CLT334H1

Celtic Gothic in Britain and Ireland

This course explores the close relationship between the culture, history, and folklore of Ireland and Scotland, Wales, and Cornwall in the creation and perpetuation of central narrative and aesthetic tropes of Gothic literature. The course will study how the preoccupation with the past in much Gothic literature refracts tensions between cultural and ethnic centers and peripheries, and reflects social and cultural anxieties of the eighteenth and nineteenth century. Students will examine the characteristics and history of the Gothic mode and its role in negotiating the place of Irish, Scottish, Welsh, and Cornish cultures within a broader insular context. They will read a variety of post-1600 Irish and British texts on Gothic themes, with focus on such topics as hauntings, language of the supernatural, landscape, history, folklore, and religion.