Fantastic fiction. A Cultural and Ideological Introduction

elective

Week 1. A theoretical approach to the classical fantastic.

Week 2. E.T.A. Hoffmann: “The Sandman”.

Week 3. Edgar Allan Poe: “William Wilson”, “Berenice”, “The Fall of the House of Usher”.

Week 4. Guy de Maupassant: “Magnetism”, “The Apparition”, “The Horla”.

Week 5. Emilia Pardo Bazán: “The Woman Who Came Back to Life”, “The Talisman”; Miguel de Unamuno: “The Man Who Buried Himself”.

Week 6. Arthur Machen: “The Inmost Light”; H.P. Lovecraft: “The Call of Cthulhu”; Julio Cortázar: “House Taken Over”.

Week 7. Noel Clarasó: “Beyond Death”; Javier Marías: “Lord Rendall’s Song”; José María Merino: “The Deserter”.

Week 8. A theoretical approach to the contemporary fantastic. Franz Kafka: Metamorphosis.

Week 9. Juan José Arreola: “The Switchman”, “A Pact with the Devil”, “I’m Telling You the Truth”.

Week 10. Pere Calders: “The Desert”, “The Streak and the Wish”; Rodoreda: “My Cristina”.

Week 11. Julio Cortázar: “Letter to a Young Lady in Paris”, “Continuity of Parks”, “Axolotl”.

Week 12. Jorge Luis Borges: “The Library of Babel”, “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbius Tertius”, “The Circular Ruins”.

Week 13. Jorge Luis Borges: “Funes, His Memory”, “The Book of Sand”, “The Other”.

Week 14. Javier Marías: “Gualta”, “The Resignation Letter of Señor de Santiesteban”; Aixa de la Cruz: “True Milk”.

Week 15. Final exam.

Readiness to discuss texts in class, as well as basic terms of literary criticism and theory. English at B2 level.

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• to make students acquainted with the most relevant theories on non-mimetic fiction, particularly on the fantastic as a narrative mode presenting two main forms: the classical and the contemporary fantastic.

• to make students familiar with canonical authors of fantastic fiction and their work in Western literatures.

• to present the different evolution of the fantastic, mainly in the sociocultural contexts of Anglo-Saxon and Spanish-speaking countries, but in German and French literatures as well.

• to improve students’ ability to interpret literary texts by means of applying tools for ideological analysis.

• to develop the students’ ability to compare literary texts.

This module deals with fantastic fiction written in different countries and belonging to different literatures. The module is designated to introduce learners to this kind of non-mimetic fiction by working in class with a selection of short stories in English or translated into English.

This module deals with fantastic fiction belonging to different literatures – that is to say, Spanish, English, German, French, and Catalan – and written in several countries, mainly by writers from Spain (Pardo Bazán, Unamuno, Calders, Rodoreda, Clarasó, Marías, Merino, de la Cruz), but as well from Argentina (Borges, Cortázar), Mexico (Arreola), Germany (Hoffmann), United States (Poe, Lovecraft), Great Britain (Machen), France (Maupassant), and the Austro-Hungarian Empire (Kafka). The module is designated to introduce learners to this kind of non-mimetic fiction by working in class with a selection of short stories in English or translated into English.

The different contexts and conditions under which these stories were written will be considered in order to display the ideological implications that were involved in the writing and reception of the selected texts, taking into account the meaningfulness of the fact that they present impossible situations according to the physical and logical laws of our world. The theoretical methodology applied for analysing them will be based primarily in Todorov’s first systematic work on fantastic literature, The Fantastic. A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre, though essentially the way of understanding this kind of fiction as a narrative mode will be conveyed by the work of a follower of Todorov’s views who became a relevant scholar in her own right, Jackson’s Fantasy: The Literature of Subversion. The new and more encompassing approach of David Roas, Behind the Frontiers of the Real: A Definition of the Fantastic, will guide the survey of the selected short stories, which embrace the Gothic and Romantic beginnings of this narrative mode, the classical fantastic of the late 19th and early XX century, as well as the contemporary fantastic of the following years of the 20th century.

Assessment overview:

Final exam: 40%

Classroom discussion: 40%

Presentation in class: 20%

Assessment requirements for a pass: A mark of at least 50% overall.

Mandatory

Jackson, Rosemary (1988). Fantasy: The Literature of Subversion. London / New York: Routledge.

Roas, David (2018). Behind the Frontiers of the Real: A Definition of the Fantastic. Cham: Palgrave Pivot.

The selected fiction.

Optional

Apter, T.E. (1982). Fantasy Literature: An Approach to Reality. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Armitt, Lucie. Fantasy Fiction: An Introduction. Continuum, 2005.

Gregori, Alfons (2018). “Crossing Impossible Boundaries? Fantastic Narrative and Ideology.” Exploring the Fantastic: Genre, Ideology, and Popular Culture (117-140). Ed. by Ina Batzke & al. Bielefeld: Transcript.

Mücke, Dorothea E. von (2003). The Seduction of the Occult and the Rise of the Fantastic Tale. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Siebers, Tobin (1984). The Romantic Fantastic. Ithaca, New York / London: Cornell University Press.

Todorov, Tzvetan (1975). The Fantastic. A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre (R. Howard [trans.]). Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press.

Traill, Nancy H. (1996). Possible Worlds of the Fantastic: The Rise of the Paranormal in Fiction. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.