complit

John Paulin Ph.D. U.C.Berkeley Comparative Literature 1B, Spring 1997

VAGRANTS AND VISITATIONS:
POPULAR CULTURE, MYTHOLOGY AND THE GOTHIC
IN BRITISH AND AMERICAN ROMANTICISM

(... Pleasures, Terrors and Prodigies of Mythology
and the Popular Imagination..)

How are we are given to imagining things different from or alien to us--the fantastic, the otherworldly, the unknown or mysterious? The uncanny, the frightening, the abject, the dead, the despotic? Or things that we suppose ourselves to have lost such as innocence, ideal homes and homelands as reflected in nostalgic views of better pasts? And what of things yet to come such as subsequent world as it is to be encountered through death, utopia, incredible accident or encounter with divinity? Where does the incredible become the absurd? Where does the absurd become possible? Where does the fragility of circumstance meet the frailty of fact? Where do we draw the line between fact and fiction? Are our minds finally capable of making such distinctions? How do we respond to monsters, monstrosities, prodigies, portents, unholy wanderers of the night (including rogue asteroids, death stars, UFOs, vampires and Byronic heroes) and similar such figures as they are presented in: the personae of dictators, criminals and artists; in folk-tales, popular fiction and cinema; and in the news and popular media such as talk radio, television and the Internet; as well as in contemporary scientific discussions of the fate of the earth?

What does our fascination with such episodes say about our attitudes toward the stability of society and culture in the world of events? To what extent do such visions persist in the way that we think about the world--in contemporary religious, political, and even scientific world-views? What can we say about the social and historical causes of such tales?

We will consider these and similar questions of enduring human and academic interest as we satisfy the University's writing requirement.

Literature

Sappho, selected lyrics*.

Plato, Symposium. Hackett.

Vergil, Aeneid, Fitzgerald, trans.

Polidori, "The Vampyre" *.

Coleridge: "Christabel". *

Byron: Cain,* "Prometheus." *

Shelley, Percy: The Cenci, "Alastor." *

Shelley, Mary: Frankenstein. Norton.

Bronte, Charlotte: Jane Eyre. Penguin.

Soyinka, Wole: Madmen and Specialists.

(* In course readers)

Also in readers: Bible: Selections from Genesis; Selections from Plato's Phaedrus, Aristotle's Rhetoric and Poetics, Virgil's Georgics, Ovid's Metamorphoses, Burke, Kant, Nietzsche, Arendt and others. Folk tales from around the world. Short story by E.T.A. Hoffmann. Episode from "The X-Files." Conspiracy theories from Internet.

Films. Lucas: Star Wars; Wiene: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari; Griffith: Birth of A Nation:

Newsgroup: ucb.class.complit1b2

Homework: brief (1/2 page or more) written assignments on the readings for a given class are due at the beginning of that class. Students will, preferably, post their homework to our newsgroup by the previous evening to facilate class discussions.

1 1/22 w

Gods, daimones and powers of desire

Sappho: Lyrics

1/24
Plato: Symposium.

2 1/27 m

1/29

............................................Diagnostic Essay Due

Plato: excerpt from Phaedrus; Lucas: Star Wars.

1/31
Passions and nations
Vergil. Aeneid; Books 1 & 2. Aristotle's Rhetoric: friendship.

3 2/3 m

Aen. 3&4; Rhetoric: pity and fear.

2/5

2/7
Aen. 5& 6; Rhetoric: Shame and Shamelessness.

4 2/10 m

Aen. 7&8; Rhetoric: Indignation.

2/12
The end of the golden age.
Aen. 9&10; Ovid: Metamorphoses I.1-160. Vergil: Georgics I.
118-59

2/14
Mastering the past.
Aen 11 & 12. Arendt. "Of Humanity in Dark Times"

5 2/19 w

Peer Review.

2/20 th

Lucas: The Empire Strikes Back. 142 Dwinelle, 7:30 PM.

2/21
A comparison of sensibilities: the Aeneid and the
Gothic......................................... PAPER DUE

6          2/24 m
           Devils, goblins and tyrants.
           Polidori: "The Vampyre". Coleridge: "Christabel."

2/26

Byron: "Prometheus," Begin Cain. Accounts of the Fall in

Genesis, Vergil's Georgics and Ovid's Metamorphoses

2/28
Cain; Selections from Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil

7 3/3m

Aristotle's Poetics, 9-13. Rhetoric, pity and fear. Byron's

"Prometheus."

3/5

Black budgets and bad ideas: the Gothic, paranoia,

arcane science and contemporary conspiracy

theories

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein : Preface through I.3. Marilyn Butler:

"Frankenstein and Radical Science." Episode of "X-Files"

3/7

Frank.: I.4- II.2. Hertzberg and McClelland: "Paranoia." Reread
selections from Arisotle's Poetics

8 3/10m

Frank.: II.3-9. Conspiracy theories from internet.

3/12

Frank.: III.1-5. Ellen Moers: "Female Gothic: the Monster's
Mother."

3/14

Frank.: Finish book.

9 3/17 m

Nature and "natural sensibilities

Percy Shelley: "Alastor." Kant: selections from precritical

writings

3/19

Percy Shelley: The Cenci. Selections from Nietzsche's
Beyond Good and Evil

3/21

The Cenci. Burke: Selections from A Philosophical Enquiry.

10 3/31 m

The Cenci.

4/2
Peer Review.

4/4
More bad influences.......................PAPER DUE
Wiene: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. 4 Dwinelle, 9:00 AM

11 4/7 m

Mastering the Gothic: Domesticating Lord Byron

Begin Bronte: Jane Eyre Ch. 1-7.

JE. Ch. 8-13.

4/10 th

Griffith: Birth of a Nation. 117 Dwinelle, 5:00 PM

4/11

JE. Ch. 14-18.

12 4/14 m

Civil wars, rebels and evil emperors: rewriting

history as Gothic Romance. Discuss tradition of

American Gothic: Griffith and Lucas.

Mark Twain: Life on the Mississippi, "Enchanters and

Enchantments."

4/16

JE. 19-23

4/18

JE. 24-27

13 4/21 m

JE. 28-32

4/23

JE. 33-38

4/25
Peer Review

14 4/28 m

Daimones of war and other perturbed spirits: John

Brown and the Mannon Family....PAPER DUE

Mourning Becomes Electra: "Homecoming."

4/30

Mourning Becomes Electra: "The Hunted."

5/2

Mourning Becomes Electra: "The Haunted." Popular ballads:
"John Brown's Body," "Battle Hymn of the Republic."

15 5/5 m

Heroic Immortality: John Henry and Beatrice Cenci

Ballad: "John Henry." Preface to The Cenci

5/7
Student Projects

5/9
Student Projects

16 5/12 m

Peer Review. Final festivities.

Final paper due week of final exams.

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