Course Proposal Details for - Fiction and the Gothic, 1840-1940 (Course code not assigned)
School
School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures
Course Description
From Emily Brontë’s Yorkshire to William Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County, the
Gothic, with its claustrophobic spaces, brooding landscapes, dark secrets, and
ghostly visitations, is a privileged site for the negotiation of anxieties surrounding
capitalism, class, gender, sexuality, nationality, race, imperialism, and crime.
Looking mainly at novels and short stories from the British Isles, but also
examining work from the United States, this course will consider what happened
to Gothic fiction after the genre’s first flowering in the late eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries. The course will begin with the Victorian Gothic of the midnineteenth century, dwell on the fin-de-siècle Gothic of the 1890s and 1900s, and
go on to address the convergence of the Gothic with modernism and the
emergence of distinctive regional forms of the Gothic in the early decades of the
twentieth century. As this course will make clear, the Gothic – whether as a
distinct fictional genre or as a repertoire of codes and conventions adaptable to
varied narrative registers – forms a crucially important current during this
tumultuous period of literary history. The Gothic mode, we will see, functions in
fiction as an imaginative solution to, or displacement of, many of the era’s most
acute historical problems.
Normal Year Taken
Year 4 Undergraduate
Course Level (PG/UG)
UG
Visiting Student
Availability
Available to all students
SCQF Credits
20
Credit Level (SCQF)
SCQF Level 10
Home Subject Area
English Literature
Other Subject Area
Course Organiser
Paul Crosthwaite
Course Secretary
Catherine Williamson
% not taught by this
institution
Collaboration
Information (School /
Institution)
Total contact teaching
LLC BoS 18 January 2012
20
hours
Any costs to be met by
students
Essential course texts
Pre-requisites
Passes in English Literature 1, or Scottish Literature 1 and English Literature 2, or
Scottish Literature 2 with a mark of 50 or above at the first attempt.
Co-requisites
Prohibited Combinations
Visting Student Prerequisites
A MINIMUM of three college/university level literature courses at grade B or above
(should include no more than one introductory level literature course). Related
courses such as civilisation or creative writing are not considered for admissions to
this course. Applicants should also note that, as with other popular courses,
meeting the minimum does NOT guarantee admission. In making admissions
decisions preference will be given to students who achieve above the minimum
requirement with the typical visiting student admitted to this course having three
to four literature classes at grade A.
Keywords
Fee Code (if invoiced at
course level)
Proposer
Paul Crosthwaite
Default Mode of Study
Classes & Assessment incl. centrally arranged exam
Default delivery period
Semester 1
Marking Scheme to be
employed
Common Marking Scheme - UG Honours Mark/Grade
Taught in Gaidhlig?
No
Course Type
Standard
Summary of Intended
Learning Outcomes/L01
By the end of this course, students will be able to:
-articulate the major generic features of Gothic narrative
-understand how the Gothic form developed in (primarily) British and Irish fiction
from the mid-nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century
-draw on relevant theoretical approaches (including Marxism, psychoanalysis,
feminism, postcolonialism, and queer theory) in order to analyse the ways in
which Gothic narratives respond to their historical conditions
Learning Outcome 2
LLC BoS 18 January 2012
Learning Outcome 3
Learning Outcome 4
Learning Outcome 5
Special Arrangements
Components of
Assessment
One course essay of 2,500 words (25%)
One examination essay of 3,000 words or examination (75%)
Exam Information
Syllabus
Academic Description
Study Pattern
Transferable Skills
Study Abroad
Reading Lists
LLC BoS 18 January 2012
1. Introduction: Locating the Gothic
2. Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights (1847)
3. Sheridan Le Fanu, In a Glass Darkly (1872)
4. Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891)
5. Arthur Machen, The Great God Pan (1894)
6. Bram Stoker, Dracula (1897)
7. Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles (1901-1902)
8. May Sinclair, selections from Uncanny Stories (1923); Virginia Woolf, ‘Street
Haunting: A London Adventure’ (1927)
9. William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury (1929)
10. Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca (1938)