• What is the relationship of this "frantic literature" (to paraphrase Wordsworth) to the revolutionary character of its times? How might gothic terror reflect the real Reign of Terror and British fears of revolution abroad and at home?
• What is the relationship of Gothicism to Romanticism? Why do we get our first horror stories at the end of the 18th Century, just at the time of the Romantic awakening?
• What is the relationship of the supernatural going-on of these novels and poems to the religious controversies of the times? At first we might find (as many early reviewers did!) these novels sacreligious, but they actually reflect the deep concerns of an increasingly sectarian religious age. What kind of religious worldview does the gothic reflect or subvert?
• Many of the most famous gothic novelists (Radcliffe, Reeves, Robinson--and let's not forget Mary Shelley) were women, and many serious male critics were outraged by what they took as the shrill feminization of fiction. What gender issues are involved in the conception and reception of the gothic?
• What was the best-selling literature from 1780-1805? Wordsworth? (not even close) Dr. Johnson? (nope) Edmund Burke? (maybe for the highbrows) Literature for children and religious teaching? (yes, and you're getting warmer). The answer is the GOTHIC, which found expression in not just the big authors but--like in our days--imitators and rip-off artists in shilling shockers and bluebooks.
• So why has the grand tradition of literary criticism ignored the most popular literature of the period 1760-1830?
• If one answer is that it doesn't measure up, what are the criteria that separates great form bad, high from low, serious from popular culture? (Note: I'm definitely not in support of erasing the terms of these contrasts but hope we can have an intelligent discussion about what separates them.)
• What might the ramifications of such considerations be for the popular culture of today, which still sees variants of the gothic going strong and which still sees serious official concern about the public's craving for the horrid and libidinous in literature?

There will be many more questions, hopefully of your own asking--that's what the course is all about.

 
• The Literary Gothic Page: a good starting place that contains pointers to all kinds of information about the Gothic on the web.
• The Gothic: Materials for Study: the best place to go for a bibliography of print resources on the Gothic. The page is the creation of Jerome McGann's Graduate Seminar on the subject at UVa and includes student papers, e-resources, and extracts from significant critical articles. A very valuable resource.
• Gothic Literature: What the Romantics Read: my page recording the reactions of the major poets to the Gothic; the reactions range from the amused to the deadly serious, from the alarming to the alarmed.  Also contains the helpful Resources for the Study of Gothic Literature
• The Sickly Taper. Maintained by eminent Gothic bibliographer Fred Frank. The place to go for news about recent scholarship on the subject.

Your presentations should include the following elements arranged according to your purpose:

1. Background material: depends a great deal on the renown or obscurity of the author. Be highly selective about biography, only choosing those details that directly inform literary analysis (such things as education, religious background, literary acquaintance, critical reception, sources, etc.).
2. A careful reading of one of the texts on this page. If the class cannot read it, offer a summary but guide it with a critical intelligence. Explain its place in the gothic tradition.
3. Consider as well as you can its importance for an understanding of the literary period or its relation to the "main" literary canon.
4. Include a 1-2 page outline (max) that at the beginning provides full bibliogrpahical info. on your text