Section Page    Page 13.5.8    Page Section

Monday, January 25

• Jerrold E. Hogle, introduction to The Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction

• David Punter, introduction to A Companion to the Gothic

First day: introductions and course outline

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Wednesday, January 27

• Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto (1764)
  • Michael Gamer, introduction to the Penguin edition

  • Robert Harris, Notes for The Castle of Otranto

  • Dictionary of Literary Biography (subscription only): Walpole as novelist

Group 1 special interest (or wild card) blog post: Point us to a specific place in the text (from 1-10 lines) that you want us to discuss further in class because it raises an issue or problem in the novel as a whole. Use your blog post to explain your choice.

Note: here and throughout this syllabus, the first (less indented) readings or links are required, while the second (more indented) readings or links are supplemental and optional. Here, for example, the novel is required, whereas the Gamer and Harris readings are optional.

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Monday, February 1

• Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus (1818), Volume I

  • Dictionary of Literary Biography (subscription only): Shelley as novelist

Group 2 special interest (or wild card) blog post: Point us to a specific place in the text (from 1-10 lines) that you want us to discuss further in class because it raises an issue or problem in the novel as a whole. Use your blog post to explain your choice. You may find useful information in Stuart Curran's electronic edition of the novel (1818 version; the edition includes this and the 1831), especially in the annotations of highlighted words and phrases.

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Wednesday, February 3

• Shelley, Frankenstein, Volume II

Group 3 special interest (or wild card) blog post: Point us to a specific place in the text (from 1-10 lines) that you want us to discuss further in class because it raises an issue or problem in the novel as a whole. Use your blog post to explain your choice. You may find useful information in Stuart Curran's electronic edition of the novel, especially in the annotations of highlighted words and phrases. This is the first page of Volume II (1818 version; the edition includes this and the 1831).

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Monday, February 8

• Shelley, Frankenstein, Volume III

Group 4 special interest (or wild card) blog post: Point us to a specific place in the text (from 1-10 lines) that you want us to discuss further in class because it raises an issue or problem in the novel as a whole. Use your blog post to explain your choice. You may find useful information in Stuart Curran's electronic edition of the novel, especially in the annotations of highlighted words and phrases. This is the first page of Volume III (1818 version; the edition includes this and the 1831).

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Wednesday, February 10

• Frances Ferguson, "The Gothicism of the Gothic Novel"

• "Reviews and Reactions" from the Longman edition of the novel (369-401) OR a source of your choice from the "Critical Issues" bibliography (426-29)

Group 1 blog post: As usual, you may use this blog post to develop your special interest or as a wild card blog post. Write your blog post as a discussion of some specific issue that arises from the readings. Note that the assigned readings include the option of using the Longman edition's bibliography to discover a reading that relates directly to your special interest.

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Monday, February 15

• Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol (1843)

• Appendix A: Reflections on Christmas from the Broadview edition
• Dictionary of Literary Biography (subscription only): Dickens as novelist

• Dickens has attracted a fair amount of attention on the Web, and the best door to that information is David Perdue's Dickens Page.

Group 2 blog post: special interest (or wild card) blog post, open prompt.

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Wednesday, February 17

• Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886)
  • Dictionary of Literary Biography (subscription only): Stevenson as novelist

Group 3 blog post: special interest (or wild card) blog post, open prompt.

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Monday, February 22

• Literary Contexts, Scientific Contexts, Sociohistorical Contexts, and Criticism sections from the Norton edition of Jekyll and Hyde

Group 4 blog post: special interest (or wild card) blog post, open prompt.

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Wednesday, February 24

• Bram Stoker, Dracula (1897), pages 9-98
  • Dracula's homepage by Elizabeth Miller
  • Dictionary of Literary Biography (subscription only): Stoker as novelist

Group 1 blog post: special interest (or wild card) blog post, open prompt.

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Monday, March 1

• Stoker, Dracula, 98-240

Group 2 blog post: special interest (or wild card) blog post, open prompt.

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Wednesday, March 3

• Stoker, Dracula, 241-327 (end)

Group 3 blog post: special interest (or wild card) blog post, open prompt.

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Monday, March 8

• Criticism section of the Norton edition of Dracula

Group 4 blog post: special interest (or wild card) blog post, open prompt.

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Wednesday, March 10

• Henry James, The Turn of the Screw (1898)
  • Dictionary of Literary Biography (subscription only): James as short story writer

Group 1 blog post: special interest (or wild card) blog post, open prompt.

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Monday, March 15

• Readings from the Bedford edition: The Victorian Ghost in Fact, The Victorian Ghost in Fiction, and critical essays by Booth, Walton, Robbins, and Teahan

Group 2 blog post: special interest (or wild card) blog post, open prompt.

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Wednesday, March 17

NO CLASS TODAY:
INDIVIDUAL MIDSEM CONFERENCES

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Thursday, March 18

SHORTER PAPERS DUE
IN HARD COPY TO MY OFFICE
BY 3:00 PM

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SPRING BREAK

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Monday, April 5

• Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species (1859), chapters I-IV and XIV
  Darwin and the Literary Mind section from the Norton edition
  • Cambridge's site (with audio and video) of the Darwin 2009 Festival
  • The Complete Works of Darwin Online

Group 3 blog post: special interest (or wild card) blog post. You may wish to take on the issue of genre-shifting. What breaks or continuities of language from the novels do you see as Darwin writes his scientific prose?

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Wednesday, April 7

• Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "The Lady of Shalott" (1833 edition)

• Tennyson, In Memoriam, stanzas I-L
  • Dictionary of Literary Biography (subscription only): Tennyson as poet
  • The Victorian Web page on Tennyson

  • An online exhibit from the University of South Carolina

Group 4 blog post: special interest (or wild card) blog post, open prompt.

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Monday, April 12

• Tennyson, In Memoriam (to the end)

• Criticism in the Norton edition by Bradley, Eliot, Sinfield ("Diction ..."), and Ricks

Group 1 blog post: special interest (or wild card) blog post, open prompt.

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Wednesday, April 14

• More criticism in the Norton In Memoriam: Sinfield ("Strategy ..."), and Nunukowa
• James Eli Adams, "Woman Red in Tooth and Claw: Nature and the Feminine in Tennyson and Darwin"

Group 2 blog post: special interest (or wild card) blog post, open prompt.

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Thursday, April 15

PAPER PROSPECTUS DUE BY EMAIL

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Monday, April 19

We will devote today's class time to conferences on your paper topics and the research process. You may want to get started on The Mill on the Floss over the weekend.

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Wednesday, April 21

• George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss (1860), Books 1 and 2
  • Dictionary of Literary Biography (subscription only): Eliot as novelist
  • The Eliot site on The Victorian Web

  • An Eliot photograph archive

Group 3 blog post: special interest (or wild card) blog post, open prompt.

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Monday, April 26

NO CLASS TODAY

Note that you have more reading than usual for Wednesday (because it includes today's as well). Be sure to spread it out.

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Wednesday, April 28

• Eliot, The Mill on the Floss, through Book 6, Chapter 7

Group 1 blog post: special interest (or wild card) blog post, open prompt.

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Monday, May 3

• Eliot, The Mill on the Floss, through the end

• Mary Jean Corbett, "Intercrossing, Interbreeding, and The Mill on the Floss

Group 2 blog post: special interest (or wild card) blog post, open prompt.

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Wednesday, May 5

We will devote today's class time to individual conferences on your bibliographies and paper projects.

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Thursday, May 6

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY DUE
UNDER MY OFFICE DOOR
BY 3:00

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Monday, May 10

• Arthur Conan Doyle, "The Speckled Band"

• Critical essays in Bedford edition by Hodgson and Hennessy/Mohan
• British Writers (subscription only): Doyle

Group 3 blog post: special interest (or wild card) blog post, open prompt.

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Tuesday, May 11

PAPER PROGRESS REPORT DUE BY EMAIL

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Wednesday, May 12

• Arthur Conan Doyle, "Charles Augustus Milverton"

• Critical essay in Bedford edition by Belsey

Last day: wrapping up, last questions, festooning the class float for the term paper parade

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Thursday, May 20

FINAL PAPER DUE BY NOON
IN HARD COPY TO MY OFFICE

 

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Erik Simpson | simpsone@grinnell.edu
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.