A Syllabus for a Class at the Oscher Lifelong Learning Institute at George Mason University
Exploring the Gothic
Day: 8 Tuesday afternoons, 2:15-3:40 pm, Sept 24th to Nov 11th
Tallwood, 4210 Roberts Road. Fairfax
Instructor: Ellen Moody
Description of Course:
This course explore varieties of gothic and its terrain which conform to recipe format. Take one labyrinthine or partly ruined dwelling, place inside murderous incestuous father or chained mother (preferably in a dungeon), heroes and heroines (as wanderers, nuns), stir in a tempest; have on hand blood, night-birds, and supernatural phenomena, with fore-, and back-stories set in the past. We’ll read short stories, three novellas and sample films. We’ll begin with ghosts and witches, move to vampires, werewolves, and end on socially critical mysteries and stories of the paranormal (e.g., possession). We cover terror, horror, male and female gothic. We’ll also view clips from two films considered the most powerful film gothics ever made and an Oscar winning short.
Schedule:
September 23: Origin, definition, history of genre, characteristics. I’ll show parts of DVD for The Haunting and The Woman in Black (if possible, otherwise substitute clip from “Afterward” from Shades of Darkness).
September 30: Stevenson, “Markheim, ” Wharton’s “Afterward” and Mary Reilly
October 7: Mary Reilly (possible clip) and F. Marion Crawford’s “For the Blood is the Life”
October 14: Stoker, “The Judge’s House,” Conan Doyle, “Adventure of Abbey Grange;” Wharton’s “Kerfol”
October 21: Vampire Tapestry (first 3 tales), LeFanu’s “Carmilla” and Oliphant’s “The Open Door”
October 28: Vampire Tapestry (last 2 tales), Stevenson, “The Body Snatchers,” Wharton, “Mr Jones”
November 4 : Dickens, “Signalman”’; M. R. James, “The Stalls of Barchester Cathedrale”; Bierce, “Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge”; A. M. Burrage’s “Smee.”
November 11: The Haunting of Hill House
Texts:
Martin, Valerie. Mary Reilly. New York: Vintage, 1990. ISBN 978-0-375-72599-9. It’s available as a kindle, and there have been many editions: Doubleday 1990, Washington Square Press, 1994.
Charnas, Suzy McKee. The Vampire Tapestry. Albuquerque: Living Batch Press, 1980. It’s available as a Kindle and two newer edition: Orb Books, 2008; The Women’s Press, 1992.
Jackson, Shirley. The Haunting of Hill House. NY: Penguin 2006. ISBN978-0-14-303998-3
Online short stories:
R.L. Stevenson, “Markheim”
http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/Mark.shtml
Edith Wharton, “Afterward”
http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/ewharton/bl-ewhar-afterward.htm
F. Marion Crawford, “For the Blood is the Life” (scroll down)
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0605421.txt
Bram Stoker’s “The Judge’s House”
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/10150/10150-h/10150-h.htm
Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Adventure of Abbey Grange”
http://sherlock-holmes.classic-literature.co.uk/the-adventure-of-the-abbey-grange/
Edith Wharton, “Kerfol”
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/24350/24350-h/24350-h.htm
R.L. Stevenson, “The Body Snatchers”
http://gaslight.mtroyal.ab.ca/body.htm
Edith Wharton, “Mr Jones”
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200121.txt
Sheridan LeFanu, “Carmilla”
http://gaslight.mtroyal.ab.ca/carmilla.htm
Margaret Oliphant, “The Open Door”
http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/10052/pg10052.html
Charles Dickens, “The Signalman”
Click to access the-signalman.pdf
M. R. James, “The Stalls of Barchester Cathedrale”
https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/j/james/mr/more/chapter5.html
A.M. Burrage, “Smee”
Click to access smee-by-am-burrage-_-scary-for-kids.pdf
Ambrose Bierce, “Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”
http://gaslight.mtroyal.ab.ca/
YouTube for Oscar Winning Short: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuP5kUQro40
For further materials on the gothic, see my website under Ghosts and gothics, vampires and witches and l’ecriture-femme; under Austen Reveries, the category “Gothic.”
Ellen
Ellen And Jim Have A Blog, Two 
Interesting, especially as I only know a few of these stories. No Poe? No Hawthorne?
The stories are chosen to exemplify types of gothic — supreme examples of this or that type; they are also chosen to show older themes (terror, horror, iconic figures) and new ones (how do we explain human suffering and psychological projection). They also tend to the female gothic — though not as much as my choices on my website. Most of the short stories are by men: the exception are the three by Wharton: she exemplifies types, she makes fun of the gothic, and I just love her gothic fiction.
If you have never viewed Owl Creek Bridge take the 27 minutes out. It’s worth it.
I must read those Wharton stories. She is not someone I have associated with the gothic. The newer stuff I am totally unfamilar with.
Two authors and/or stories I can’t resist telling you about. I’ve never been able to find anything by her on-line and from what I remember, it’s hard to find out about her life: Elizabeth Walter’s “Come and Get Me” is one of the most powerful ghost stories I’ve ever read. I still remember it. It is found in Cudden’s Penguin Book of Ghost Stories (where you will find a couple others I’ve set); the other A.S. Byatt’s “July Ghost:” it is in the second volume of Richard Darby’s Virago Book of Ghost Stories. The story reveals how the gothic confronts the scale of human suffering individually and in the world we know. It’s not hurting the story to tell you Byatt had a son who died young. Byatt has a powerful gothic vein in her Possession. Both stories are in volumes made up of Walter’s and Byatt’s stories. There’s a volume of just gothics by Wharton, and it comes with drawn illustrations: it’s a The Ghost Stories of EW, and it’s a Scribner paperback.
I will look for these. I remember the scene in Possession where they dig up the dead body, looking for the manuscript. Very gothic!
I just love Possession. I find the whole sequence at Brittany a small Bronte novel. This novel and Angels and Insects show Byatt’s deep engagement with death and how people cope with death. The inset epistolary novel is marvelous too. All that said, her Still Life, a realistic novel, is to me her best; it’s not that long and packs a stunning blow. If I’m not misremembering (confusing it with another novel by her) Byatt writes one of the most realistic descriptions of childbirth in that one I’ve ever read.