British Literature from 1800, "The Mythmakers"

The first part of this assignment is the Book Cover Presentation, which is worth 10 of 30 points. Remember, you don’t have to turn in a paper for this part of the assignment—it’s completely oral. However, the remaining 20 points requires you to complete the assignment below which goes hand-in-hand with your cover conception. As an English major/scholar, you have been commissioned to write a Student’s Introduction to the book from your cover assignment. The goal of this introduction is write an essay geared for students, like you, encountering this book for the first time. What do they need to know about the ideas, themes, and characters of this book? How does it relate to other Gothic literature—or modern literature/films? What did you most learn to appreciate about this book? What are its main difficulties, and why are they difficult for the modern reader? Don’t summarize the plot (beyond the basics, if necessary) or give us exhaustive detail about the characters, which the...

Odilon Redon, The Grinning Spider  [Note: I realize you were supposed to read to Ch.20 last time, but I want to cover it again since we didn't make it that far in Monday's class]  Answer TWO of the following: Q1: In the beginning of the book, Stoker suggests a Jekyll and Hyde relationship between Seward and Renfield. But how might these chapters complicate this relationship—or suggest that seeing Renfield as “Hyde” is problematic?   Also, you might discuss how Renfield helps expose Seward’s unreliable narration. Q2: Examine the passage in Chapter 21 where they find Dracula assaulting Mina: why is this a disturbing image then and now? How does Stoker make it resonate with other readings besides a vampire attacking its victim (remember, Stoker largely invented the vampire’s manner of assault)? Why does Mina later lament that she is “unclean”? Q3: Van Helsing and the Vampire Hunters are constantly making distinctions between the idea of adults/men and c...

Odilon Redon, Portrait of Marie Botkin (1900) Answer TWO of the following: Q1: Discuss how Lucy is described by Seward as they gradually accept that she must be killed, and is not Lucy—at least the Lucy they once knew. Remember that we have to take this with a grain of salt, since Seward is the narrator, not an omniscient narrator; these are his biased and passion-addled diary entries. How does he see the new Lucy, and/or how does Van Helsing help him ‘translate’ her new appearance? You might consider the passage where he reflects, “I was, in fact, beginning to shudder at the presence of this being, this Un-Dead, as Van Helsing called it, and to loathe it” (188). Q2: While there is a definite theme of English vs. “Oriental” (that is, of the world beyond the British Empire ), many readers also read this book as also Christian vs. Pagan, or science vs. superstition (even faith vs. magic). How does Stoker complicate this reading through the characters of Van Helsing an...

No questions for Friday, but be sure to read Chapters 10-14 and consider some of the following ideas. We'll have an in-class response when you arrive on Friday. * Just as Dracula seems like he's emerged from the distant past, how is Van Helsing also uncanny and "primitive" compared to the genteel society of London? What makes his person and his approach somewhat taboo, and certainly shocks Arthur and the others? * Stoker enjoys employing dialect, slang, and low-class speech in the novel, most of which is incomprehensible to a modern American reader. Of course, it would have been tricky even for a well-to-do reader of the time. Why do you think he includes this, when it might alienate some of his audience? What does it add to his story? * Who do you think is the least reliable narrator in the book so far? What makes his or her narration seem suspect? Do you detect passages where he/she seems to be hiding information or not being quite straight with the reader,...

  Odilon Redon, Angel in Chains (1875) Answer TWO of the following: Q1: How do the passages from Dr. Seward’s Diary play into discussions begun by Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde ? Who is more of a specimen for study—Renfield or Seward himself? You might consider the passage, “Am I to take it that I have anything in common with him, so that we are, as it were, to stand together; or has he to gain from me some good so stupendous that my well-being is needful to him?” (102). Q2: Which of the “outside” stories (the log from the Varna , etc.) adds the most to the overall narrative? Why do you think Mina decided to add this into her journal? What ‘story’ is it helping her tell to her readers? (and how might we read this differently when we remember that she is the one arranging it)? Q3: If you remember Coleridge’s Cristabel , how might the story of Lucy resemble that poem in its story, characters, and imagery? Consider a line such as “”there, on our favouri...

Odilon Redon, Portrait of Violette Heymann (1910) Answer TWO of the following: Q1: Dracula has no single narrator binding the entire novel together from either an omniscient or an unreliable point of view. Rather, the book is cobbled together from several different narrators, some consciously narrating (Harker's diary, Mina and Lucy's letters, etc.), while others are forced into the role unknowingly (newspaper reports, phonograph recordings, shipping receipts). How does this affect how we read the work and understand even the simplest ideas of plot, characterization, and narration? Is the entire work 'unreliable'? Or does the factual nature of the sources make it more reliable than our previous works? Q2: How does Stoker's characterization of Dracula differ from modern versions of Dracula and of vampires in general? Though Dracula is not the first literary vampire in England (he is preceded by Polidori's Lord Ruthven by several decades), he cr...

Answer TWO of the following: Q1: Is the Time Traveler a reliable narrator? How might his own biases and beliefs color his narrative, particularly when describing the Eloi and the Morlocks? Is there anywhere we can tell that Wells might be critiquing the Traveler himself? Q2: In Marina Warner’s Introduction to the Penguin version of The Time Machine , she notes that in many of Wells’ fictions, “He show an almost anorexic fascination with feeding, hunger, and abstemiousness.” Why do you think Wells (and the Time Traveler), as a late Victorian, is so drawn to the idea of eating in the novel? What might food—and the choice of food—have to do with taboos and the evolution of man? Q3: Why does the narrator decide to take Weena back to his own time? Is he romantically interested in her? Or does she represent something important and ‘scientific’ to the Time Traveler? (you might also consider why she dies; why doesn’t he protect her?) Q4: Toward the end of the novel...

* NOTE: If you have a different edition from the Oxford World's Classics, be sure to read to the chapter that begins "It may seem odd to you" (stop when you see this chapter). It should be the first 40 or 50 pages, depending on your version. Answer TWO of the following: Q1: Though this is a science fiction story about time travel, how does The Time Machine function like a traditional Gothic story like Frankenstein or Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde ? What familiar tropes and characters do you recognize, and how does Wells employ them? (hint: consider the narration) Q2: When considering what man might be like in the distant future, The Time Traveler reflects, "What might not have happened to men? What if cruelty had grown into a common passion? What if in this interval the race has lost its manliness, and had developed into something inhuman, unsympathetic, and overwhelmingly powerful?" Why might these be important questions to ask in the late 19th century? What...

“In the friction and interaction among artist and designer and book, a new thing is born. The book is remade, its delights are refreshed, it becomes inviting again” (Audrey Niffenegger) For the first part of your Paper #3 assignment, I want you to design the cover for a new edition of ONE of the books in class using a classic painting or work of art. Remember that the cover is the first thing someone sees before reading a book, and it continues to stare at and challenge (delight?) the reader as he/she spends time with the book. So your task is to find an image that can live in the mind of the reader, and subtly (or explicitly) mirror the themes of the book and/or the characters inside it. Ideally, you want to choose a painting (or other work) from around the same time period, so we can see visually what the writer was attempting to capture in his or her work. Paintings with Gothic/Romantic leanings such as those by Francisco Goya, Caspar David Freidrich, J.M. Turner, Jo...

Answer TWO of the following: Q1: Many of Lord Henry’s witticisms echo—or even reproduce—Wilde’s Preface from the beginning of the book. Consider ones such as “Scepticism is the beginning of faith,” or “we can have in life but one great experience, and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as possible.” With this in mind, how are we supposed to read his character? Is he the voice of ‘reason’ of wisdom in the novel? Or is he another unreliable narrator, just as flawed and corrupt as Dorian? Q2: When Dorian Gray ventures into the opium dens of the East End of London, he meets with various racial stereotypes: Malays with “white teeth,” “squat misshapen figures” (also Malay, or Chinese), and low-class women with “crooked smile[s] like a Malay crease.” Are these a sign of Wilde’s upper class racial prejudices (like the narrator in “Olalla”)? Or is he seeing the world through Dorian’s eyes, who sees things in terms of “race” and degeneracy? Q3: At t...

John Singer Sargent, Repose (1911) REMEMBER: No class on Wednesday (I'll be out of town) Read the next few chapters, through Chapter 11, and consider some of the following questions--and this time, we will have an in-class response! * Note how "eyes" are discussed or mentioned in the book; why are eyes so significant in a book about art and appearances? * How is Basil contrasted with Lord Henry? What makes Basil more "good" and why does Dorian respect him more--even as he admits, he has learned much more from Lord Henry? * What does Lord Henry meant when he says "don't waste your tears over Sybil Vane. She was less real than they are?" (meaning Juliet, Rosalind, etc.) * Why did Sybil disappoint Dorian and destroy his love? What ideal did she fail to live up to? And how, in her death, did she restore that ideal? * Why does Sybil perform so badly in the play? What is her ideal? * How does Wilde indulge in many of the ideas of race a...

John Singer Sargent, Young Man in Reverie (1876) NO QUESTIONS this week--so work on your Paper #2 assignment! Also, read Chapters 1-5 of The Picture of Dorian Gray for Monday's class. You'll have an in-class response waiting for you, and you might want to consider some of the following ideas: * Wilde's paradoxical witticisms in the Preface and scattered throughout the text; are we supposed to take them seriously? Are they his voice, or the voice of society? * The idea of art vs. life, or the ideal vs. the transitory pleasure: how does Wilde develop this idea (which we've seen throughout our readings) in the opening chapters? * The Pre-Raphaelites liked to update or put a modern spin on age-old myths and legends: how might Dorian Gray be doing the same thing, though in a less obvious way? * Why does Hallward think his portrait represents his best work? On the same hand, why does he refuse to show it? * How was the nature of his meeting Dorian Gray similar t...

Note: if you missed Wednesday’s class, you can either grab the handout from my box, or find the poem on-line. Answer TWO of the following: Q1: The poem is full of repetition and echoing devices, such as the stanzas that string simile after simile together: “Like a rush-imbedded swan,/Like a lily from the beck,/Like a moonlit poplar branch,/Like a vessel at the launch/When its last restraint is gone” (1620). Why are these repetitions significant—and where do they specifically occur in the poem? Q2: The Goblin Market itself is full of sensual imagery, from the taste of the fruit to its shapes and textures. Since this is not only a poem but a kind of fairy tale, what might the Market represent? And why is it significant that Laura paid for the fruit with a lock of her hair? Q3: In one of the most famous passages of the poem, Lizzie returns from the Market with the juice of the fruits on her body, and bids her sister “Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices/Squeezed from...

  Julia Cameron, photo of Ellen Terry (1864) Answer TWO of the following: Q1: What does Olalla mean when she asks the narrator, “Is it me you love, friend? or the race that made me?...We speak of the soul, but the soul is in the race” (131). According to this speech, what is preventing her from accepting the narrator’s love? What does she fear he sees--or loves--instead of "her"? Q2: How does the narrator use the term “race” throughout this story, and particularly in regards to the family? Though the family is from noble stock, why does he see himself as superior to them? Does it have something to do with his English identity?   Q3: Why does the narrator fall so desperately (and foolishly?) in love with Olalla, a woman he only glimpses from a chance meeting, and has never spoken with? How might this resemble previous lovers in other stories, particularly in a sentence like this one: “Love burned in me like rage; tenderness waxed fierce; I hat...

“ If he be Mr. Hyde...I shall be Mr. Seek ” (Stevenson 14). I: In 1890, the Metropolitan Police Service of London moved to a larger location to better meet the needs of growing crimes throughout the metropolis. They called this location New Scotland Yard, and “Scotland Yard” became synonymous with police activity in London (and still is). The late 19th century is an age of unspeakable crimes from the unsolved Whitehall Mystery to the murders of “Jack the Ripper.” Only by expanding their activity and changing how they understood the nature of “evil” could Scotland Yard hope to keep one step ahead of the criminal masterminds of London. What an exciting time to join the police force…which you have, by the way! Q: Prove that Victor Frankenstein and Henry Jekyll are criminals through their “confessions” (the books) even though both have been exonerated of their crimes! Imagine that you are investigating two “cold cases,” that of Victor Frankenstein and Dr. Henry Jekyll. In b...

Answer TWO of the following: Q1: According to Dr. Jekyll, why did he have a “Mr. Hyde” inside him? Are all of us composed of good and evil selves, fighting for domination? Or is it more complicated than that? Why does he also write, “I hazard the guess that man will be ultimately known for a mere polity of multifarious, incongruous and independent denizens” (53)? Q2: Though a short novella, Stevenson offers us a wealth of narrative perspectives including a traditional third person narration, Dr. Lanyon’s Narrative, Dr. Jekyll’s Full Statement of the Case, and several mini narrations, such as Mr. Enfield’s story of the door, etc. What is the effect of all these shifts in narration and multiple perspectives? How do they complicate the story or change how we understand it? Are all of them reliable? Are they meant to make us question one or the other? Q3: When he first encounters Mr. Hyde, Enfield writes that “I had taken a loathing to the gentleman at first sight” (...

For those who can't get enough of  Frankenstein, or simply like things laid out visually, here's an article from the UK's The Guardian  that shows several facts about Shelley's life and the novel itself in charts and diagrams. Might help you on future papers! Click on the link below to read... https://www.theguardian.com/books/gallery/2018/jan/13/mary-shelleys-frankenstein-in-charts  

NOTE: The reading starts with the chapter, “Day after day, week after week” if you have a different edition. Answer TWO of the following: Q1: When Victor bids farewell to Elizabeth (after planning to marry her), the 1831 text says that she “acquiesced; but she was filled with disquiet at the idea of my suffering, away from her, the inroads of misery and grief...she bade me a tearful, silent farewell.” However, the original 1818 version of the novel reads: “ Elizabeth approved of the reasons of my departure, and only regretted that she had not the same opportunities of enlarging her experience, and cultivating her understanding...We all, said she, depend upon you; and if you are miserable, what must be our feelings? ” What does the original text seem to communicate about Elizabeth’s experience that the 1831 version wipes away? Q2: When Victor finds Elizabeth slain by the Creature, he “rushed toward her, and embraced her with ardour” (166). Her also spends quite some ti...

NOTE: If you don’t have our text, try to finish at or around the chapter that begins, “The being finished speaking, and fixed his looks upon me in expectation of a reply.” Answer TWO of the following: Q1: The Creature’s education is largely undertaken by reading a series of books, notably Paradise Lost , Plutarch’s Lives, and The Sorrows of Young Werther . Why these books in particular (since Shelley could have chosen any)? What does the Creature reveal about these books that adds something significant to his education and sense of himself? Additionally, how do we know that these might have been crucial for Shelley’s own inspiration in writing the book? Q2: Many find the story of the De Lacys somewhat puzzling and out of place in the narrative. Why does Shelley include it? Though it seems hopelessly unrealistic, how might it, too, become a crucial part of the Creature’s education? Q3: At what point does the Creature become a “monster”? While Victor might argue tha...

NOTE: Read pp.5-68 in the Oxford World’s Classics version: for other versions, read until the chapter that begins, “Nothing is more painful to the human mind...”   Answer TWO of the following: Q1: Most first-time readers of Frankenstein are surprised to find that the novel begins with a frame narrative: that of Walton, the arctic explorer, who is writing home to his sister, Mrs. Saville. What purpose does this frame serve, especially since it could have all been narrated from Victor’s point of view? Also, why might Walton be a very ‘Gothic’ character in his own right? Q2: According to the story of his early education that Victor gives to Walton, what set him on the path of creating new life? How did he go from an earnest, naive young man to a “modern Prometheus” who would “pour a torrent of light into our dark world” (36)? Q3: Immediately after he creates his “monster,” Victor ends up falling asleep and has a nightmare of Elizabeth , where as soon as he kis...

INTRO: In their Introduction to The Vampyre and Other Tales of the Macabre, editors Morrison and Baldick write that, “In the frantically competitive world of the magazines in the 1820s and 1830s, imitation was not just the sincerest form of flattery but the surest route to commercial survival. It should not, then, surprise us to find some echoes of the successful Blackwood’s tradition in the productions of its monthly rivals” (xvii-xviii). While the stories in this volume were reading and responding to stories published in the first magazine of Gothic fiction, Blackwood’s, they were also responding to each other. For this reason, we find many stories that seem obsessed with the same themes and ideas (as well as plots). PROMPT: So for your first paper, I want you choose two stories that seem to respond to or imitate each other in some important way . It doesn’t have to be literal, as in the plot of the characters (though it can), so consider larger issues such as similar themes...

NOTE: You can find these poems on the last pages of your “Christabel” handout. If you don’t have them for some reason, you can easily find these poems on-line. Each one is just over a page long, so you can read them quickly. However, each one is a quite subtle, so read more than once—and if possible, read them the first time aloud. Hear the music and consider how Keats wants you to read/experience it. SECOND NOTE: These poems are “odes,” which are addresses to a specific person or object, usually in tribute to them. In the first, he is addressing his ode to a Nightingale singing in the woods, and he imagines flying along with the bird through the darkness of the imagination. In the second, he is examining a Grecian Urn in a museum, and walking around it trying to decipher the images and characters engraved upon it. In both poems, the living bird and the work of art bring to mind his own mortality, and how much more fortunate the bird and the urn are than him—though ironical...

Answer TWO of the following: Q1: Cristabel , though unfinished, seems to explore the idea of “innocence” through the unformed, child-like character of Cristabel.  How might we read her character metaphorically, as a journey of childhood inexperience into the “dark woods” of adult sexuality?  (and yes, any knowledge of Freud is welcome here!)    Q2: In Richard Holmes’ book, Coleridge: Early Visions (1989), he writes that Cristabel is “chant-like, trance-like.  Its power derives from a haunting suggestiveness of atmosphere, an incantation of psychological symbols and spells, which defy any normal narrative development” (287).  How does the poem achieve these “trance-like” effects?  What sounds, images, metaphors, or other features make it seem more like a spell or a dream than an actual story or poem?  Q3: What is the difference between Part I and Part II of the poem?  Literally, Part I occurs during midnight , while Part II occurs ...

Answer TWO of the following: Q1: In many ways, “Passage in the Secret History of an Irish Countess” is like a Gothic Jane Austen story (esp. Mansfield Park ). Perhaps the biggest similarity is that both authors focus upon the realities of 19th century marriage. According to the story, what hidden dangers lie in wait for a prospective bride in the 1830’s? What does marriage allow men to gain—and to hide—by law? Q2: The story mentions that a letter offering evidence of the uncle’s guilt was published in Faulkner’s newspaper (The Dublin Journal—see note on page 273), which was another magazine which published news side-by-side with Gothic stories like this one. How might this story be consciously trying to adopt a non-fictional tone in the manner of its storytelling? In other words, how does it read even more realistically (like journalism) than our last two stories? Q3: When the narrator’s uncle intercepts her letter for help, he threatens her by saying, “Men will unive...