Approaches to Teaching Gothic Fiction: The British and American Traditions (Approaches to Teaching World Literature, 79)

Rating:
Summary: A superb tool especially for college educators
Review: Approaches to Teaching Gothic Fiction: The British and American Traditions is an anthology of essays by experienced editors concerning specific issues that address the study of Gothic fiction and literature. Especially intriguing to critics due to its dark portrayal of the bourgeois and the psychological fallout of social conflict, Gothic literature endures in various forms in England, Ireland, the United States, and more, and often includes such motifs as ghosts, castles, animated corpses, and heroines trapped in dire peril. Classical and contemporary authors discussed include Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Anne Rice, and Stephen King. Part One of Approaches to Teaching Gothic Fiction is a brief survey of critical approaches used in teaching literature; Part Two is far more extensive, as it is comprised of the individual writings concerning everything from how to define Gothic literature to specific issues pertaining to teaching African-American Gothic literature to using role-playing and identity-writing to explore Gothic themes, and much more. A superb tool especially for college educators seeking to design a syllabus that balances the challenge of the material with the need to communicate core principles and stimulate critical thought.