered universe disrupted by perversion and moral degradation. Other themes, like that of a protagonist surviving to tell his story, the idea of forbidden knowledge, and various views found in Romanticism (such as an emphasis on intuition, emotion, and heightened sensibilities) may fall under these two general ideas, i.e. disruption from outside and from within.

What makes this class unique is that it looks at these two ideas in light of a combination of canonical literary works (which means the readings should be readily available) and secondary illustrations in the form of contemporary art films and other media (which should serve as a welcome intellectual treat to participants). One example might be the first part of Goethe's Faust (which is not often seen as a Gothic work but has themes that lend heavily to the genre) and Kubrick's film Dr. Strangelove (which is often seen as both a "black comedy" and one of the funniest ever made) in light of the idea of forbidden knowledge.

To view links to other resources, visit the Gothic page.

Tentatively, the guidelines for the papers are: select one of the three works read in class and write a literary paper. That is, discuss a theme that you discovered in the work and discuss it by doing a close reading selected events from the work.

For the group report, the plan is to distribute a handout containing a synopsis of the work and bullet points containing what the group believes are the important aspects of the work, to ask group members to report on those key points, and to allow the instructor to moderate an open forum where participants can ask questions about the points or suggest others.

Gothic Literature Readings for Lit 191.13

This reading list may be used for personal study and as a starting point for reading other works in the genre. For more details on the course, visit this page.

Note: Before printing out any files, please visit the help page for advise on printing to book form.

Week 01: Introduction

The Gothic and Fantasy

Week 02: Short stories by Edgar Allan Poe

The short stories that may be seen in light of Gothic literature include "The Masque of the Red Death," "The Cask of Amontillado," "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Tell-Tale Heart," "William Wilson," "The Black Cat," "Ligeia," "The Premature Burial," and "The Pit and the Pendulum." Several works have been adapted to film by Roger Corman and presented in old-time radio programs.

Visit the Poe page to download a PDF containing these works and to see links to other resources.

Week 03 Short stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Tales to be considered in light of Gothic literature include “My Kinsman, Major Molineux,” “Roger Malvin’s Burial,” “The Gray Champion,” “Young Goodman Brown,” “The Minister’s Black Veil,” “The Birthmark,” “The Celestial Railroad,” “An Artist of the Beautiful,” and “Rappaccini’s Daughter."

Visit the Hawthorne page for links to e-texts.

Week 04 Short stories by H.P. Lovecraft

Selections include “The Colour Out of Space,” “The Call of Cthulhu,” “The Dunwich Horror,” “The Shadow Over Innsmouth,” and “At the Mountains of Madness." You may find these works in the Project Gutenberg link or a PDF version of all of the works mentioned in the Lovecraft page.

Week 05 Media selections, seminars, paper due

The Gothic and the Psyche

Week 06 R.L. Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

For a print-ready PDF version, try the PDF or Project Gutenberg text version version linked at the R.L. Stevenson page.

Week 07 Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray

Consider this print-ready PDF version from Feedbooks or this text version from Project Gutenberg.

Week 08 Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw

If you need to print out a public domain version, try this PDF version from Feedbooks or this text version from Project Gutenberg.

Week 09 Media selections, seminars, paper due

The Gothic and Forbidden Knowledge

Week 10 Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

There's a PDF version from Feedbooks and a text version from Project Gutenberg. You might want to consider investing in books, though, and use public domain versions only if the book versions are not available locally.

Week 11 Wells’ The Island of Dr. Moreau

Again, here's a PDF version from Feedbooks and a text version from Project Gutenberg.

Week 12 Bram Stoker’s Dracula

There's a PDF version available at Feedbooks and a text version at Project Gutenberg.

Week 13 Media selections, paper due

Week 14 Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

Feedbook has a PDF version and Project Gutenberg a text version.

Week 15 Faust (Part I) by J.W. von Goethe

The translation by Walter Kauffmann is recommended but other contemporary translations should also be suitable. For online versions, the HTML version of Taylor's translation found here includes illustrations by Harry Clarke.

Week 16 Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Try this PDF version from Feedbooks and this text version from Project Gutenberg.

Week 17 Media selections, paper due

Week 18 Final Exam

Lit 191.13 Syllabus for SY 2004-2005 (PDF)