Sex and Death in Victorian Literature

English 164H: Spring 2002

MW 1:15-3:05pm - Building 60, Room 61A

Instructor: Christine Alfano
  1. Course Description
  2. Course Requirements
  3. Course Schedule
  4. Paper Assignments & Topic Suggestions
  5. Quote Archive
  6. Links of Interest
  7. Questions for Reading
  8. Contact Information
  9. Image Links: Early Pre-Raphaelites
  10. E-text links

NEW:

Queen Victoria & Princess Alice with a bust of Prince Albert, 1862.

Courtesy of Queen Victoria: Images of Her World.

Quotes of the Week: May 13th

From Andrea Weiss, Vampires & Violets: Lesbians in Film
Merging two kinds of sexual outlaws, the lesbian vampire is more than simply a negative stereotype. She is a complex and ambiguous figure, at once an image of death and an object of deisre, drawing on profound subconscious fears that the living have toward the dead and that men have toward women, while serving as a focus for repressed fantasies. The generic vampire image both expresses and represses sexuality, but the lesbian vampire especially operates in the sexual rather than the supernatural realm.

 

The Observer on the 1937 stage performance of "Carmilla":
[S]ince Horace Walpole and Mrs. Radcliffe set the supernatural dancing, Freud has blown so many gaffs that Carmilla is seen less in charnel trappings than in emotional dishabille. As a heroine she seems to call for the attention of the psychopathologist or a strict headmistress, rather than simple shudders.