ENGLIT 0636 - THE GOTHIC IMAGINATION
Minimum Credits: 3
Maximum Credits: 3
Gothic literature emerged in the mid-1700s. It is a curious fact that a genre steeped in the themes and subjects associated with the Medieval period, whose architectural style lends its name to this literary style, shares the historical scene with the Enlightenment. While the Gothic imagination is characterized by supernatural agency, haunted spaces, dark doings, passionate desires and equally passionate hatred, Enlightenment thought is devoted to dispelling what it considered the superstitions and myths of earlier eras. This apparent opposition raises questions about the relationship between the rational and the fantastic, the natural and the supernatural, reality and illusion, and many more such apparently opposing forces. In reading early examples of Gothic literature as well as texts that build on Gothic traditions in subsequent eras, we will consider the role of the Gothic imagination throughout history.
Academic Career: Undergraduate
Course Component: Lecture
Grade Component: LG/SNC Elective Basis
Course Attributes: DSAS Literature General Ed. Requirement, SCI Polymathic Contexts: Humanistic GE. Req., West European Studies
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