LARTS 359 — English Romantic Literature of the 19th Century: Sublime, Gothic, Heroic

3 credits
Spring
Jo Sarzotti

Prerequisite: LARTS 112 . This course takes as its subject the literary art generated by English and American writers in the years 1780 to 1830, known as the “Romantic period” and characterized by enthusiasm for the imagination, the power of nature, and belief in boundless possibility for human achievement, including the supernatural. We will start in the 17th century with the origins of the Gothic tradition, reading Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey and poetry by Coleridge, Byron, and Keats. Then we take up Burke’s idea of the Sublime, reading parts of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the first Vampire story, and poetry by Wordsworth, Percy Shelley, and others. We finish by reading stories by E.A. Poe and Bram Stoker’s Dracula as well as looking at contemporary versions of the supernatural in film.