Victorian Villains Revisited: Contemporary Visions and Adaptations

elective courses

Elective course for BA students.

The class is intended for BA students interested in contemporary adaptations and re-imaginings of the Victorians. The characters discussed, late-Victorian villains, include literary creations – Professor Moriarty and Mr Hyde, as well as the almost mythical figure of Jack the Ripper.

The analysis of cultural contexts of the source texts and their adaptations (novels, graphic novels, films, and TV series) allows for the multidisciplinary approach, combining the elements of culture, literature, film, and history studies.

The aim of the course is to compare selected late-Victorian villains to their Neo-Victorian re-imaginings and place them in the context of the nineteenth- and twenty-first-century morality.

The classes are divided into three groups: background information, the analysis of the characters, and conclusions. The first provides the literary, cultural and historical background, including information on the concepts relevant to the analysis, such as the theory of degeneration or the theory of adaptation.

The main part of the course is devoted to the analysis of the selected villains: literary creations – Professor Moriarty and Mr Hyde, as well as the almost mythical figure of Jack the Ripper. Each character will be examined according to a set pattern: the discussion of the source text followed by the discussion of a few modern versions – adaptations, appropriations, pastiches and Neo-Victorian retellings – supplemented by selected secondary sources.

The analysis of cultural contexts of the source texts allows for the multidisciplinary approach, combining the elements of culture, literature, film, and history studies.

PRIMARY SOURCES:

19th-c.

Doyle, Arthur Conan. The Final Problem. 1893.

Stevenson, Robert Louis. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. 1886.

Transcripts of official documents and press reports of the Ripper case [1888], http://www.casebook.org.

21st-c.

Elementary. Selected episodes from series 1 & 2. CBS. 2012-14.

From Hell. Dir. Albert and Allan Hughes. 20th Century Fox, 2001.

Gaiman, Neil. “A Study in Emerald”. http://www.neilgaiman.com/mediafiles/exclusive/shortstories/emerald.pdf

Haddon, Cole, M.S. Corley. The Strange Case of Mr Hyde. Dark Horse Comics, 2011.

Jekyll. BBC, 2006.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Dir. Stephen Norrington. 20th Century Fox. 2003.

Moore, Alan, Eddie Campbell. From Hell. Knockabout Limited, 2000.

Moore, Alan, Kevin O’Neill. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. vol. I and II. Titan Books, 1999, 2003.

Sherlock. Selected fragments from series 1-3. BBC, 2010-14.

Sherlock Holmes. & Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. Dir. Guy Ritchie. Silver Pictures, 2009, 2011.

Ripper Street. Selected fragments from series 1 & 2. BBC, 2012-13.

Whitechapel. series 1. ITV, 2009.

SECONDARY SOURCES

(in the case of the books, the most relevant chapters will be made available to students):

Gray, Drew D. London’s Shadows. The Dark Side of the Victorian City. Continuum International Publishing Group, 2010.

Hadley, Louisa. Neo-Victorian Fiction and Historical Narrative. The Victorians and Us. Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.

Heilmann, Ann, Mark Llewellyn. Neo-Victorianism. The Victorians in the Twenty-First Century, 1999-2009. Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.

Jones, Richard. Jack the Ripper. The Casebook. Andre Deutsch, 2008.

Kohlke, Marie-Luise, Christian Gutleben (ed.). Neo-Victorian Gothic. Horror, Violence and Degeneration in the Re-Imagined Nineteenth Century. Rodopi, 2012.

Maunder, Andrew, Grace Moore. Victorian Crime, Madness and Sensation. Ashgate, 2004.

Moore, Alan, Eddie Campbell. The ‘From Hell’ Companion. Knockabout Ltd., 2013.

Lepine, Anna. “Hyde and Seek in an Age of Surveillance: Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and the BBC’s Jekyll”. Neo-Victorian Studies 1:2 (Winter 2008/2009), pp. 78-102.

Pietrzak-Franger, Monika. “Envisioning the Ripper’s Visions: Adapting Myth in Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell’s From Hell”. Neo-Victorian Studies 2:2 (Winter 2009/2010), pp. 157-185.

Poore, Benjamin. "The Villain-Effect: Distance and Ubiquity in Neo-Victorian Popular Culture." Neo-Victorian Villains: Adaptations and Transformations in Popular Culture, ed. Benjamib Poore. Brill, 2017, pp. 1-48.

Powers, Heather. "The Evolution of James Moriarty. How Villains Mirror Cultural Anxieties." Who Is Sherlock?: Essays on Identity in Modern Holmes Adaptations, ed. Lynnette Porter. Macfarland pp. 111-121.

Rutherford, Lara. “Victorian Genres at Play: Juvenile Fiction and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen”. Neo-Victorian Studies 5:1 (2012), pp. 125-151.

Stein, Louisa Ellen, Kristina Busse (ed.). ‘Sherlock’ and Transmedia Fandom. Essays on the BBC Series. McFarland & Company, Inc., 2012.

Warwick, Alexandra, Martin Willis (ed.). Jack the Ripper. Media, Culture, History. Manchester University Press, 2007.

Knowledge

Students will be able to:

- understand key terminology, well established methods and theories of neo-Victorian studies (K_W02)

- describe methodology and recent developments in adaptation studies (K_W03)

- list the characteristics of English grammar, syntax, phonology, phonetics, morphology and pragmatics on an advanced level (K_W05)

- explain principles of designing adaptation studies, with special focus on selecting appropriate methods and tools in formulating research questions (K_W07)

Abilities

Students will be able to:

- employ the terminology and methodological tools from culture studies (K_U01)

- employ the methodology of culture studies within English studies, respecting the ethical norms and copyright law (K_U02)

- implement knowledge to describe a problem and identify means to solve it, thereby completing a project in analysing a character (K_U04)

- design one’s own development (K_U11)

Social competences

Students will be ready to:

- undertake life-long learning and personal development, applying skills and competences to select subjects and projects within the course (K_K02)

- value responsibility for one’s own work and respect the work of others, adhering to the professional and ethical norms in various projects and other activities undertaken during the course (K_K03)

Education at language level B2+.

Egzamin ustny; attendance, preparation for the classes, participation in discussions, presentation.

Three absences are allowed.

Retake exam has the same format as the exam.