On his Deceas’d Wife
Methought I saw my late espoused Saint
Brought to me like Alcestis from the Grave,
Whom Jove’s great Son to her glad Husband gave,
Rescu’d from Death by Force though pale and faint.
Mine as whom wash’d from Spot of childbed Taint
Purification in the old Law did save,
And such, as yet once more I trust to have
Full Sight of her in Heav’n without restraint,
Came vested all in white, pure as her Mind:
Her Face was veil’d, yet to my fancied Sight,
Love, Sweetness, Goodness in her Person shined
So clear, as in no Face with more Delight.
But O as to embrace me she inclin’d
I wak’d, she fled, and Day brought back my Night.
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This blog is for use by students in Anjuli Raza Kolb's "Legacies of the Gothic Novel" course at Columbia University.
Course Description
The gothic novel is a genre of 18th and 19th century fiction that concerns itself with fear, mystery, the supernatural, violence, purity, otherness, and the impact of these conceits on its largely female protagonists. Much maligned as a popular or 'low' genre at its inception, the form has nevertheless persisted in its popularity as well as crossed into 'higher' forms of modernism and postmodernism. This course will read three key texts in the gothic mode-Frankenstein, Jane Eyre, and Wuthering Heights-and follow the ways they are revisited and rewritten by contemporary American and Caribbean novelists. We will look at how these texts subvert the realist leanings of 18th century narrative prose in English-and its assumptions of enlightenment rationalism-by way of two main processes: narrative hypertrophy and feminist versions of horror. Additionally, we will take up select contemporary criticism on the gothic in literature, film, and art.
There are no prerequisites.
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