In this course we will examine the gothic as an important genre in American literature and trace its tradition over two hundred years of literary history. As a response to dominant ideas and conventions that shaped American literature, the gothic offers us a challenging perspective on the mainstream as well as on what it excludes. Beginning with some classic examples of the genre, we will seek to identify the elements and the rhetoric of the gothic text in order to appreciate the specific use that later writers have made of the gothic form.

a selection of American gothic literature

the elements and the rhetoric of the gothic text