Department of English

We will read a selection of 18th-century British Gothic novels as background for the development of the genre in the 19th century. Among the classics that define the Gothic novel--pseudomedieval fiction with an atmosphere of mystery and terror--are Horace Walpole's *The Castle of Otranto* (1764), William Beckford's *Vathek* (1786), Matthew Lewis's *The Monk* (1794), and Ann Radcliffe's *The Mysteries of Udolpho* (1794) and *The Italian* (1797). The genre appears to culminate with Charles Robert Maturin's *Melmoth the Wanderer* (1820) and then to mutate in the 19th century with novels such as Mary Shelley's *Frankenstein* (1818), Emily Bronte's *Wuthering Heights* (1847), Wilkie Collins's *The Woman in White* (1860), and Bram Stoker's *Dracula (1897), among others. We will also read *Northanger Abbey*, Jane Austin's satire on the genre, originally drafted in 1798-99 but first published in 1818, the year following her death.
Course grade will be based on class attendance and participation, either a mid-term or final examination, and selected written assignments.