ENG395R

Focusing on the work of Ann Radcliffe, Mary Shelley, and Charlotte Bronte, students in this seminar examine the conventions of Gothic fiction and Gothic representations of the monstrous body, exploring the meaning and the "politics" of the corporeal in Britain from the 1790s through the mid-nineteenth century, and considering its relation to conceptions of sexuality, gender, race, and social class. Readings include Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho, Shelley's Frankenstein, and Bronte's Jane Eyre, as well as Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto and Matthew Lewis's The Monk, among a range of other works of fiction, criticism and literary theory.