My New Proposal

I have significantly changed my proposal. Instead of simply comparing the two genres of the Gothic and Romanticism I would now like to focus on the aspects of feminism that are related in the two. I want to analyze how women were portrayed in the texts of these two separate genres in similar ways. I will discuss how these women are seen as “the victim” in both the Gothic genre as well as in Romanticism. The Books I will be using from our class are Hawthorne’s Rappaccini’s Daughter and Edgar Allen Poe’s Ligeia from the Gothic readings and Byron’s The Giaour from our readings in Romanticism. I have also found some interesting sources I will be using for this paper and I have posted those below.


Gamer, Michael. Romanticism and the Gothic: Genre, Reception, and Canon Formation. Cambridge University Press. 2000. Print.

“This is the first full-length study to examine the links between high Romantic literature and what has often been thought of as a merely popular genre--the Gothic. Michael Gamer analyzes how and why Romantic writers drew on Gothic conventions while, at the same time, denying their influence in order to claim critical respectability. He shows how the reception of Gothic literature played a fundamental role in the development of Romanticism as an ideology, tracing the politics of reading, writing and reception at the end of the eighteenth century.”


Hoeveler, Diane Long. Gothic Feminism. Camden House Press. 1998. Print.

“A new look at the Gothic novel that advances current debates on feminism.As British women writers in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries sought to define how they experienced their eras social and economic upheaval, they helped popularize a new style of bourgeois female sensibility. Hoeveler argues that a female-created literary ideology, now known as "victim feminism", arose as the Gothic novel helped create a new social role of professional victim for women adjusting to the new bourgeois order. These novels were thinly disguised efforts at propagandizing a new form of conduct for women, teaching that "professional femininity" -- a cultivated pose of wise passiveness and controlled emotions -- best,prepared them for social survival.Gothic Feminism takes a neo-feminist approach to these women's writings, treating them not as sacred texts but as thesis-driven works that attempted to instruct women in a series of strategic poses. It offers both a new understanding of the genre and a wholly new interpretation of feminism as a literary ideology.”


Ellison, Julie. Delicate Subjects:Romanticism, Gender, and the Ethics of Understanding. Cornell University Press. 1990. Print.

“Addresses the interrelated issues of the history of anxieties about rational violence and the significance of the feminine in romantic literature and fiction.”
Smith, Allan Lloyd. American Gothic Fiction: An Introduction. Continuum International Publishing Group. 2004. Print
“Following the structure of other titles in the Continuum Introductions to Literary Genres series, American Gothic Fiction includes: A broad definition of the genre and its essential elements. A timeline of developments within the genre. Critical concerns to bear in mind while reading in the genre. Detailed readings of a range of widely taught texts. In-depth analysis of major themes and issues. Signposts for further study within the genre. A summary of the most important criticism in the field. A glossary of terms.”


Fay, Elizabeth A. A Feminist Introduction to Romanticism. Blackwell Publishers. 1998. Print.

“Elizabeth Fay's invaluable book addresses the reader in an immediate and direct manner to provide an unequaled introduction to the issues most important for feminist analyses of Romantic literature. In her opening chapter, Fay offers detailed definitions and a historicized grounding that gives a thorough account of feminist theory's involvement in Romantic studies and provides a rigorous methodology for students to follow, concluding with a highly instructive case study on Jane Austen. Subsequent chapters deal with women and revolutionary politics, the Gothic genre and domestic politics, women and thought, and women and identity, which covers visuality in Romantic texts. Further reading is listed at the end to each chapter. The book includes key illustrations and a comprehensive bibliography.”