first meeting: 23 October 2012
Many monstrous characters originating in Victorian Gothic fiction have come to populate contemporary literature and film. A particularly prominent case in point is Edward Hyde, invented by Robert Louis Stevenson for his Gothic novella The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886). Not only has Stevenson's novella been repeatedly adapted for both cinema and television. The figure of Hyde has also migrated into other stories and other textual genres, morphing into other characters along the way. In this seminar, we will discuss a number of texts and films from the Victorian age, the twentieth century and the twenty-first century in order to analyse the various cultural uses that representations of Hyde's monstrosity have been put to over the last 130 years.
The texts / films we will discuss are: Stevenson's novella The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (first published in 1886), Rouben Mamoulian's film Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (released in 1931), the first instalment of Stan Lee's and Jack Kirby's graphic novel series The Incredible Hulk (first published in 1962), Steven Norrington's film The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (released in 2003) and Pat Barker's novel The Eye in the Door (first published in 1993).
You must have finished reading Stevenson's novella by the first meeting of term. There will be a short test on textual knowledge which will be easy to pass if you have read the novella.
In order to attend this course, students must register before the beginning of term. The number of participants is strictly restricted to 33 people. Registration is via CLIX only. Please check the departmental homepage and the department's notice boards for more information on the registration procedures.
Texts: You MUST own NO OTHER than the following editions:
Barker, Pat. The Eye in the Door. London: Penguin, 2008. ISBN 978-0141030944.
Stevenson, Robert Louis. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Other Tales of Terror. Ed. Robert Mighall. London: Penguin, 2003. ISBN 978-0-14-143973-0.
Additional texts will be made available at the beginning of term. |
