230461 Genres - Authors - Periods: Frankenstein on Page and Stage (S) (SoSe 2025)

This course will familiarise students with Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein (1818), which is famous for its multiple narrative perspectives and its ambiguous character conception of Victor Frankenstein’s ‘creature’. In the course of the semester, we will move beyond Shelley's novel to explore its literary legacies: we will turn to versions of Frankenstein in different genres, namely Nick Dear's stage adaptation and Liz Lochhead's poems "Dreaming Frankenstein". Engaging in close readings of the novel, the play and the poems, we will put to practice the analytical categories introduced in the introductory lecture in Basic Module 2 (Basis2.1).

Requirements for participation, required level

It is not advisable to attend a Basis2.3 class before you have completed the lecture ‘Introduction to Literary Analysis and Interpretation’ (Basis2.1) because students are expected to have a general understanding of analysing and interpreting Anglophone literatures. As for 'Academic Writing' (Basis2.2), it is advisable to attend Basis2.2 and Basis 2.3 in one semester, after completing Basis2.1.

Bibliography

Students are expected to bring copies of the followin texts to class:
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Or the Modern Prometheus - in a well-annotated edition, e.g. Penguin.
Dear, Nick. Frankenstein. Faber and Faber, 2011.

Further material, incl. the poems, will be made available.