Gothic Literature

And that's pretty much the reason that we're all here. Last Spring several students ganged up on me and demanded that I teach a popular novels course where I scared them. You know, more than usual, and because of the texts, rather than just my own antics, for once.

So, here we go with a course which looks at one of the oldest genres of fiction (and, for our purposes, poetry, as well) by starting with the creaky beginnings and moving toward the high-literature end. Okay, so Beloved obviously isn't the end of spooky writing, but it's a suitable place to wrap up what I hope we'll find this semester. So what will we find?

Well, frankly, I'm not sure. I have some notions about what "Gothic" might be, but I'm betting you do, too. What I hope we can do is to explore the range of what has been considered "Gothic" so that we can arrive at both a distinguishing set of characteristics and a way of explaining why the phenomena has survived as long as it has. That is, we'll read the literature closely but we'll also be thinking about the cultures in which the literature was generated. What, for instance, makes a creepy mansion as appealing in 1768 England as in, say, Scooby Doo's 1970s America? Why do religious figures makes such prominent appearances in Gothic novels, if the devilish supernatural is so often invoked? Why ghosts? Why sappy romances to go with the ghosts (Twilight is not original, in case you hadn't figured that out yet). Why, oh why...well, you fill in your favorite plot device and/or stock character and we'll see if we can't generate an answer to that "why."

READ. And then you can READ. And when you're done, I suggest you READ. This is a 300-level lit class and we're covering a genre that is 250 years old and well established with a bezillion texts. So you're going to need to read and read and read and read and read and then do some outside reading. Studying English is kinda like that. Especially this course. (Oh, and when I say "read" I really mean "read ahead." Look at the syllabus, already, and you'll know why.)

Writing. There will be some of that, too. The primary project of this course will be a research essay on a topic of your choice but written on a text read outside of this class. (I've generated a list of likely texts/authors on the Research Assignment page itself.) You will be expected to start early, draft lots, and see me when you need to.

English Department Grammar Policy (Majors Only)

Writing is central to the English major; therefore, the Department of English has implemented a policy to encourage excellence in writing:

The faculty in the Department of English will return papers written by English majors, if they

do not follow correct MLA documentation (including failure to integrate quotations correctly, misplaced punctuation, incorrect work cited entries, etc.);
include more than one major grammatical error (run-on sentences [including fused sentences and comma splices], subject-verb agreement errors, and fragments);
contain excessive minor errors (i.e., misuses of commas, semicolons, misspellings, etc. which display a failure to proofread).

Instructors will return papers, final papers will be reduced by one letter, and students will have forty-eight hours to revise and re-submit papers. In many cases, instructors will not have read the entire paper once they have determined that an essay fails to meet the minimum requirements; consequently, students will need to review and revise essays from beginning to end to make corrections. If essays fail to meet these minimum standards after re-submission, students will earn Fs for those assignments.

Participation and Reasonable Absences

Participation is key to any course in college because it allows you to guide your educations in the directions you find most interesting. Moreover, it allows you practice in the most important skill which college can foster for you: talking to other adults about significant things, including probing ideas for more than surface content. Thus, I expect you each to have read for class (ahem...see above) but also to come ready to talk about those readings, with specific questions, comments, and passages to address. In order to do this, you must be in class. I think it's reasonable to expect you to miss a few classes during a semester, and on a Tuesday-Thursday schedule I define "reasonable" as up to four absences. Any more than this and you will have missed more than two weeks of the course and, unless there is a medical or personal emergency, this is unacceptable. More than four absences will result in failure of the course.

Plagiarism

This is really simple: if you copy someone else's direct words or exact ideas -- intentionally or not -- without giving them credit you fail the class. Universities and colleges are built upon the notion that ideas matter; if you plagiarize someone else's ideas, you're denying that fundamental tenet. Thus there will be zero tolerance for plagiarism in here. If you do it, you will fail the course, period. (Please see also "Academic Dishonesty" in the College's catalog as well as the relevant sections in Hacker's Bedford Handbook.)

English Department Grammar Policy (Majors Only)

Participation and Reasonable Absences

Plagiarism

Date