Early American Horror Stories

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

Proposing a broad definition of "horror," this course features authors often associated with grisly topics, such as Hawthorne and Poe, yet it also highlights nonfiction accounts of horrific experience, such as those by Mary Rowlandson and Harriet Jacobs. The course also explores terrifying imagery in the sermons of Jonathan Edwards and the Civil War poetry of Whitman. Ultimately, this course invites us to query the effectiveness of horror, fear, and the like as literary techniques. Why do we enjoy these texts (or not)? What is their effectiveness on readers' engagement and authors' persuasiveness? Moreover, what do these authors suggest as the sources of horror, and how do we address them as literary critics?